Storytellersunplugged

I’m currently listening to the audio book of a short story collection by an author named David Sedaris.  The collection is entitled When You are Engulfed in Flames, and it’s basically a series of stories based on events in the author’s life, characters he’s met, and stories he’s heard from others. Prior to this book, I’ve had no experience of Sedaris as an author.  He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, a market I decided a long while back I did not have the time or temperament to attempt to break.  The style, I suppose, is literary fiction - mainstream - the world we genre folk seldom get a pass-key to visit.

I don’t intend to spend my essay talking about literary fiction or David Sedaris.  I will say that the author has a masterful command of the language and a very witty and insightful outlook on life.  There are few wasted words, and though the stories are not heavy on plot, they have power. I don’t for a moment begrudge this man his success…he’s very talented.

There is a point, though.  I wanted to share with you a story form within one of the stories, because it has stuck with me.  Mr. Sedaris does reading and speaking tours, and prior to coming back to the states to embark on one, he received a letter and a clipping from a fan of his work.

The story, as he saw it when he read it, was about a man whose Vermont home was overrun with mice.  The man tried everything he could think of, and when none of it worked, he fumigated.  What happened next was that the mice ran.  They scurried out of the home in a long line, and he followed, watching as they disappeared beneath a pile of leaves he’d raked up in his yard.

Thinking that he had the mice trapped, the man threw a match into the leaves, which caught fire immediately.  He stood, and he watched, believing that he’d solved his problem.  Then one of the mice got a different idea.  It scampered out of the leaves, still on fire and dashed into the man’s house.  The home caught fire and burned to the ground.

Mr. Sedaris was delighted with this, as was I.  It’s neat, it has a karmic twist - it’s the perfect ice-breaker for speeches, conversation - bearing the extra weight of the truth.  Then he reached America.

He first told the story to a cab driver.  The driver listened politely, then, when the story was over he asked, “What happened next?

Mr. Sedaris said, “What do you mean?”

“What happened next,” the driver repeated.  “Did he turn it over to his insurance?  Did he get his money back?  Did he save his things?”

After the story was explained (you’d think unnecessarily) the driver chuckled, shrugged, and said,  “Well, only in New York.”

“It didn’t happen in New York!”

And so on.  The man just didn’t get what the author intended him to from the story.  The next person he told was the very snooty man who was driving him to his first speaking engagement.  That man said.

“That’s bullshit, and I’ll tell you why.  There is no way a burning mouse ran twelve feet, still on fire, and set the house ablaze.  The flames would have burned out much sooner.”

“What about that woman in Vietnam?” David asked.  “You know, the famous picture?  She ran for blocks, still on fire.”

This is a point where I would have had a better answer than the cab driver did.  I’d have told Mr. Sedaris that when you are covered in Napalm, it’s the accelerant that is burning, not hair or flesh, so the comparison was a bad one.  Still, I think he was within his rights to question how this driver was so certain the distance a burning rodent could ‘motorvate’ given sufficient incentive.

David was incensed.  The story never really got the impact he intended it to, until he wrote it into a story wherein he told the story of telling the story - adding in the characters he interacted with, their apparent thoughts, insights, lack of understanding, and varied reactions to the same story he’d found so amusing.

Interestingly enough, when he returned to his home and pulled out the clipping, another facet of the experience came to light.  He had built the story into something it was not.  The house was in New Mexico, not Vermont.  There was only one mouse, and the man threw it onto the pile of leaves.  Most of what he remembered as the story had been twisted, changed, lengthened and twisted so that it served the purpose he had in mind for it, rather than recording the truth of the story as it had been written. He wasn’t even aware he’d done it until he re-read the article.

I’m not absolutely certain what my point is, other than that I’m fascinated by the contrast between the plot-driven story of the mouse, which fits every tenet of an Aristotelian story, and which, in the face of an audience, failed, while the more convoluted, meandering story of the failure of the  original tale was captivating.  It’s the author’s style, of course, and his talent.  Given sufficient effort, I’m certain some magic could be worked with the original mouse’s valiant plunge into revenge, but it would be a very different thing than what David Sedaris presented, and somehow I don’t believe it could match the impact.

The title of the collection, which I wondered about until I finished hearing the author recite that story - is perfect.  Hope you won’t mind this meander into the words and writing of someone else, rather than the usual essay from me.  This one got to me, and I wanted to share.

-DNW