britty books

A virtual Quonset hut. Photo: Benjaminenvans82/Wiki

I’ve never lived in a hut, but I built one of sorts.  Not in my childhood in Africa, but in my adulthood in Africa.  And compared to the actual huts in the village of Ngodsi, Malawi, this hut made of pre-formed bricks was a virtual mansion.  All-in-all, it was about the size of the one in this photo.  Oh, and it had a roof of tin as well.

I lived in the compound house.  I had my own room.  I slept on the bed and not on a pallet on the floor with my mother, father and siblings.  I took a shower in the bathroom instead of bathing in Calendar Lake, where students from UCLA were testing the water to see if it had anything to do with the onslaught of AIDS in that area.  I wore full shoes on the sand because of the parasites that could get in through a person’s soles.  I saw only a handful of Africans that owned shoes.

I considered myself privileged.  Broke and unemployed currently, I try to remind myself that I still am.

This story is not about a hut in Africa, even though Sedaris tries to steal Hugh’s childhood there in Me Talk Pretty One Day. Let’s get on with it.

Gist of the Story

Sedaris, like Sedaris does, makes friends with all sorts of people.  In “That’s Amore” in this book previously, he makes friends with the cranky Helen.  He interacts with a snotty co-passenger in “Solution to Saturday’s Puzzle,” and he attracts all the wrong sorts in “This Old House.”  It’s what he seems to do.

In this story, the man in the hut lives in a concrete structure at the end of the road in Normandy.  Sedaris lives in the middle.  So often, Sedaris passes by this man, whom he calls Jackie, and strikes up conversations with him from time to time.  Jackie, it seems, has suffered some type of head trauma and is kind of slow.  (Head trauma also seems to be a theme in this book.  See “Road Trips” for more details.).

Jackie, is put in jail for accusations of molesting his two young nieces.  The story is not about that.  It is about how he returned to the community after.  Like the other neighbours, Sedaris doesn’t really want to interact with Jackie; doesn’t really want to engage the association.  Sedaris comes to a small realization that living in a one-bedroom house with Hugh down the road has already stirred up enough ‘stuff’ for him in this community.  He doesn’t want to aggravate people’s imaginations.

However.  Sedaris, being Sedaris, is too polite to directly be rude and ignore Jackie completely.  Some chuckles ensue while Jackie shows Sedaris his X-rays and his new driver’s license.  It’s all a little uncomfortable, of course.  And rightly so.

Because I know I’ve been there before.  If only in Africa.

First Lines, Last Words

A single road runs through our village in Normandy, and, depending on which direction you come from, either the first thing or the last thing you pass is a one-story house – a virtual Quonset hut – made of concrete blocks.

And I wouldn’t have wanted him to take it the wrong way.

Quotable

After hanging out his socks, he picked up his rake and hoe and started getting the lawn in shape.

Book Rating

See the Book Ratings Chart for more details.  Short stories (like this one) will be rated together as a complete novel.

Chaffinches don't like Roberta Flack, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. At least not in this story. Photo: John Haslam/Wiki

I’ve never had too many problems with neighborhood birds.  I used to have a crow named Clumsy that often tried walking on the eaves and would fall off.  Her son was named Stupid and he would randomly fall off fences.  Lately, I have a mob-boss crow named Ruffles that rules the yard.  He and his associate, Sly, often talk and walk around the bird feeder under the pine early morning and create a racket.  I can understand why they call the group of them a murder.

Other than that, we have a regular assortment of magpies and sparrows and a family of blue jays (Mr. Blue Jangles and children) that has recently returned from their summer vacation.  The jays scream at me for peanuts between 9 and 11 a.m.  They have me well-trained.  I count in the black squirrel as part of the bird bunch.  He does a fine job of tidying up after everyone has left.  His name is Cat.

I have never heard of a chaffinch, though, but apparently Sedaris has had some issues with them.  Here’s why:

Gist of the Story

The story begins with Sedaris criticizing Hugh’s taste in disco music.  I forgive Hugh, as I know he grew up in Africa and is simply catching up.  Sedaris does something I enjoy doing, as well.  He tries to predict the rhyming word in the next line of a song.  If it’s something boring or simple, he gets miffed.  Me, too!

Anyway, the point is that this distracts him from writing.  (Could have fooled me, as this story is about writing a story.  It’s a paradox.).

The next thing that distracts him from his writing is that the neighborhood chaffinches take up an assault on his windows.  To solve the situation, he posts record album covers that are close-ups of the singer’s faces in the windows.  ALL the windows.  Funny.

Things must work out for Sedaris’ concentration as this story is complete.  The end!

First Lines, Last Words

The latest Kate Bush CD includes a song called “Aerial,” and one spring afternoon Hugh sat down to listen to it.

