GABE DURHAM
Staff Writer
These days, visiting a bookstore means all you see is David Sedaris this, Augusten Burroughs that.
These writers have made a living off collections of personal essays, those books that tell little stories from a writer’s life and then supposedly show how the stories relate to a larger truth about the human condition.
I’m a big boy. I can take larger truths.
But the thematic pitfall for just about everybody who writes personal essays is they think they’re better than me.
This proving-your-worth-through-storytelling craze goes back pretty far.
Mark Twain thought he was pretty cool, so he wrote a travel log. Lewis and Clark decided they were so great that they would write about their American vacation and even draw pictures of all the plants and animals they saw.
Even back in the Old Testament days, the writer of Ecclesiastes was eager to tell everyone that his life had been a huge success, but he was over it.
“There is nothing new under the sun,” he boasted.
It was as if he meant to say, “If you come up with something you think is pretty cool, I’ve totally tried it and it isn’t.”
The only people who might have been sincere were those who have had their journals published posthumously.
Anne Frank, for instance, is an example of someone who was keeping it real.
But who can read her memoir without feeling guilty? Sure, her diary is an incredible glimpse into the world of a family in hiding from the Nazis, but does anybody else think it’s a little perverse that we’re reading the diary of a blossoming pre-teen?
For the most part, though, people who write about themselves are just trying to impress others.
Sedaris thinks he’s great just because he lives in France, he was almost killed while hitchhiking, he tried to get his sister run over to get his mom’s attention, he worked in a mental institution and he’s felt compulsive urges to touch the heads of children.
Having done all these weird, outlandish things, Sedaris is pretty much saying, “I live a full life and you don’t.”
But I do live a full life.
I thought about picking up a hitchhiker one time, only I didn’t because it seemed too dangerous.
And I lived overseas for a year. Sure, I hung out with Americans the whole time, but America is the greatest country in the world, so who wouldn’t?
Want to hear about my weekend trip to Ireland?
We flew RyanAir, which is cheap. We saw some rolling hills and sheep, and one time we got really close to the sheep.
One morning we made omelets, and then rented bikes and rode them.
There was this girl who worked at the hostel named Brigita, and she gave me her e-mail address but I never e-mailed her. But I loved her.
And there was this guy we kept running into who tried to sell us drugs but we said, “No way.” People also spoke Gaelic.
What a great trip. Heck, I could write a book.
So you see, those guys on the bestseller list aren’t so great.
My life is just as interesting, if not more so.
11-17-2005