When You are Englufed in Flames

When You are Engulfed in Flames

By David Sedaris

Here's the thing about David Sedaris...he's like getting drunk or having sex, there is no time like the first time. Project your own positivity or negativity on that statement, it doesn't change the fact that they are completely like changing, unique experiences for a most of us. So while the initial excitement of discovery might not linger past his first book, that is where David Sedaris echoes eating at your favourite restaurant, or, well...having sex. Even though you know how its going to go, and even how its going to end, you are still soooooo glad to be doing it.

Such was my experience with When You are Englufed by Flames, Sedaris' latest collection of essays. Yes it's familiar, yes it's the same characters. Yes, some of the jokes he's told before. But guess what? I don't care. He's still doing it better than almost anyone else...and he's a wise man to keep doing the same thing over and over again...why mess with perfection?

Collections are a little harder for me to reflect on, but I will hit some of the highlights here. In "Keeping Up" Sedaris brilliantly outlines the perameters, demise, and ressurection of his relationship in the span of an afternoon...all within his mind of course.

One of the things that I appreciate most about Sedaris is his ability to write himself and his siblings as children with zero sentimentality. "The Understudy" is a particularly hilarious example of that.

And, as always, he manages to paint himself as the absolute quirkiest of characters, not to be believed in his willingness to risk isolation and ridicule in his commitment to self expression and search for identity. (Interesting of course that he is willing to ostracize himself for normal society for the sake of self expression, when his self loathing is just as powerful a force.)

I think what compelled me most about this book was the sudden realization that Sedaris is more than just a queen being fabulous, he's actually an alcoholic and drug addict in a life long struggle. It began to dawn on me about half way through the book that, while he always mentions his constant drinking and pot smoking, it seems in the book he refers more to being drunk, being high, and that it is more a way of life than a required behaviour of the hilarious and chic. And then of course there is the last story in the collection, one of his longest I have ever read, "The Smoking Section" in which he outlines the process of quitting the various substances to which he's been addicted. Its Sedaris at his best...funny, relevant, and as sharp as it gets with an underlying poignancy you don't even recognize until he lets you in on the secret. Great stuff.

Up Next: The Rabbi's Cat by Joann Sfar