Truth in Nonfiction discussion

Not a question, per se, but some thoughts for you to consider in your response to "Repeat After Me":

Famed essayist Joan Didion writes in the preface to her collection, SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM, "Writers are always selling somebody out." It's clear that Sedaris struggles with his role of writer (lecturer) versus member of a family, yet writers are always "[removing themselves] from the equation" in order to write (448). According to Sedaris, he "got out of" the film adaptation of ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY after having the conversation with his sister that is featured in "Repeat After Me."

Throughout reading and listening to "Repeat After Me" I realized how difficult of a situation it was for Sedaris, through his constant need to make comic relief of sister, childhood, and himself. His childhood, particularly him being labeled as the "lazy" child, reflected a lack of maturity. His detailed descriptions of his family life impact the reading by challenging this idea or ideal that every family has a, “bread winner”. Sedaris uses his sister as a metaphor as this difficult, unknown transformation of the human psyche for two reasons. One, I think it is obvious in the development of the story in terms of mechanics and having a plot line. The dropout and detailed description of his sister’s new job hauling gallons of wine develop the story. While simultaneously, it allows you to focus in, just as much on Sedaris, through his own internal progress and idea of what it meant to him. To say Sedaris struggles with his role, as a lecturer is an understatement. He loves telling stories and often times for him it is not the story that is important but the presentation of the story that brings out the imagery and constant use of literary devices like personification, sentence structure and comparisons alike. Having both read and listened to “Repeat After Me” I certainly got a much better understanding of his childhood and transformation from listening purely due to the presentation, his soft but funny tone, and most of all his charisma that is intrinsically connected to his story telling ability.

I apologize for referring to my other non-fiction class so much, but everything is so relevant I feel compelled to bring it up since this is the only background I have with this kind of writing. Last semester we talked a lot about what is referred to as the “betrayal of intimacy,” which is basically when we write about the people in our lives as if they would never see it so we create an accurate depiction of them. When I say accurate depiction, I mean we are willing to reveal both the good and bad qualities of a person. If the portrait we create of a person is overwhelmingly flattering, it’s not completely true. Similarly, if the portrait is overly critical, it also may not be true. A lot of the problems we saw in our class revolved around people either saying only what was good about the people they we writing about, or just leaving the bad information out so that the reader felt lost. By nature, we protect and stick up for the people that are close to us, but the personal essay is the one setting where we don’t. When we talked about the qualities of the personal essay in class, we said it was a form of self-disclosure that reveals something about the human condition. As this is the ultimate goal, we as writers can’t help but write about those we love because the way we tell another’s story reveals so much about ourselves too. The only problem with revealing these details is that we need to make sure it is done so honestly and fairly, and often times revealing what is honest is not always seen as fair in the eyes of the person it’s about. Writers are the ones who “voluntarily choose to expose themselves” (448) whereas the people they love usually don’t do so voluntarily. If they are willing to do so voluntarily, it’s usually because they think they can handle being written about, or they assume everything being written about them is good. Sedaris admits he “…worried that, in making the movie the director might get me and my family wrong, but now a worse thought occurred to me: What if he gets us right?” (451). Most of us aren’t comfortable with people studying our faults with a magnifying glass, but that’s exactly what the personal essay does. As seen in Sedaris’ situation with family, revealing their private lives had serious repercussions on his relationships. He admits his sister was “…afraid to tell me anything important, knowing I’ll only turn around and write about it” (446). There’s definitely a fine line between what to write about and what to omit, but it’s a line that needs to be crossed in the personal essay.

