Without a doubt, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim has
got to be one of the strangest book titles I’ve ever come across, simply
because it is so difficult to determine what the book itself will be
about. I didn’t try to analyze the title
too much before opening the book; I like that aura of mystery that most titles tend
to emit. The only thing I could really
guess was that Sedaris would talk about his family, but even that I was unsure about. Don’t even try to decipher Sedaris’ mind. It’s
a lost cause, as far as I can tell, and it takes the fun out of reading his
books.
I was told by someone who
has read almost all of Sedaris’ books that reader always learns the meaning behind
the title, no matter how strange it is. As it turns out, I was blatantly lied
to, for Sedaris never tells a story in which people are dressed in corduroy and
denim, even in the form of some odd metaphor. The only parts that were even partially
relevant to the title were minuscule and forgettable. For example, Sedaris uses his essay “The
Change in Me” to talk about his dramatic wardrobe change in middle school,
which gave him an excuse to buy a pair of “blue corduroy hip-huggers.” Another
essay titled “A Can of Worms,” a customer sitting next to Sedaris at a dinner
in California is described to be wearing a pair of corduroy pants. It is possible that the only I reason I managed
to pick out these minor details was because I like word “corduroy.”
Nevertheless, these are the only literary links that I found to have any kind of
relevance to the title, besides the frequent discussion of family.
Naturally, I used
my good ol’ pal known as “The Internet” to solve the mystery behind the title Dress Your Family in Corduroy and
Denim. According to the book's Wikipedia page, Sedaris explained the title to a group of fans at a public
appearance in Cleveland, Ohio. He explained
that he had been on a deadline when it came to titling the book, so he used the
title of a book that his partner, Hugh, had a dream about about. The title of the book in Hugh’s dream had
been in French, but it was nothing less than original. So there we have it; my patient reading in
anticipation to learn the meaning behind the title of this book has all been in
vain, and could have been answered in the beginning with a simple Google
search. But I guess that’s life, isn't it?
(Question Answered: What is the significance of the title? What can we conclude from the title before opening the text? What do we learn about the title as we read?)
I love this post. I was trying to decide which question to answer this afternoon and the title question was in the running. As I read the book I had trouble finding what the significance of the title was, and I became concerned that I was missing out on a huge part of the book. Naturally I Googled it. When I discovered what you write about in the last paragraph I gave up and wrote about another question entirely. What you've done here is excellent. I love how you creatively search for a meaning and even with the news you find in the end you still have a pretty excellent blog post. Way to go.
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