Happy-Go-Lucky: 'Unquestionably the king of comic writing' Guardian
Autor David Sedarisen Limba Engleză Paperback – 2 iun 2022
Considerăm că Happy-Go-Lucky revelează o fațetă a lui David Sedaris pe care cititorii o bănuiau, dar pe care autorul nu a expus-o niciodată cu atâta vulnerabilitate: momentul în care masca de observator detașat începe să crape sub presiunea timpului și a pierderii. Totul începe într-o notă aparent obișnuită — meniuri tipărite pe hârtie, vizite prin piețe de vechituri prăfuite din Serbia și lecții de tir cu sora sa — pentru ca rapid să fim aruncați în izolarea pandemică, unde umorul devine singura formă de supraviețuire. Subliniem modul în care Sedaris reușește să transforme doliul și declinul tatălui său într-o explorare narativă care este, paradoxal, și hilară și devastatoare. Narativul amintește de Theft by Finding prin intensitatea cu care reconstituie o epocă, însă aici perspectiva se mută de la formarea tânărului artist către reflecțiile unui om care își privește trecutul prin lentila unei lumi care s-a oprit în loc. Credem că această colecție de eseuri reprezintă punctul de maturitate maximă al autorului; dacă în Calypso am văzut începutul unei introspecții mai întunecate, în Happy-Go-Lucky, Sedaris îmbrățișează pe deplin absurdul existențial. Stilul său rămâne inconfundabil: fraze scurte, de o precizie chirurgicală, care alternează între observația socială acidă și momente de o tandrețe neașteptată. Comparativ cu The Land and its People, unde accentul cădea pe experiența călătorului, volumul de față este mult mai ancorat în spațiul domestic și în micro-dramele familiale care definesc condiția umană. Este un portret cinematic al Americii profunde, văzut prin ochii unui „străin” care locuiește de decenii în Europa, dar care nu poate scăpa de fantomele educației sale din Carolina de Nord.
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Specificații
ISBN-10: 1408714108
Pagini: 272
Dimensiuni: 136 x 216 x 22 mm
Greutate: 0.3 kg
Editura: Little Brown
Colecția Little, Brown
Locul publicării:London, United Kingdom
De ce să citești această carte
Recomandăm această carte oricui apreciază umorul fin, dar nu se teme de latura întunecată a vieții. Cititorul câștigă o perspectivă onestă despre îmbătrânire și familie, livrată cu o ironie care taie până la os. Este lectura ideală pentru cei care vor să înțeleagă cum se poate scrie despre tragedie fără a cădea în patetic, învățând că râsul este, adesea, singura reacție rațională în fața absurdului.
Despre autor
David Sedaris este unul dintre cei mai importanți umoriști americani contemporani, recunoscut pentru stilul său autobiografic și autoironic. Lansat în 1992 la NPR cu eseul „Santaland Diaries”, el a transformat observația cotidiană într-o formă de artă literară. Opera sa, care include volume celebre precum Barrel Fever sau Însușirea bunului găsit, explorează teme precum dinamica unei familii excentrice, experiența homosexualității, dependența și viața de expatriat în Franța sau Anglia. Colaborator constant al revistei The New Yorker, Sedaris este maestru în a extrage semnificații profunde din cele mai banale sau bizare interacțiuni umane.
Descriere
Praise for Theft By Finding
The writing here is funnier, (even) sharper . . . There isn't a dull word among these pages (India Knight Sunday Times)
Could there be a more delightful American import than the memoirist David Sedaris? Not since the peanut butter and jelly sandwich have we inherited something so sweet and comforting yet so wickedly naughty (The Times)
This first of two volumes of his copious diaries takes us from 1977 to 2002, and sees him grow from a despondent
21-year-old in menial jobs into the man recognised as possibly the best humorist of the 2000s
(Daily Telegraph, Best Books Under the Sun, Summer 2017)
So often Sedaris's phrasing is beautiful in its piquancy and minimalism...His life is extraordinary in so many ways - the drug addiction, the eccentric family, the crazy jobs, the fame, the globetrotting - but one of the more unlikely achievements here is in making it all seem quite ordinary. Ultimately, his masterstroke is in acting as a bystander in his own story (Book of the Day, Guardian)
He is the American Alan Bennett - or would be, if Bennett had a history of serious substance abuse and a higher tolerance for sick humour (Times Literary Supplement)
He makes me laugh so much. In an era when US satire is outpacing our own he's a sharp, humane and hilarious voice that never fails to make you smile - and sometimes weep. Apparently effortless humour is difficult, and precious. He's the real thing (James Naughtie Radio Times)
A deadpan, darkly comical portrait of the American underbelly . . . Sedaris shares something of [Alan] Bennett's detached curiosity, and they both have a thirst for amusement (Craig Brown Mail on Sunday)
It's like gossiping with an old friend - if that friend were a rather sexy American Alan Bennett with lots of good drug stories (Melissa Katsoulis The Times)
Cool, very funnv, sardonic, yet open . . . there is an echo of Truman Capote or Tennessee Williams - with extra quirk. Or even Lewis Carroll . . . one of the biggest comedy writers of his generation (Peter Bradshaw Spectator)
Just as in his essays and stories, the young Sedaris is both scandalising and scandalised, surprisingly profound, and very, very funny . . . Sedaris fans will not be surprised to know that he can do darkness and profundity as well as humour. Theft by Finding is full of all three, but what makes it so good is Sedaris's gift for sidling up them all from the least expected angle (Daily Telegraph)
Recenzii
But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he's stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.
As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger's teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone's son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter.
In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.
It's hard to think of a better living practitioner of hilarious honesty than David Sedaris
In this latest collection of anecdotes, the American humorist David Sedaris riffs on Covid, death and family . . . No longer elfin, Sedaris has matured into a devilish imp who scourges human folly and filth
Sedaris' signature wit has always thrived on the macabre, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that Happy-Go-Lucky is some of his darkest - and most astute - writing yet... No topic is out of bounds for Sedaris' acerbic humor and sharp observations
Sedaris is funny - invariably. That's his gift... Even amid the overwhelming gloom of the pandemic, a summer of unrest and the death of a father toward whom he still has complicated feelings, Sedaris never loses his wit or his crack timing
Sedaris is one of the writers whose discovery you wish on friends, because it means they have a wealth of brilliant writing to discover . . . David Sedaris still delivering his killer lines
The writer's affable misanthropy and self-deprecation are on display in a new set of reflections on life and death
Sedaris gazes unflinchingly [...] at his family, including himself, in a way that is laugh-out-loud funny yet somehow avoids being cruel
There's a reason why David Sedaris has his own Radio 4 series and sells out Carnegie Hall in New York: as a performer of his own prose he's unmatched... The best way to enjoy Sedaris's waspish and funny essay collection is to hear it read by its author... [delivered] with impeccable comic timing
Notă biografică
With sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, David Sedaris has become one of America's pre-eminent humor writers. The great skill with which he slices through cultural euphemisms and political correctness proves that Sedaris is a master of satire and one of the most observant writers addressing the human condition today.
David Sedaris is the author of eleven previous books, including, most recently, The Best of Me, Calypso, and Theft by Finding. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. In 2019, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is the recipient of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, the Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor, and the Terry Southern Prize for Humor.