Now get that cup of nickels out of my face."
When I see a drunk or drug addict begging for money, I don't think, There but for the grace of God go I, but, I quit and so can you. He aptly sums up his worldview as follows, in the book " When You Are Engulfed in Flames": "Though I wish it were otherwise, I'm actually a very intolerant person. The difference is that in recounting his adventures in Paris, Tokyo and his hometown of Raleigh, N.C., he's usually as self-deprecating as he is misanthropic, styling his persona as an equal-opportunity hater in the classic Molierean vein (well, perhaps with a dash of added fabulousness). To be fair, this is a fair description of many of his genuinely funny essays as well.
This isn't an exaggeration: Sedaris's narrative is condescending, xenophobic and thoroughly venomous - a sweeping 2,700-word dismissal of an entire culture and society based on a few singular anecdotal experiences. The reason for Sedaris's disdain soon becomes clear: In his view, China is ugly and filthy, Chinese people are universally rude and hostile, and Chinese food is composed of vile ingredients prepared in the most unsanitary and grotesque fashion possible. The work I'm referring to isn't a book, but a lengthy if somewhat slapdash essay he penned for the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper, titled " Chicken Toenails, Anyone?" - written after Sedaris's return from a brief and apparently unpleasant trip to China, where he was invited to speak at Beijing's Bookworm International Literary Festival.Īs you might guess from its headline, Sedaris considered the prospect of visiting China itself as a less-than-appealing proposition: "'I have to go to China.' I told people this in the way I might say, 'I need to insulate my crawl space' or, 'I've got to get these moles looked at.' That's the way it felt, though. It's something I've been grappling with over the past few weeks, ever since I read the latest opus from master mock-and-droller David Sedaris - the brilliant, best-selling author of "Naked," "Holidays on Ice," "Me Talk Pretty One Day" and the recent " Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk."
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