A 2004 issue of TIME Magazine published an interview, “10 Questions for David Sedaris,” in which Sedaris says, “I never thought that I wrote about my family that much. I guess I have,” after being asked if he’s worried that he’ll run out of embarrassing stories to tell about his family. This, to me, supports the claim that Sedaris’s writing is conversational and he is disclosing information as if he is having a genuine conversation with a buddy or two. In “Repeat after Me,” he says, “After the reading, I answered questions about them [my family], thinking all the while how odd it was that these strangers seemed to know so much about my brothers and sisters.” It seems that he is such a good storytelling that even he gets lost in the past as he recalls events in a groping path. Reading his writing is just as natural to me as listening to a friend and I find myself annotating with remarks such as “Hah clever, David” because I feel like I know him on a personal level. I guess I do. I usually don’t refer to an author by their first name, but with him it fits; in fact, he is probably the type of guy that says, “Please, call me David. Mr. Sedaris is my father.” Since his conversational writing style reveals so much he admits, “In order to sleep at night, I have to remove myself from the equation, pretending that the people I love voluntarily chose to expose themselves.” I imagine that he has the acknowledge, at least a little, that he is writing about something that may embarrass or insult his family and I cannot fathom how he is able to remove himself when all of his stories reflect himself in some way. In “Repeat after Me,” his sister specifically says that she will not speak to him if he tells her story about the dead animal, yet he still shares it and shares that he still shares it. I find it interesting when Sedaris says, “I’d worried that, in making the movie, the director might get me and my family wrong, but now a worse thought occurred to me: What is he gets us right?” What if Sedaris’s writing has stripped him and his family naked and the world sees them for who they truly and honestly are? In the TIME interview, Sedaris says, “I've been keeping diaries for 27 years. For the most part, it's just garbage, so I go through them, take whatever's good and make a master list,” which leads me to believe that ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY has the intimacy of a diary that includes Sedaris’s thoughts, his perspectives, his fears, his motivations, his weaknesses; and all of these things are expressed by anecdotes about his life. Since his family is a part of his life, they must be included. Perhaps Sedaris is fearful that his “diary” can be read and understood by so many people; it’s universal. Perhaps he’s scared that he’s not alone.

Courtney, I really enjoyed your part in the end referring to his diaries, in particular how true and apparent his perspectives, fears, motivations, and weaknesses are apparent throughout most of the pieces we have read. "See You Again Yesterday" presents us with some of these exact situations in regards to Sedaris and his fears, motivations, perspectives. A culmination of these themes and or characteristics is brought to life in many of his works and I like how you recognized that in "Repeat After Me".

The "selling out" aspect can be a burden for writers to carry, especially in Sedaris's case where he talks exclusively about his family life and past events that would not be ideal to share with others. His story "Repeat After Me" seems more like a sentiment to the pressure that he feels by mirroring his sister, the parrot and the movie situation. In my opinion, he tries his hardest not to put his family in a bad spotlight but in doing so, he puts that spotlight on himself. That way the family is left to be means of explanation and reflection of the moments that he can share with the audience.
Beginning with Lisa, we see how neurotic and irrational she can be. She was once on top of her game, but had crashed down so suddenly that she reverted to a cyclic lifestyle that Sedaris relates to now. The movie incident where the two see a movie that encompasses their lives very similarly reminds Lisa and Sedaris about how they got to where they are now. They held onto their childhood labels and grew up in accordance to them. It showed them and the reader that these two people were living a life that was set up for them from the start, regardless of the fact that they had no choice. The fact that the parrot is counted as a character in this story is uncanny being that the animal is a natural mimic. It relates to the siblings as following what they are told but not fully understanding any of it. Though not entirely mindless, the parrot stands as a symbol of repetition that Lisa has fallen into. Going back to "selling out," Sedaris is not an exception to the tendency, he just writes in a way that doesn't sell out the important people in his life. He seems confident enough in himself that it's okay to pin this kind of light on him. No matter what, he'll find some way to make it into a great story.

I have always told my family one day, our lives will be written about. I don't mean that in a mean way, but in the same way that I feel Sedaris is feeling about his family. THEY ARE CHARACTERS. From his mother to sister, everyone is a writeable, loveable, complex character. I believe that in the end though it will always be hard for someone to write about their families, because what we or David may seem as a loveable quirk of someone close to us, the public may not fathom it that way. "Writers are always selling somebody out," I don't believe David sold anyone out in MTPOD, but in fact through his writing I grasp how much he loves and cares for his family. "Writers are always selling somebody out," this truth, may be true for some, but in my eyes it is not apparent in Sedaris's writing.

