Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls
Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls is the third David Sedaris short story collection I have read following Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day. Of the 3 I have read it is probably the most consistently enjoyable.
Included are four short stories, though whilst authored by Sedaris are not his usual style - one is from the point of view a selfish teenager and another the POV of an ignorant American mother. These are a bit weird, Sedaris says he has included them as offerings for teenagers who might be doing "Forensics" at school which sounds nothing like its title and is more like the Speaking and Listening portion of GCSE English. None of these work particularly well as short stories and all illustrate an extreme of some kind.
The main body of the work is the sort of stories I've come to expect from Sedaris. What differed this time round is that whereas in Naked, and Me Talk Pretty there were stories that I thought were brilliant and others which I thought terrible or boring, all of the stories in 'Owls' are good. Whilst this means there are no standout boring ones, it is also true that there's no standout amazing one either. They are all of a similar average.
The best Sedaris stories by far are the ones about his Greek immigrant family living in Raleigh, North Carolina and the best in 'Owls' are, customarily, the ones about his Dad. All however are imbued with his customary strong wit. Sedaris recently read in Liverpool and I couldn't go because I had to honour a prior commitment, reading 'Owls' has made me more sorry that I couldn't.
Whilst the reference to Owls in the title is for reasons that become obvious, I can't fathom what diabetes had to do with anything. There isn't a diabetes story, that I noticed. Anyone?
Verdict : 7/10
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