Afterthoughts: In this opener to his latest collection, David Sedaris invites the reader into the privacy of the consultation room, where he reveals a penchant for the Parisian dentistry profession, and the psychopaths (my word, not his, mainly because I have an abject terror of dentists) who lurk within.
It seems that Sedaris loves the fact that his dentists put him through the mill – pain and all – because at least he feels that they’re doing something positive for him, unlike his $50-a-session physician who dismisses every ailment or complaint with a shrug of the shoulders, and a reply that usually involves answering a question with a question, and one that’s often deeply philosophical (“Why is it that my fatty tumour will eventually stop growing?” Sedaris asks. “I don’t know,” Dr Medioni responds. “Why don’t trees touch the sky?”). Funny stuff!
Much talk about periodontists, orthodontists and prosthodontists later – including descriptions of Dr. Guig who Sedaris adores but who I see as one the archetypal psychopaths I mentioned above – and the action climaxes, or rather slows to a pace, when we meet Dr. Granat, who seems almost as pedestrian as Sedaris’ physician. It’s here where the real humour in the essay comes out, as Sedaris not only reveals the engaging conversations that patient and dentist have between them (mainly involving dentist asking patient if he is all right? “Ça va?”), with patient responding with a sound (“E-um”) that resembles the human equivalent of a doorbell), but also the unmissable (read: impossible to miss) travel programme that always plays on a muted TV attached to the wall, which features such delights as yak decorating and mice kebabs.
All-in-all a delightfully eclectic and humourous start to the collection, which caused loud guffaws and much glee to be emitted from this reader.