Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary by David Sedaris

Sedaris once again demonstrates why he deserves his fame as a wry satirist with this excellent little book of short stories about animals, which are obviously really parables that explore human foibles). The stories are anthropomorphic and unrealistic, but it was interesting to read about chickens, squirrels, rabbits or turtles acting in ways certain types of people would act. If you don’t have the minor suspension of disbelief, you won’t enjoy this. If you can go with the premise though, you’ll see Sedaris skewer bigotry, racism, pride, authoritarianism, religion and death. Primarily though, the main theme explored is that of human biases, personal and external, mostly about vanity and positive self-regard.
The stories are entertaining and I recommend the book (only 3 hours by audio presentation, with four different presenters). If I had any criticism, it would be that sometimes Sedaris wasn’t too subtle in his delivery.
(Note: out of curiosity, I just checked Amazon.com to see what others’ thought and many didn’t like this. So be warned!... the masses are displeased)

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