Tow #24: IRB "Me Talk Pretty One Day" By David Sedaris (Part 2)

Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris, is a collection of twenty-seven creative nonfiction essays by an author known for his satirical and sarcastic tone. These essays are divided into two parts, One and Deux. One was mostly about Sedaris's life growing up in North Carolina and being forced to deal wtih a speech inpediment as well as other issues that separated him from other children. However, Deux switches into the story of how Sedaris moved to France and the struggles of learning French. The fact that the second part is called Deux, the French word for two, it indicates the shift structurally and creates an interesting effect. Sedaris's overall purpose in Deux is to tell the story of his struggles of learning French, which he achieves by using examples of the some of the unpleasant social situations he ended up in due to a lack of experience with the language as well as references to the title of his book. When he first started learning French, most of Sedaris's sentences were jumbled and made little sense. Sedaris demonstrates this by translating what he said in a humorous way. For example, he would say things like "see you again yesterday" (163) or other statements that made people shake their heads until he was able to "talk pretty one day". By including the exact translation of the wording he used, Sedaris shows the audience exactly what native speakers thought of his speech. This demonstrates the struggle that Sedaris had to go through to learn French. When he uses this to satirize himself, it is entertaining to the audience because it is humorous. Sedaris also alludes to the title of his book a lot throughout this section of the book. In fact, one of the essays is called "Me Talk Pretty One Day." An example of this title inclusion in this essay is after Sedaris tried to comfort a classmate that was feeling depressed about his struggles with French. Sedaris said, "much more work and someday you talk pretty" (171). The inclusion of part of the title of the book and essay create an interesting effect that makes the story more entertaining. It also shows Sedaris's overall purpose more clearly because it is the title of the book. Overall, this book is enjoyable because of the humor through the use of personal anecdotes and allusions to his own title that helps drive the story.