The most important thing I took from "Repeat After Me" is that Sedaris loves his family. As others have already discussed, it is evident that one who talks so highly, thoroughly, and profoundly of his family, must be extremely fond of and close to them. If he had hated his family, he probably wouldn't have thrown himself under the bus so many times. It amazes me how Sedaris can make light of sad situations via his humor. For example, when he recalls his mother's death, Henry learned how to cry and he and Lisa "set each other off for hours". Situations become the premises of his humor. It is his incredible delivery of humor that showcases the situations he tells us.

I find it funny that after reading "Repeat After Me" NOW (as compared to reading it earlier in the year in my Creative Nonfiction class), I seem to understand it more and it brings new meaning to me. Before I was reading it as an example of the personal essay, but now I am reading it for leisure and it feels totally different. Why I am not sure. This essay still is an example of the personal essay, but this time perhaps it is because I have read more of David Sedaris and feel like I know him a little bit more. The first time reading that essay I had no previous knowledge of who Sedaris even was. But now that I know facts about his childhood, family, and adult life I am left with a greater sense of who he is and how he portrays himself as a writer. I find it interesting that by just knowing a few extra facts about someone's life my perception of who they are and what they write totally change. I am glad I had the chance to read "Repeat After Me" a second time. Maybe I just needed to repeat it to enjoy it more!
Okay...I don't know if this response exactly fit the prompt, but it was a thought floating around in my head that I had to get out. And now I have.

At the end of this piece, when Sedaris asks himself "What if he gets us right?" it kind of hit me the seriousness of writing about family members. Whenever someone tells him, "you cannot repeat this" I think about how someone wants to write about another, a family member in particular, and deconstruct certain aspects of said character. I have written several pieces about my family members, and never have i thought about it in this light. Thinking about discussing a character and sometimes even bringing light to their vulnerabilities, seems like it could be an invasion of privacy, like the stance his family members seem to have taken. After the movie that Sedaris and his sister attended, it hit me that digging into someones life in a literary sense can be invasive in certain lights.

Going back to a quote that sort of strays from the prompt, but really hit home for me: Sedarias “worried that, in making the movie the director might get me and my family wrong, but now a worse thought occurred to me: What if he gets us right?” (451)

While reading this part of the essay, I found myself thinking about why it would ever really matter if Sedaris (or any writer, really) created accurate depictions of his family members. I thought a lot about Julia Alvarez's "Yo!", which describes the aftermath or sort of retelling of the exposure of an author's stories from a previous published book (that was such a vague description - sorry, I read it a few years ago). "Yo!" focuses a lot on how the people in the author's life were affected by the exposure of their stories and how they started to distrust her because they knew she would only document these private parts of life that may not seem too private until they are suddenly written down on paper for the world to see.

This comes back to my initial question: why exactly does it matter if people are depicted accurately or inaccurately? I found myself identifying with Sedaris's quote about how much worse it would be if people were depicted 100% accurately. I thought about how, having an identical twin sister, I have seen someone almost acting out everything that I do in life. Just the little things, like walking, running, talking with hands, etc. make me CRINGE when I watch my sister doing them, mainly because I can completely see myself in her mannerisms and I hate having that direct truth right there in my face.

That being said, I think that Sedaris makes a valid point in saying that he is more afraid of the movie director getting the characters right because it then leaves the real-life character (and the rest of the world) staring at that awkward twin sister of themselves. They are finally forced to see themselves through the eyes that the rest of the world sees them as, which can be a very unsettling and unfamiliar feeling that can completely distort their self-perception.

Ever since I first learned how to write, my teachers always told me to "write what you know". Sedaris' family may be uncomfortable with how they are portrayed in his stories, but what I think they're afraid of isn't so much being inaccurately depicted--but rather, as he says, "what if he gets us right?" As a failed artist who careened wildly from career path to career path, the only constant in his life (besides his unfailing wit and observational skill reminiscent of Dick Hickock) is his family. It seems only natural for him to be devoting such a large proportion of his work to his family members, and though his family seems stranger than most, I am wholeheartedly of the belief that everyone's life is worth making a movie about, as Sedaris says. Until I read "Me Talk Pretty One Day", I didn't know that other people's families were every bit as crazy as my own! His stories were a wonderful wake-up call, and I think that they've done more uniting than dividing: his family may be irritated, but he's been able to provide common ground for countless people to agree on.

