Naked Lawnbowling

Well, that title ought to mess up my google results.

I was really looking forward to reading Naked by David Sedaris. I was hyped, which is never really a good thing - few books can stand up to that sort of expectation. This one did. It was truly funny and the profanity exceeds the level of art that I thought possible in the written word. I could never in my adult life fill in the streams of blanks in bleeped out conversations. Now (thanks to Sedaris) I have a whole new range of vocabulary. Not that I would use it, but I feel more like a woman of the world for having expanded my range.

The 17 essays which make up this book range in their emotional impact and succeed most brilliantly when the author is the most uncomfortable. There is wisdom here, but it makes way for what is essentially a snapshot of one person's life who just happens to attract the most bizarre of circumstances. Some folks are a magnet for that sort of thing. Enough said.

While I enjoyed the humour in this book it was not without a certain forced quality. Self-depreciating as it is, the book nevertheless maintains a distinctly American feel. The jokes here are carefully crafted and delivered, done well but with a sense of manufacture that makes the prose perspective just a little off-key. Though, if this is the only humorous thing that you read other than the cartoons in the New Yorker you will be fine.