Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Naked by David Sedaris ::
by William the Bloody
Here is another installment in the compilation of memoirs/essays recounting events in the life of our author, David Sedaris. This book is a collection of 17 essays which range in topic from growing up with OCD, his period of hitchhiking all around the country (and why he stopped), working as a woodwork refinisher, to that one X-mas his sister Lisa brought home her friend Dinah the whore. Sedaris retells these events with detail, withholding nothing for both our amusement and judgment.
The Good: I'm a big fan of Sedaris's storytelling style, and this is no exception. The way he tells us what he was visualizing when certain people tell him odd things or make weird comparisons or how he'll single out on particular detail of what someone said is hilarious. This book is aptly titled as Naked, not only because it is the name of one of the chapters, but also because in this book the stories are longer and I found to be more in depth and personal. Admitting all the things he felt compelled to lick due to his OCD, his increasing feelings of being put out and used by his friend with degenerative bone disease, and the last time his family came together as a whole at his sister's wedding before their mother died of cancer are all relayed to us honestly and with the hint of regret that comes with hindsight. I really like how this book when grouped with the others I have read start to add to an already started picture. Like in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim Sedaris has a chapter about visiting his mother's wealthy aunt and how she eventually left a large sum of money to Sedaris's mother. Well, in Naked his mother uses this money as a bargaining chip when her life not only with six children but now her mother-in-law begins to take its toll on her nerves. It all comes together.
The Bad: If you're expecting this book to be out and out hilarity, you're in for a rude awakening. This book is so brutally honest, that it does not pull any punches or gloss over the tragedy. Yes, every chapter is funny, but most of them have a hint of sadness in it, too, which you may not have been expecting. Also, the chapters are quite long in general averaging 20 pages. My previous Sedaris experiences had gotten me used to close to a maximum of 10 pages each which made the book fly by, but these 20 to 30 pagers sometimes feel like they lumber on and look as though they could have easily been broken up.
Overall, not a bad read. Nearly every chapter made me laugh, but just as many made me want to cry as well. This book is so open and honest that there's no other way to put it other than it feels like real life. It's not some extravagant millionaire or actor telling you about how they built and empire or landed their first audition, rather it's about a regular person like you and I, living out his regular life.
A-
