Fraud

Rating:
Summary: Not a Fraud
Review: When I read the negative reviews below I wondered whether we were talking about the same book. I love David Sedaris but I find his work to be most funny, most satisfying when read aloud by the author. David Rakoff on the other hand, is just as funny on paper as he is live. His affected style of writing and vocabulary are part of what makes him so funny: one more level on which he makes fun of himself. Perhaps the problem lies in the "If you like David Sedaris, you'll love David Rakoff" promo. They have very different styles. So much so, in fact, other than being a humorist, I'm unsure why some readers feel Rakoff is simply copying Sedaris' style. So don't buy this book thinking it will be more of the warped humor of Sedaris. Rakoff's stories speak much more to our everyday experiences and our insecurities. He should be read, and reread, on his own terms.

Rating:
Summary: Fraud? You Be The Judge.
Review: Similarities between David Sedaris and David Rakoff have been made. Other than they both being of the same gender, first name and association with This American Life, I am unaware of what the hullabaloo surrounding Fraud may be.
If you are looking for a hold over between Me Talk Pretty One Day and Sedaris's next work, The Book of Liz, you may potentially have a long wait. Liz has been pushed back to release date indefinite. Fraud may not be what you need as a hold over either.
Rakoff's effort can be daunting. One has to note that the author is either staggeringly smart or in love with his thesaurus. The book reads long and dry and exercises the vocabulary until one becomes frustratingly exhausted and must walk away.
There is no doubt the author is a gifted writer. As a humorist, however, a lot is lacking. I found myself audibly chuckling on page 207 of the 226 page work. May I also add this was the only true episode of laughter I had in the duration of this reading.
Don't count Rakoff out yet. The final essay of this fifteen entry book shone through with an enlightened warmth more suited to its author than the half-smarmy quips much of the book prior was peppered.
My advice you, the deciding reader, is this: Go with Fraud, only if you can borrow a copy from someone else and edify the selections as you go. If you feel like skipping a few'do. I'm sure whatever you miss will just be another jumble of globe-trotting and self-inflation on the author's behalf.
May I close in making a suggestion? Go back up to the top of the search page and look up Michael Thomas Ford. If Sedaris is unavailable, Ford will work nicely. Let Rakoff be, at least until paperback.

Rating:
Summary: Takes Self Deprecation to a New Level
Review: Fraud by David Rakoff is much like a cross between David Sedaris (Naked), Nick Hornby (High Fidelity) and Rikki Lee Travolta (My Fractured Life). The editorializing is pure Sedaris, but the wit of self-deprecation is on a level of brilliance with Travolta. Fraud is self-deprecating irreverence that hits the mark.

Rating:
Summary: David Rakoff is not David Sedaris. That's not a problem.
Review: Other reviewers have invariably used David Sedaris as the benchmark to measure David Rakoff against. The two do, after all, share some qualities--they're both radio contributors to This American Life, they're both gay, and, most importantly, they're both wonderful writers.

The comparison between the two Davids is appropriate, but only to a point. Sedaris's genius stems from his ability to make you see things from his warped perspective. Rakoff isn't quite as eccentric, but he is just as observant, and his writing is always elegant, interesting, and often plain funny. My favorite parts of Fraud were a handful of travel essays--accounts of trips to Tokyo, Northern Scotland, and to New England for a Christmas Day mountain climb. I thought some of Rakoff's essays were better than others, but in the abridged audio version I listened to, there's not a weak one in the bunch.

For most people, I suspect, Rakoff is easier to identify with. When he tells you in a touching essay about his experiences as a 22-year-old cancer patient, you feel like you understand, even if you've never gone through such tragedy yourself. (As big a David Sedaris fan as I am, I simply can't relate to, say, his adolescent desire to sing commercial jingles in the style of Billie Holiday.)

So give Rakoff his due. Fraud is an interesting, literate collection of essays that deserves to be recognized in its own right--and not just as a book by that other gay This American Life contributor named David.