At around 7:00 the light settles on the western wall of our home, just catching two of the hijackers and a half-dozen singer-songwriters, who look out from the windows, some smiling, as if they are happy to see me, and others just staring into space, the way one might when listening to music, or waiting, halfheartedly, for something to happen.

Quotable

I never thought I would appreciate his music collection but the chaffinches changed all that.

Book Rating

Well, if you’ve been reading along the other David Sedaris shorts from When You Are Engulfed in Flames, you’ll know you won’t find a book rating here.  Yet.  Check this out until you do.

"You are going to die," says Hugh's sketal gift. Photo: Oszalal/Wiki

I can’t believe with all the reviews I’ve written on When You Are Engulfed in Flames, I’m only halfway finished reading this book.  Of course, that may have something to do with the puffiness of my volume due to the fact that my mother spilled a glass full of water of my cover’s smoking man. He looks a little like my friend in the photo here, although more jovial and infused with nicotine.  This fellow pictured here is much closer to the memento Sedaris bought his partner, Hugh, for Christmas.  Hence, we quickly segway into the:

Gist of the Story

Sedaris is a gift-giver.  Or a gift-shopper.  I couldn’t figure out which one he was more of.  And, being that a bought gift usually turns into a given gift, this makes all things equal.  However, I truly believe that Sedaris is more of a gift-shopper, which means he likes to buy gifts that he himself would like to keep.  And, if he is anything like me, he probably does keep more gifts for himself than he actually gives away.

That’s just a guess, though.

Sedaris professes to keep a notebook of Hugh’s slight mentions of something he would like to own, so that, on special occasions, Sedaris can surprise him by ‘remembering.’  Hugh, being the wonderful and ingenious Hugh he is, wanted a skeleton.  A difficult search for Sedaris ensues.  In the end, he comes out victorious and Hugh is presented with a life sized 100-year old wired skeleton for Christmas (just what I’ve always wanted!  A dead person!).  Hugh moves it into the bedroom where the corpse quickly sheds itself of an index finger.  Hilarity ensues.

The best part of this short tale is the last bit with Sedaris believes the skeleton is giving Sedaris insistent messages about his inevitable death.  “You are going to die,” the skeleton seems to say…and say and say.  Can Sedaris change the skeleton’s message?  Maybe, and just enough to make us laugh.

First Lines, Last Words

For the past fifteen years or so, I’ve made it a habit to carry a small notebook in my front pocket.

And I put away the vacuum cleaner, thinking, Well, that’s a start.

Quotable

It’s the things you don’t buy that stay with you the longest.

Book Rating

I’ll be tallying scores on When You Are Engulfed in Flames as a complete book.  See my book ratings chart for more info.

If I were to have a concrete toadstool in my backyard, it would look like Super Mario Bros. and have Smurfs living underneath. Photo: Andy Potter/Wiki

So I’m thinking David Sedaris threw in this story to mess with my ability to post a review about it to twitter.  Holy title, Batman!

The title is in reference to art and those people who love to collect it.  I, of course, am too poor to be one of those people but if I were, I think I may line up with Sedaris’ parents who know nothing about no one and well, nothing about art.  But they enjoy it.  That’s important.

Gist of the Story

Sedaris introduces his mother to a local art dealer.  His mother, and consequently his father, becomes fast friends with the dealer and end up purchasing loads of art.  If I knew more about art, I could tell you what they purchased.  She has something semi-abstract from an artist named Creech (maybe it’s this guy from North Carolina…?) and a Balloon Man (print?).  They have some cracked pottery and a house full of kids who enjoy putting fake genitals on them all.

The funny part, of course, is how his parents insist that these pieces are good, are valid, are going to worth a whole lot some day.  Sedaris, as always, knows better.  Hugh, lovely Hugh, always is the gentleman and goes along to get along with whatever Sedaris’ parents say.

Sedaris waxes abstract about the concrete toadstool in his family’s backyard being worth more than any of the so-called priceless art.  He imagines that it will be worth rushing through the house of bad paintings to get at.  Hence, the humongous title.  Can you do a Tweet in two parts?

First Lines, Last Words

Before it was moved out near the fairground, the North Carolina Museum of Art was located in downtown Raleigh, and often, when we were young, my sister Gretchen and I would cut out of church and spend an hour looking at the paintings.

When my father dies, I envision a mad dash through the front door, past the Hibel and the Bradlingtons, past Cracked Man and Mr. Balloon Man, and into Indian territory, where we’ll push one another down the stairs, six connoisseurs, all with gray hair, charging toward a concrete toadstool.

Quotable

“Even if I were in prison, and this was the only thing on my wall, I wouldn’t waste my time with it.”

Book Rating

I’ll be rating When You Are Engulfed in Flames as a complete book.  See my book ratings chart for more info.

