Barrel Fever: xerox and xanax
David Sedaris has a dry and undisguised sense of humour. I grinned like an idiot a couple of times listening to the audiobook, walking across campus. But if you don’t like his sense of humour, you just won’t get it. It’s hard to explain. Imho, the stuff he writes isn’t side-splittingly hilarious. The humour is prickly, exposing a taboo and stripping it nude if that makes sense. Parts of it aren’t “funny”, just jaw-dropping and shocking. Subjects of humour revolve around poop, cadavers, oral sex, suicide, homophobia. ha!
The little stories is what I’d imagine would come out of Arthur Fleck’s mouth in “The Joker” if he was on stage as a stand-up comedian. Parts of it are pretty dark and disturbingly funny, telling stories of people who really don’t have anything in life but fantasize about making big breaks and catching dollops of fame and success. Each little story is ridiculously absurd but also just dramatized everyday life. “Glen’s homophobia newsletter vol. 3, no. 2” is so sarcastic that you have to be reading the opposite sense of literally every word. Chandler Bing would have shelved this book somewhere in his apartment.
David Sedaris seems like a pleasant person though (just crabbily honest and honestly crabby). After reading Barrel Fever, realistically I won’t remember much of it except for a few disturbing anecdotes. I also learned that xerox is not the same as xanax (what? i know) and how the sense of humour on the east and west coasts differs from humour in the central U.S., in how dark it is and how much the audience can accept poking fun at sensitive topics. Black comedy can make some people queasy, squirming outta their seats, while other people find it cathartic, as you would. Reader discretion is advised.
