From my bookshelf: Understanding
March 13, 2010
Right now I’m reading through David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day, and I couldn’t help notice this blurb from the essay that gives the book its title. Sometimes I feel like I’m almost at the point of understanding most of what I hear. The days when I feel like I don’t understand much at all are becoming fewer and fewer. But I still can’t express myself clearly.
Writing about his experience taking a French course in Paris, he says:
Understanding doesn’t mean that you can suddenly speak the language. Far from it. It’s a small step, nothing more, yet the rewards are intoxicating and deceptive. The teacher continued her diatribe and I settled back, bathing in the subtle beauty of each new curse and insult.
“You exhaust me with your foolishness and reward my efforts with nothing but pain, do you understand me?”
The world opened up, and it was with great joy that I responded, “I know the thing that you speak exact now. Talk me more, you, plus, please, plus.”
Me Talk Pretty One Day, page 173
