LET'S EXPLORE DIABETES WITH OWLS by David Sedaris

LET'S EXPLORE DIABETES WITH OWLS by David Sedaris

This guy is big in the US, really big. The Amazon reviews for this book alone total over 1000, all four or five star. He seems to almost have a cult following. I had never heard of him, so after doing a bit of googling, I have found out that he is a Grammy award nominated humorist, comedian, author and radio contributor. In the past twenty years he has published eight books, five of which have been New York Times Bestsellers. According to Wikipedia much of Sedaris's humor is autobiographical, self deprecating, and often concerns his family life, his middle class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina,  his Greek heritage, jobs, education, drug use, obsessive beheviours, and his life in France, London and West Sussex with his partner Hugh. And so it is in this book.

And yes, he is a very funny writer, a wicked turn of phrase and blessed with the ability unique to successful comedians to make the mundane things of our every day life very, very funny. For example, now that he has reached a certain age, his father has been pestering him to have a colonoscopy. Which he finally does and documents for the ignorant reader's benefit in minute detail. The delight he takes in telling his father the results is worth reading the whole book for - it is the last 'essay' in the book. A visit to Australia prompts memories of childhood singing that Australian classic 'Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree'; the joys of travelling in a country where English is not the language of the majority; his visit to a London taxidermist to source a stuffed owl for a present.

The strange thing for me about this book however, is that not really any of it has remained with me since I finishing it. I can see why he has been so successful, and as I haven't read any of his earlier writings, I may not be the most qualified reviewer. But if anything his writings are a little self indulgent and I found myself vaguely annoyed by him. Smug is the word that comes to mind. Perhaps this is what happens to successful writers in middle age. He may well become the 'grumpy old man'  the type of writer in the future.