Further items I have knocked off my summer reading list…
DRESS YOUR FAMILY IN CORDUROY AND DENIM
Written by David Sedaris
David Sedaris never ceases to amuse me with his witticisms, observations, and outlandishly-told adventures of growing up in his unique world, surrounded by his unique family. However, this particular book completely threw me for a loop.
This is, without a doubt, the darkest & most disturbing collection of stories that Sedaris has written. There is a blackness of humour that sets it quite apart from Sedaris’ other books, and he seems to be working through many unresolved issues with his family.
The breadth of experience in his previous collections is replaced by more insular examinations of his parents, his siblings, and his partner…more concerned with plumbing the depths of what could almost be described as cruelty. He is savage in the descriptions, bordering on an all-encompassing, damning white trash picture of his youthful universe. Frankly, it left me open-mouthed in astonishment on more than one occasion. On other occasions, I began to wonder if I was simply reading a wry transcript of his therapy notes!
Still witty, still exceptionally biting…but this time, armed with a savage-yet-peculiar set of teeth that would make a great white shark think twice before approaching unannounced.
Written by Colm Toibin
A novel I always meant to get around to reading, and thanks to a newly opened book store, I was able to obtain a copy at last. It is a story covering the late-middle age of the 19th century American writer Henry James, with ingeniously constructed flashbacks to his upbringing…but that simple summary does it a massive disservice.
Without a doubt, this is one of the most exquisite novels I have ever read. As if taking inspiration from the intricate dexterity of his subject matter, Toibin has crafted a narrative with such deft, gentle, and subtle skill that it is as close as I have ever come to being unable to distinguish poetry from prose. Reading The Master is like sipping warm tea on the veranda, with the sun setting on a golden summer evening. It grips the attention of the reader with such effortlessness, you’d imagine it was delivered in the beak of a white dove.
And yet, this gentleness manages to hammer home an assortment of intense situations and powerful emotions: unmentionable loneliness, unrequited love, confused sexuality, unresolved cowardice, deep-seeded guilt…and the American Civil War, told from a p.o.v. I never thought could be successfully transmitted from such an isolated, suburban home front. No human experience in the novel is ever short-changed, culminating in a final series of chapters that delivers such unexpected contentment that my breath actually caught in my throat.
As sparkling as a precious jewel, and as evocative as a Shakespearean sonnet, The Master is one of the finest pieces of literature I have ever had the privilege of reading.
