Me(I) (will) Talk (speak) Pretty (clearly) One Day

            The first thing to consider when looking at the effectiveness of David Sedaris’ writing is whether the purpose of his work is the same purpose held by academic essays. That isn’t to say that academic essays can’t be entertaining and witty, but essays also exist as conduits of information to an audience of scholars. Although Sedaris’ “Me Talk Pretty One Day” takes the format of an essay, it doesn’t attempt to educate or sway the reader; it is a story. It can be assumed, then, that any conscious obedience, convenient coincidence, or discrepancy with Michael Harvey’s The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing serve to fuel Sedaris’ narrative.

            Sedaris is a comedic writer, and considering that Harvey relates good sentence timing to good comedy, calling the turn from familiar material to the surprising new facts the “punch line technique” (Harvey 28), it is unsurprising that this very technique shows up in “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” However, instead of using it to pull in a reader, Sedaris uses it to set up an actual punch line as he recalls his mother listing the things she loves: “…a good steak cooked rare. I love my cat, and I love… Tums” (Sedaris 12). Another technique that Harvey recommends and Sedaris utilizes is the idea that “lists feel balanced and complete when they contain three items” (Harvey 53). In his descriptions of the pros of his student pass “…a discounted entry fee at movie theaters, puppet shows, and Festyland…” (Sedaris 11), and the things he’s afraid to do after his teacher’s harassment “Stopping for a coffee, asking directions, depositing money in my bank account” (Sedaris 14), he makes not only his lists but the world of his tale feel more fleshed out and real.

The purpose of Sedaris’ work also allows him to practice with ease some of the things that Harvey assumes are the most difficult for academic writers to swallow. He uses leading questions such as “How often is one asked what he loves in the world? More to the point, how often is one asked, and then publicly ridiculed for his answer?” (Sedaris 12) without having to worry about being “too lively for formal academic writing” (Harvey 44), because his writing is not academic. Since his narrative is driven by the actions of living, breathing characters, he has no trouble using the active over the passive voice as Harvey suggests on page 16, or keeping the actions in line with the character that is performing them (Harvey 23).

            However, Sedaris’ work does not always fall neatly within Harvey’s suggestion box. Most notably, he changes tense with an alarming frequency. First we see “I am returning” but then he “was issued a student ID” (Sedaris 11). He explains that “I’ve moved” but once he gets to his class “Vacations were recounted” (Sedaris 11). The tense shifts are jarring, a little disappointing, and totally out of sync with Harvey’s insistence on clear and consistent writing. The realization slowly hits, though, that Sedaris is narrating the essay as if he were speaking straight on with the reader. Each tense shift is an aside to the person he is telling the story to, and it draws attention by creating a deeper bond between the reader and the invisible narrator. He also uses techniques that Harvey, writing with academic instruction in mind, would never think to suggest. Sedaris’ comparisons are clever and pithy, as he displays one girl with “front teeth the size of tombstones” (Sedaris 12) and their teacher moving in to pick on a student, saying “She crouched low for her attack…” (Sedaris 12). This kind of color is integral to keeping Sedaris’ essay engaging and readable, while it would be dangerously inaccurate in an academic climate. Even the title of his essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day” comes from the dialogue between hopeless French students as they reassure each other, in abysmal syntax that would have Harvey whipping out a red pen with a disappointed shake of his head, that “People start love you soon” or “Much work and someday you talk pretty” (Sedaris 14). This type of transgression is entirely forgivable in dialogue, because dialogue establishes characters- characters that an academic essay would not have.

             Judging Sedaris’ work by Harvey’s standards is only fair if one considers that the two were writing with different purposes in mind. It is certainly true that Sedaris tends to add random details, mess with his tenses, and exaggerate until he’s blue in the face, but all of that is fair game when the writing in question is intended to make people laugh, and viewed from a literary point of view as opposed to an academic one. Even with that allowance, Sedaris does make highly effective use of some of Harvey’s tips and tricks, proving that both of them have points worth listening to when considering the effectiveness of any given text. Just don’t ask Sedaris to go over your lab report.