Friday, January 25, 2013
David Sedaris's "Me Talk Pretty One Day"
I have to admit when I saw David Sedaris's name in the table of contents, I was pretty excited. Holidays on Ice remains my favorite collections of essays, even better that Rudolph Bourne's Radical Will. Anyways, now that I'm done being pretentious, "Me Talk Pretty One Day," (181) is really good. It centers around a French class Sedaris took while living in France, and how horrifying the teacher was. She is constantly either insulting, belittling, or physically hurting her students, and has created such a hostile environment that Sedaris finds himself too self-conscious to even speak in public. It is a really funny story of the struggles of learning a different language in extraordinary circumstances with Sedaris's trademark wit. One device which really struck me was his use of gibberish to simulate not understanding another language. It kept the flow well, is used very effectively, and added a certain uniqueness to the essay.
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This sounds like an interesting essay; I like to read essays that attack their topic in unique ways, and from your description it sounds like Sedaris does just that. Nice commentary.
ReplyDeleteI love David Sedaris; I actually have a copy of Holidays on Ice that my cousin got him to autograph for me (alas, I wasn't there myself to meet him in person).
ReplyDeleteIt's been a while since I read Me Talk Pretty One Day, but I remember it being an excellent book and I agree with everything you've said here.
Randolph Bourne, right? I can't seem to find anything about that book. Summarize for me.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, instead of writing something abstract about "flow" and "uniqueness" why not quote some of the gibberish and discuss the effect, comic or otherwise.
Good stuff.
DW
I wonder why some teachers/professors don't understand that brash, rude attitudes will not encourage a learning environment. If I don't feel comfortable in a situation, I'm less likely to succeed at whatever I'm doing there. I bet this piece is really relatable, for me especially, because my knowledge of language is very limited. Do not let the five years of HS French I took fool anyone, haha. My roommate tries to speak Spanish to me sometimes because she is fluent, and it is her major. It sounds like gibberish to me.
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