Sedaris Blog

 Already this semester, aside from questions inspired by the overt themes of race, gender, and sexuality, the title of this course and the texts we have read thus far have inclined me to consider the following question: what is humor? More specifically, what does it mean for something to “be funny” or for someone to find something humorous? The term “funny” here is used insofar as it signifies that attribute which defines something as humor or comedy. This is all to say that we can only identify something as humor if it is funny, similarly to how we can only identify a food as appetizing if we find it tasty. That being said, I did not find David Sedaris funny. Even though I had the occasional chuckle or “hard breath through the nose,” on the whole it is unlikely I would choose to read Sedaris for the purposes of comedic entertainment. Further, where I found Samantha Irby’s brutal honesty to be charming and at times relatable, Sedaris’s honesty reveals some flawed aspects of his character that are more concerning than superficial hygiene issues and on which he does not seem to attempt much self-reflection. For example, in the essay “An Incomplete Quad” what begins as a heartwarming tale about his friendship with a quadriplegic girl develops into a troubling confrontation with his parents over independence and control, in which his friend Peg is not a person but merely an object. “Peg was my charge, my toy, and I was the only one who knew how to turn her off and on.” (Sedaris 38). The story ends with Sedaris’ slow and painful abandonment of Peg after she has lost her use as a piece of his rebellion against his parents. Similarly, the essay “You Can’t Kill the Rooster” comes off to me as a spiteful rebuke of his younger brother who seems to have a much better relationship with their father and a greater capacity for honesty with himself and others. The few laughs I did have during this story came from Sedaris’s account of his brother’s words. However, I am not the almighty arbiter of comedy. I’m sure people find plenty of my humor to be unfunny or even distasteful. I would simply ask that we consider in this class what makes something humor, from a subjective as well as an objective perspective.