I’ve been listening to David Sedaris’ new book, Theft by Finding, a collection of journal entries beginning in the late 70s. We are roughly contemporaries, and Sedaris’ early adulthood resonated with me for its itinerancy, lack of direction, experience living in urban locales, and variety of odd jobs. It differed insofar as Sedaris, butterfly-like, emerged from his cocoon of indecision and chose a direction, polishing his writing early on. We are of course, different in many other ways as well. Sedaris came out as gay, was a heavy drug user (or claimed to be), and was, and is, of course, extremely funny. I am only occasionally funny.
Sedaris is a model of how one can write about literally anything and make it entertaining. He talked early on about his choice of subject matter, saying he would resort to the weather if no other topics presented themselves, but his writing is amazingly fecund, and it didn’t seem that he ever lacked for subject matter, and certainly never had to resort to meteorological events as a last resort. While all of Sedaris’ writing posits him as primarily an observer in the world, it is not rich in introspection; the majority of the writing, then as now, involves Sedaris’ reactions to other people, a cast of characters with some permanent players: i.e., his mother and father, sisters Lisa, Tiffany, Amy, brother Paul, and, later, his boyfriend Hugh; and the constantly shifting array of new faces that pop up for short-term guest appearances. I often wondered whether people actually said the things that Sedaris quoted them as saying; so many of the quotes seemed impossibly droll, or maybe it was Sedaris’ delivery (at the forefront on audiobook) that made them seem so.
Given the mundaneness of so many of Sedaris’ topics, I wondered why they were so humorous. I arrived at the following reasons:
- Concision – Sedaris’ writing is incredibly economical, and all of it goes toward the main idea.
- Creation of a unique world – Reading the writer’s world, one is sucked into a world view that informs all aspects of the writing. But it is not the predictable world of the middle-aged gay man. While the preoccupations are not uncharacteristic of such a person, in their details they are uniquely Sedarian.
- Lack of hyperbole – While the writing can be screamingly funny, nothing about it cries for attention. In fact, Sedaris seems to work hard at tamping down the antic, instead aiming for an understated effect, that amuses through surprise.
- Observation – Sedaris’ gift for observation is second to none. Having apparently spent large swaths of his life alone, or at least in some sense aloof from close contact with others, Sedaris has perfected the role of observer, capturing every tic and accent of his players, and recording them in his notebooks.
- Freedom from need – Sedaris writes from a position of almost complete emotional autonomy. This perfectly complements his observational skills, which are generally only used in the service of accuracy, not as vehicles for longing. The subject qua subject is the thing, not the ways in which it benefits or moves him. If the latter does occur, there is yet another layer of ironic distancing involved.