Calypso
David Sedaris
Contributed by Larisa Brooke
Reviews

Crown states that Sedaris is known to write funny books that talk about comical and happy situations that occur daily in people’s lives (2018). Thus, it is difficult to see Sedaris beginning his work by describing how his sister committed suicide in the short story Calypso. For a reader who had previously read or listened to the author’s shows and books, they should prepare for a darker humor in this book. Nonetheless, the short stories have plenty of obscenities and indignities to entertain the reader such as when he talks about his colonoscopy. Sedaris carefully weaves his dark humor into stories of grief and emotional situations (Crown, 2018).

The author uses an ironic and sadistic delivery of his personal experiences to try and to make them evident and funny to the reader (Levy, 2018). Sedaris has hardly shared his own sad experiences in his earlier books and shows. In Calypso, he artistically speaks to severe subjects like addiction and death. NY Daily News report that the author is gifted at using controlled minimalism and humor in his stories which helps create a distance between his stories and himself (2018). The latter is seen when the author gets a visit from his sister Tiffany and locks her out. The author states that from that time, he felt that Tiffany was no longer his problem but somebody else’s.

The final moments with his sister are not funny, but Sedaris states the fact that he was tired of dealing with her plainly (Woods et al., 2018). Calypso as an autobiography of the author is unforeseen and the stories he shares are hard to believe considering the ruthlessness with which he talks about his experiences. However, the author has a cunning manner of drawing the reader in with side stories that do not concern his private life. The author describes his mother’s alcoholism, but then the surrounding analogies are of other comic facades that the author collected from different experiences. Levy argues that Sedaris maintains his themes from story to story such that a few pages later after talking about alcoholism of his mother, he speaks of mortality (2018).

The author has a unique method of writing that can only be described as a Sedarisian literary style (Manteuffel, 2018). It is hilarious how one can write about how to manage a speech and book signing while battling an unpredictable bowel movement. His form of delivery digs deep into dark humor whereby mortality and grief plays a crucial role in his comedic style. However, he likes giving his reader a taste of pain while maintaining the themes of grief and mortality (Bookhabits, 2018).

Sedaris is aware of the importance of maintaining a connection with siblings by using ridiculous and outrageous recounts of his memories with them. Calypso can be compared to the well-written screenplay of a sitcom. The readers and fans of Sedaris get the feeling of being in a funny cult that gets excited with dark humor (Levy, 2018). Calypso goes to an unexplored territory of mortality and grief unlike any other comedy book.

Woods et al. state that the author’s large family has always served as the motivation to Sedaris’s short stories (2018). His family is an eccentric inspiration for his stories such as “Now We Are Five,” which reveals Tiffany’s suicide, and “Leviathan,” which has memories of his father. What makes the author outstanding is his weird sense of humor and his unrelenting honesty when it comes to the experiences in his family.

Sedaris can technically spin stories and situations of any kind into funny or moving narratives (Crown, 2018). For instance, the author illustrates his urge to feed his benign tumor to a turtle. Sedaris is described as the maestro of deadpan humor since he delivers his humor when he wants you to laugh. His book is a representation of typical family occurrences, and Sedaris is brave enough to let people in on his family’s private struggles. Sedaris does this through his unique form of narrative that brings out dark and sadistic humor which can only be categorized as his own (Manteuffel, 2018).

Calypso is a raw and sorrowful book compared to the author’s previous work. For the first time, Sedaris pulls back the curtain to show the reader what lies behind the illusion of perfect families (Crown, 2018). The short stories may offend readers who feel that Sedaris is a sadist who derives humor from the misery of others. His humor may be considered heartless and almost psychopathic in the case where he feeds a turtle with his lipoma and throws away his mother’s ashes.

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