I love Sedaris but have been a bit “meh” about his work the last few years. I got “Calypso” hot off the Kindle press and read it last night. Has anyone else read it and want to discuss?
I’ve been a fan of his for years, but after listening to the interview on Fresh Air the other day I wonder if he has anything interesting left to say.
His earlier work was all about telling well-observed (and maybe slightly exaggerated) stories about his crazy childhood and family, and his young adult life doing struggling to find his way as an artist and a gay man and doing a lot of drugs, and becoming successful and traveling the world and living in France and England, etc…while he’s rich and famous now it sounds like his life is kind of sad - spending 8+ hours a day obsessively picking up garbage from the roads around his house doesn’t make room for a lot of new interesting experiences to write about.
He gave the commencement address last weekend at my son’s graduation (Oberlin). Pretty disappointing. Best line was advising the graduates to pick one thing to be horribly offended about, a big reduction from the several hundred they each currently possess.
Are you me? This is exactly what I’ve been mulling over all day!
Sadly, I don’t find his recent work funny; he’s a very good writer, but it was the amazing humor that kept me enthralled for years. As you said, poverty, drugs, crazy family, and sexual exploration made for richer material and he’s kind of run out of compelling material. I’m not very interested in a 60yo guy who larks off to Tokyo to buy $500 Commes des Garcon pants; he’s kind of become the very type of person the younger Sedaris would have masterfully skewered.
The book has an awful lot about money, their homes in England, France, and the U.S., and their tasteful (expensive) decor. AND there were at least three essays I had already read elsewhere.
I was put off by similar elements in Joan Didion’s “Year of Magical Thinking.” It’s masterful and heartbreaking, but I was distracted by a lot of “Our Paris apartment stifled my soul, so on I went to our chalet in the Rhone Valley. But our vineyard reminded me of John, so next I sought refuge in our 12th century cottage in Monaco and attended Prince Rainer’s summer ball . . .”
Of course filthy rich people grieve like everyone else (and wow, was it ever a tragic year for her), but I had some uncharitable thoughts about the filthy rich travelogue elements. Gee, wish I could have escaped to my European homes when my brother died, but I have just the one house and have to be back at work in five days. A beautifully-written book about horrible loss, I just could have done with fewer Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous/Eat Pray Love elements.
I’ll read it, as an old fan, but I’ve also noticed that he hasn’t been funny for a while. Is it a temporary side effect of his evolution as a sober person?
I think he’s been sober for quite a while(?)
I think with all that fame, money and adulation it goes to your head, and for some people they get caught up in what all of that success can buy you. When he writes about his houses in France, or the UK, or the US he doesn’t realize how that looks to the rest of us poor slobs who have to work a regular job. His editor might have suggested he tone that part down, but then what else does he have to write about? Poor struggling writers with problems and a cutting sense of humor write wonderful books. Rich guys with nothing much to say just write to fulfill their contractual commitments. Check!
He did have a nice essay in The New Yorker a while ago about the suicide of his sister. While funny in spots, the overall tone was more of poignancy.
Even in his commencement address, to many young adults looking at large amounts of college debt, he found it necessary to mention - twice - that he recently bought a Picasso.
Which is in the book along with two other previously published essays – I hate when authors/pubs do this without a note on the cover/description.
I agree this essay was poignant. In the book he writes more about this sister, she had a rough life.