David

Kevin Kopelson

Sedaris calls himself an asshole--not to mention scumbag, shithead, and son of a bitch. Or various characters do. A sister calls the future essayist an asshole at summer camp (“I Like Guys,” Naked, 88). Then a student does (“The Learning Curve,” Me Talk Pretty One Day, 88). Then a neighbor does (“The Girl Next Door,” Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, 116). Not that Sedaris is the only satirist to deprecate himself. The British poets John Donne (1572-1631) and Alexander Pope (1688-1744), for example, acknowledge their own failings along with those of primary targets. (Donne: “We doe but reprehend those things, which we ourselves have done” [7:408].) Sedaris, however, is primarily autobiographical--not to mention hilarious, brutally honest, and painfully sad. By reviewing roles he’s played in life as well as roles others have played with him, he reveals in alarming detail how he managed to become an asshole. Clearly though, and this has a lot to do with why most of us like Sedaris, he’s trying to do something about that development--compensation made possible by the fact that some of those roles have shaped his work as an artist.

By calling Sedaris a satirist, I mean to endorse Samuel Johnson’s distinction: the writer who “censures” either folly or vice (219). Such writing, of course, is moralistic. The censure, in effect, says “Shame on you”--much as self-deprecation, or confession, says “Shame on me.” Satire, moreover, represents not so much a genre as a literary mode. Comedy, for example, may contain satire. Think of Seinfeld (1989-1998), with Jerry, Elaine, and George as comic--or relatively three-dimensional--but Kramer or Newman as satiric (two-dimensional). So can tragedy. Think of Hamlet, with Polonius as satiric.

By calling Sedaris a satirist, I also mean to endorse another distinction: the sanguine satirist as opposed to the cynical one. The sanguine satirist likes people. “He tells the truth with a smile, so that he will not repel but cure them of that ignorance which is their worst fault. Such is Horace [Roman poet, 65-8 B.C.].” Such, for that matter, is Sedaris. The cynical satirist dislikes people. “His aim therefore is not to cure, but to wound, to punish, to destroy. Such is Juvenal [Roman poet, 60-131 A.D.].” (Highet 235) Such, once again, is Sedaris--at least insofar as he targets himself. Asshole, after all, expresses not amusement but contempt.

My own target--or goal--is to articulate why many of us not so much like as love Sedaris. Love him, no doubt, far more than we do less autobiographical--indeed, less confessional--writers. (The reason Sedaris does something about having become an asshole is of course that he’s ashamed. Nowadays, though, he’s been writing “animal stories.” Fables, that is, morality tales like those of Aesop or maybe Jean de la Fontaine. Or so he told me over coffee in Des Moines.) To articulate that, I have to explain who Sedaris is being--and what he’s doing--with readers. And the best way for me to do that isn’t to say who I or even other critics think he’s “really” been or what we think he’s done in earlier, less imaginary relationships. It’s to say who or what Sedaris himself thinks he has. So--relying in large part on the nonfiction of Barrel Fever (1994), Naked (1997), Holidays on Ice (1997), Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004)--I’ll schematize, in more or less chronological order, those roles I mentioned: grandparent, parent, sibling, etc. The most important ones, not surprisingly, will turn out to have been either parental or instructional. I’ll use both extensive quotation and paraphrase--something, I confess, my own students aren’t allowed. I’ll compare that nonfiction, comprising the bulk of those collections, to fiction therein. (Even otherwise shameless writers need masks--literary alter egos--to reveal certain truths. They need, at times, to lie.) And I’ll compare Sedaris to Marcel Proust (French novelist, 1871-1922). (Another comparison might be to Lytton Strachey [British biographer, 1880-1932].) Like Sedaris, Proust was gay, mother-minded, satirical, autobiographical, a bit of a slacker, hilarious, and sad. (Proust as alter ego.) Unlike Sedaris, however, Proust was verbose. Whereas “I Like Guys,” for example, is under fourteen pages, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-27), in English translation, is over four thousand. (Not alter ego but evil twin.) Proust, moreover, was dishonest. His narrator, also named “Marcel,” isn’t gay. Proust was Parisian too--something Sedaris, despite having moved there and tried to learn the language, will never be.

If Sedaris is gay, however, Sedaris the book is not. It’s not, that is, the kind of “queer”--or deconstructive--interpretation my first ones represent. (Love’s Litany [1994] concerned “the writing of modern homoerotics”--from Oscar Wilde to Roland Barthes [French critic, 1915-1980]. Beethoven’s Kiss [1996] concerned “pianism, perversion, and the mastery of desire”--from Liszt to Liberace. The Queer Afterlife of Vaslav Nijinsky [1997]--well, the title speaks for itself.) It’s humanist, rather, much like my last book. (Neatness Counts [2004] concerns the poetics of workspace, or what Barthes called protocols of literary creation.) Why humanist? Partly because no deconstructor really believes in “text” alone, or in what Barthes called “the death of the author.” But mainly because, as with Sedaris and his mother, I’ve been mourning the death of my father. And unlike all those books, this one--this essay, rather--is meant for the general or nonacademic reader, in general, the Sedaris reader in particular. In other words, it’s for someone Sedaris might call a snob. Or if not Sedaris, then his mother. Why? Partly because I’ve been dealing with a rather different, rather difficult mother. (Sharon’s alter ego.) But mainly because of a role I myself now play--in life. One, moreover, that shapes my own work. For not only have I been teaching queer theory, critical theory, and cultural studies--mostly to undergraduates. And not only have I been teaching both satire and confession. I’ve also been helping my partner David raise sons Adam (now twenty), Seth (nineteen), and Sam (sixteen). In other words, I, too, have become a father. Or mother perhaps, though Sam--a Sedaris dedicatee, as well as its primary, non-imaginary addressee--calls me an elf.

Like all those books, however, Sedaris is both autobiographical and “performative.” It’s autobiographical in that I’m now dealing with my mother in print, if only indirectly. It’s performative in that I both address and situate the general reader, much as Sedaris does. I situate you, that is, as someone in need of nurture or instruction. It’s performative in that by coming out as a fan--in “[Your Name Here]”--I suggest that I, too, have been if not instructed then nurtured by Sedaris. It’s performative, moreover, in that you may compare Sedaris prose with that of either Proust or Kopelson, noticing in particular that I refuse to compete. Why? Partly because, as a writer, as a teacher, and even as the youngest of five (four boys, one girl), it’s time for me to stop showing off. It’s time, that is, to renounce a certain style--a certain selfish virtuosity. But mainly because I couldn’t possibly beat him. In fact, I couldn’t even tie.

Of course, let’s be honest. Any such performativity should speak for itself. I really shouldn’t have to articulate those protocols of reading. It’s just that if I don’t, lazy academics--and shame on them--might dismiss Sedaris as, well, little more than a book report. But enough of my own deprecation, both self-directed (sanguine) and otherwise (cynical). For it’s time, now, to address the question: Why do we love Sedaris? And why, for that matter, does he seem to love us back?