If you've ever lived in an apartment, you've known a Helen. Photo: Donromano/Wiki

“That’s Amore” is another modern day sketch of the unconventional woman that is very much a fixture in everyone’s lives.  Much like Mrs. Peacock in “The Understudy” earlier in this book, Sedaris captures the essence of Helen, the craggy, old gossip that everyone seems to have in their apartment block.  I had one when I lived in a four-plex in Regina.  The man downstairs borrowed our Helen’s car and brought it back all muddy and empty of gas one time.  I am still not sure why, exactly, she ever lent it to him but…

But this is Sedaris’ story not mine.

Gist of the Story

Hugh finds a great apartment for rent by way of Helen, current apartment dweller, who tells Hugh to drag her groceries up to the fifth floor.  Just tells him.  So, he does!  I love Hugh.

Anyway, Hugh loves the place and ends up moving in with Sedaris.  It’s right across the hall from Helen.

Helen interrupts Hugh and Sedaris often and brings them food and gifts she doesn’t want to give to her neighbors.  Funny thing, this.  I’ve had people do this for me also but not to this extreme.  If you’re confused about the art of ‘not giving’ or ‘giving to others in order to defy another’, see this story.  It seems to be a well-used passive-aggressive technique used by older women (and maybe men…but I don’t think they’re that complicated).

Sedaris and Helen become best-of-friends, worst-of-enemies.  Helen is a gossip and know-it-all but also a truth-teller.  Sedaris seems most attracted to this quality.  Sometimes, as we all know though, too much truth and at the wrong times can be too much.  Sedaris fights with Helen and ends up staying away from her for a month before he is coaxed back into hearing more.

There’s a sad ending on this but very touching.  Not exactly what I expected from Sedaris the funnyman.  Read it with a tissue ready.  You may need it.

First Lines, Last Words

Beside our apartment building in New York, there was a narrow gangway, and every eveing, just after dark, rats would emerge from it and flock to the trash cans lining the curb.

The windows were steamed, Tony Bennett was on the radio, and saying, “Please,” her voice catching on the newness of the word, Helen asked me to turn it up.

Quotable

It is not unpleasant to hold someone else’s warm teeth in your hand, and before returning upstairs, I paused, studying the damp plastic horeseshoe that served as Helen’s gum.

Book Rating

I’ll be rating When You Are Engulfed in Flames as a whole.  See my book ratings and how they work.

Photo by Jonel/Wiki

I adore this quite short, second essay of Sedaris’ in his book, When You are Engulfed in Flames.  “Keeping Up” is largely about the troubles we have when in a foreign country, on vacation usually, but mainly about Hugh.  Hugh is Sedaris’ partner whom I enjoy hearing about probably more than Sedaris himself.  Of course, I have to give Sedaris the credit about making Hugh into such an adorable character in his studies…but really, I just can’t help but liking the guy.

In this essay, Sedaris is complaining that Hugh has such long legs that Sedaris spends have the vacation just ‘keeping up,’ hence the title.  Lots of laughs about playing Where’s Waldo and trying to remember what Hugh was wearing that day.  He saves the best chuckles for last as he ponders what a dingo is.  Really?  Is this a New York thing?  You didn’t know a dingo was basically a wild dog?

Of course, Sedaris bumbles along hopelessly lost and calm, cool, long-legged Hugh shows up in a nick of time to admire the un-fascinating dingos with Sedaris at the Australian Zoo.  Now that I know Sedaris’ modus operandi, I’m really enjoying this book better than Me Talk Pretty One Day.  That, and there are no stupid parrots in this one (yet).

Photo of bateria by Muntasir du/Wiki

“It’s Catching” is the first essay in David Sedaris’ book When You Are Engulfed in Flames.  Of course, his essays read more like short pieces of fiction and the reader has to suppose what really happened.  Not that it matters.  Not that it all isn’t funny.

After reading Me Talk Pretty One Day, it was comforting to slip back into Sedaris’ kooky world.  I remember him – I remember these people.  This first essay mentions Sedaris’ life partner/lover/companion/husband/spouse Hugh.  Remember Hugh from his childhood in Africa?  Hugh is back and David is once again assuming interesting details of Hugh’s life into his own.  For example, it’s not Hugh that had a Guinea worm lay eggs in his thigh.  The reader feels Sedaris experiencing the pain of watching a worm poke through his skin himself.

More fun is heaped on the pile (pile of what, do not ask), when we find out Hugh’s mother, Maw Hamrick, has also been infected with the Guinea worm at one point.  Of course, Sedaris’ friends hold that against Maw Hamrick (you can’t make these names up, folks!) and hold her at arm’s length.  Unclean?

Fast-forward to Maw Hamrick being a good houseguest and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning for Sedaris.  Lazy Sedaris takes full advantage of her generosity, of course.  More laughter ensues.  Great start off to this book.  Really reels one in…then makes one want to wash one’s hands (and thighs).