I like the point that both Caroline and Kelsey brought up about Sedaris LOVING his family. That was what immediately came to my mind when reading this discussion; you can tell he loves the people he is writing about. There are certainly complexities to all the characters, and they aren't painted in an entirely flawless light (for example, Sedaris exposes Lisa's worries about her weight in "Repeat After Me"). However, it is quite clear while reading that Sedaris loves these people, and is simply writing about characters near and dear to him.

I also agree with the handful of people (I think there were one or two) who said something about Sedaris writing these things that are so relatable, and therein lies the beauty of his writing. C.S. Lewis said that "we read to know we are not alone", and I think perhaps that's part of the WHY in the equation of Sedaris's writing. Why is he okay with exposing the people in his life in such a way? I think it is because they are real, genuine, people, and he knows he will be able to convey them in such a way that his audience can (hopefully) relate to them and feel less alone (and clearly he has succeeded here).

The difficulty and danger that comes in writing about people (or being written about) is stated pretty explicitly at one point in "Repeat After Me", when Sedaris says "You'll be just....like you are" to which Lisa replies, "Like I am according to who?" (449). Sedaris is able to put his family down on the page in a way that he himself knows is out of good intentions based on love, yet he can never trust that his audience will be able to take to his family in a similarly kind way. I guess this is the "selling out" that Didion talks about; that in this case Sedaris has taken a risk and put his family out there for the judgement of the public.

Like Sedaris said in the interview we watched the other day in class, he never really reveals any bad information about his family. Sure, in this article he talks about his sister but the most he ever says is that she "had been marked Most Likely to Succeed" and later that she didn't fully live up to standard. Whereas he considers himself, "the one most likely to set your house on fire." (445)

Reading the last page made me feel really unsure of myself, and of this topic. When Amy tells him of her story about the animal and the grocery store, then threatens to, "never talk to him again" if he repeats it, I had convinced myself that he was true to her wish and never wrote about it. But halfway through the last paragraph I found myself thinking back to that incident and wanting to know more, and although Sedaris does not really come out and tell the whole story, we still know that something happened to a dead animal when she was at the grocery store. He tells us bits of information which in a way, is just as bad as telling the whole story. With this realization, I began to question whether or not he was the, "small, evil man" that he considers himself, or if he never really revealed any bad information at all. From personal experience, I can relate to this yearning to share a story that isn't ours. Sometimes, we must realize that no matter how great they may seem, some stories are not ours to tell.

I would definitely agree with Amy that the only true constant in Sedaris's life is his family. He owes so much of his success to his family in that they are the subject of many of his essays. To go from the fearful state of not knowing what to do with your life or where your calling is, to finding it and becoming successful must be incredible and yet I imagine that it fuels a desire for more. The prospect of having his work adapted into film must have been thrilling; however, it comes at a cost, and he had to weigh the matter. His family is so supportive of his work; so when Lisa drew a line in the sand saying that she didn't want the movie, he had to choose a side. It is clear Sedaris would never intentionally hurt his family and that they are more important to him than additional fame or wealth could ever be.

First I have to say that I walked into the bathroom the other day and saw a Sedaris-worthy Big Boy and all I could do was laugh (and leave the bathroom before I was discovered and had to take responsibility).

With that said, I think that my favorite moment in this story was after Lisa had just finished pouring her heart out to Sedaris about an incident that nearly broke her heart. In this dramatic, heart-wrenching moment all Sedaris can think to do is to reach for his notebook to write down everything Lisa just told him. She pleads with him to not use this incident in any of his stories, after which he replies ""What if I use the story but say that it happened to a friend?" (451).
Like most of us have already stated, a lot of Sedaris's essay material comes from his family and I think that this says something about him. What his family doesn't realize is that, while it may seem like Sedaris exploits his family's oddities for his work, he does it because he loves them. If Sedaris didn't find his family so fascinating, if he didn't care about them or found them uninteresting, he wouldn't write about them so often, so his family should take it as a compliment. Everyone believes they have a weird family, and no one ever wants to admit it, so it's nice to hear from someone else in a humorous way about their family problems, and it relieves some tension for the reader, and lets them known that they aren't alone.