Review of 'Naked', by David Sedaris

Critically acclaimed US humourist and writer, David Sedaris first came to this reviewer's attention via a friend. A google search followed, leading almost immediately to a thorough reading of the entire back-catalogue of the author's New Yorker pieces (or at least all of those available online).

Naked is a collection of short stories and anecdotes from Sedaris' life, ranging from his early childhood obsessive compulsive behaviour to his bizarre encounters whilst hitchhiking across the US. As everything (as far as the reviewer is aware) Sedaris has ever published is written in the first-person, it seems only fitting to continue this review as such.

I more or less inhaled this book in under 24 hours, not literally. Content-wise, Sedaris posesses a deft touch for accessible, self-effacing humour that does not make one draw any comparisons to a book written by Wil Anderson (I am presently unable to remember the name of Wil Anderson's book, but I'm pretty sure the entire thing is written in size 24 Comic Sans). My only major disappointments with Naked:

1. Although it is thoroughly enjoyable to read Sedaris' work, I have always subscribed to the belief that writing exclusively in first-person narrated anecdotes was not a good idea. This has troubled me for some time, my sense of guilt forcing me to write four chapters of a fiction novel before realising that I had actually just typed out Peter Carey's Bliss word for word, all just substituting protagonist Harry Joy's name for "James" (a different James, it's fiction). I now feel that my pain was futile. I also hate Peter Fitzsimons (irrelevant).

2.
Idea: Why don't I just write short stories about my life for the New Yorker?
Reason that this is a bad idea: You are not clever enough to understand the comics that would appear on the pages next to your work, you never hitch-hiked, you are not gay, you don't live in New York.

The end result of the disappointment this excellent book caused me, was that I stayed awake in bed on Friday until 3:30am (approx) trying to think of something else to write about. My main idea revolved around a fictional character called "James" stumbling across a time machine and travelling back to (of all places!) the aggressive 1980s corporate environment. The idea being that "James" would constantly get into arguments with cocky, coked up advertising executives wearing enormous suits. "James" would always eventually cut the men down to size with a quip about having to print documents onto computer paper before having their secretary "peel the perforated edges off, if you know what I mean!"

Overall, Naked by David Sedaris gets 4 stars.