Sedaris pokes fun at the dark side of life in 'Flames'

There are few authors who can make readers laugh out loud, and David Sedaris does just that.
The dark humor in his most recent book, When you are Engulfed in Flames, is an entertaining and thoughtful read that anyone with a sense of humor will enjoy.
It’s a compilation of Sedaris’ creative non-fiction essays that have appeared in the New Yorker and on the NPR show This American Life. The book also includes some previously unpublished work.
In Flames, Sedaris recalls moments from his childhood when he realized his interest in dead things. He used to dig up graves of old pets, just for fun. But that interest troubles him later on in life when his partner asks him to buy a full-sized skeleton for a birthday gift.
Sedaris recalls being haunted by this skeleton and its blatant promise of mortality.
“I’d be sitting in my office, gossiping on the telephone, and the skeleton would cut in, sounding like an international operator, ‘You are going to die,’” he wrote in Flames.
Sedaris has an eye for detail and the human condition that might escape most people, which allows him to find humor in the gross and strange.
The most entertaining part of this book was his essay titled “The Smoking Section.” For anyone who has tried to quit smoking, Sedaris can bring some humor to an otherwise difficult and painful process. He takes quitting very seriously, so seriously that he flees to Tokyo for two months as a distraction to break up his smoking routine.
He enrolls in a Japanese language course, but learning languages is not Sedaris’ strong suit.
“It’s not just that I’m the worst student in the class, it’s that I’m clearly the worst student in the class, miles behind that former dope, Sang Lee,” Sedaris writes. “What makes it that much harder to bear is the teacher’s kindness, which has come to feel like pity. ‘You can keep your book open,’ Miki-sensei told me, but even that didn’t help.”
What was most enjoyable about “The Smoking Section” was Sedaris’ subtle noting of cultural and linguistic differences between American, Japanese and European people.
While in Tokyo, he would find small mistakes on English signs.
“A sign outside a beauty parlor reads ‘Eye Rash Tint,’ and instead of laughing, I should give them credit for at least coming close,” he wrote.
Flames uses much of the same self-deprecating style seen in Sedaris’ other books, such as Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked. Though it’s largely lovable, some readers might find the style repetitive.
But in his latest work, Sedaris does something a bit new by reminiscing less about his childhood than he does in his other works. Flames focuses more on his middle-aged life in Normandy, his nutty neighbor in New York, his parents’ attempt at being art collectors and some random things he picked up along the way, including a pair of nylon underpants that come with a luscious fake bum attached to the back.
Sedaris has a shamelessness that should be admired, and even if he might exaggerate details, it’s great to be entertained by a man who puts his worst gaffes out there for the world to read.