There could not exist a more perfect book to read while on vacation. Funny and light, hard to put down, full of witty little passages that I enjoyed reading aloud to Shane. I have fond memories of the day I spent camped out on the beach with David Sedaris in one hand and a margarita in the other. Seriously, though, this is funny stuff. From the tales his rural upbringing in North Carolina to his days spent theater-hopping in Paris, he is able to infuse his life experiences with a humor that is one part sarcasm, one part cynicism, and two parts total light-heartedness. I especially loved the stories that dealt with his struggle to learn the French language and could relate to several of his experiences. This passage is classic:
“There are, I have noticed, two basic types of French spoken by Americans vacationing in Paris; the Hard Kind and the Easy Kind. The Hard Kind involves the conjugation of wily verbs and the science of placing them alongside various other words in order to form such sentences as “I go him say good afternoon” and “No, not to him I no go it him say now.” The second, less complicated form of French amounts to screaming English at the top of your lungs, much the same way you’d shout at a deaf person or the dog you thought you could train to say off the sofa.”
I’m looking forward to picking up more of his stuff – the true test will come when I find out whether he is just as funny on a rainy day in Seattle as he is on a sunny beach in Mexico…Â I’ll let you know.