Rating:
Summary: Some 5Star Essays. Some 3Star Essays. 4star Book overall.
Review: Christmas Freud, in this collection, is about as pitch-perfect a humor essay as you'll ever find and close to being worth the price of the book alone. Thankfully, though, Rakoff's other pieces are all worth reading, if sometimes a little too "easy." After all, what sport is there in sending a witty NYorker into small-town anywhere to poke fun at its inhabitants? Fish-out-of-water is fish-out-of-water no matter if it's Crocodile Dundee in LA or David Rakoff in Inverness.

He comes closest to matching Christmas Freud in a dissection of a small role on a soap opera, his jottings on Austrian graduates teaching in an inner-city school, a weird little piece on life in a kibbutz, and an elusive piece on his "battle" with Hodgkins.

Rating:
Summary: Barely Legible
Review: Comparisons to Sedaris are totally unwarranted with Rakoff's book "Fraud". With all of these comparisons floating around, I was expecting a good funny read. What I got was a guy who can't stand the thought that the reader might forget that he is a gay Canadian Jew. After managing to make it halfway through the book I was very tempted to give up, but I decided to keep on, and finally I was rewarded with a couple of really good essays towards the end of the book. But nothing worth writing home about or plunking down your hard-earned dough for. I really like what one reviewer said....that Rakoff is either incredibly intelligent or just in love with his thesaurus. I personally think he is both. His intelligence is clearly there, but he likes to hide it in a maze of needlessly complicated prose and obscure references that only a gay Canadian Jew would understand. See? I've only mentioned it twice and it's already annoying! If you're looking for a challenging read that offers little in the way of a reward, then this book is for you. If you're looking for even a little bit of humor, then it's not. Personally, I was glad when it was over.

Rating:
Summary: Humour with a lesson
Review: Bear with me while I start a review of David Rakoff by talking about David Sedaris. It's relevant. When I first read David Sedaris, I got the impression that I had inadvertently picked up a toned-down true-life confessional instead of a humour book; having been raised on Dave Barry, it was hard for me to accept that this sort of low-key subtlety could be funny, and I confess I was disappointed. After a little time had passed and I had got the idea that Sedaris wasn't going to make me topple from my chair with laughter, I read a few of his essays again with an eye for the quieter humour, and I liked it much more.

Now to David Rakoff. The connexion is not a tenuous one; there's a somewhat ambiguous quote from David Sedaris on the front cover, and we're clearly meant to buy the writings of one because we enjoy the work of the other. (The quote says David Rakoff ``passes himself off'' as a funnyman, which I think is meant to be in keeping with the theme but comes off as a bit of a backhanded compliment.) Indeed, as many of the other reviewers here seem to have pointed out already, there's also a strong stylistic similarity, and it takes a similar eye for low-key rather than guffawing knee-slapping humour to appreciate it. The only problem is that Rakoff seems to want to drive home to us that, underneath this veneer of unmoved cynicism, of hard-edged New Yorkerism, he's really a guy who Gets It. I was reminded inevitably of a sitcom in which the characters might bicker, but, in the end, they really love one another. Rakoff can be funny, even hilarious, in places, and he's a marvellously intelligent writer, but, if you want really to enjoy him, skim off the last paragraph of each entry when he shifts tones to dewy-eyed wonder to share with you The Lesson He's Learned (nature isn't that bad; credulous Loch Ness-types aren't that bad; martial arts mysticism isn't that bad).

The only time this wasn't objectionable was in the last essay, in reading which I really felt like I had shared in a slice of his life. Here, the lesson is not I Shouldn't be Intolerant but rather -- well, read it. It's a genuine lesson learned, not a pleased reflexion on how open-minded he really is, in the end; and it's welcome, and almost heartbreaking, this thoroughly genuine moment in a book so entrenchedly about sarcasm and fraud. --This text refers to the Paperback edition

Rating:
Summary: GREAT BOOK!
Review: this book was hilarious it had me laughing ... the whole time, it was also hilariously touching as well, if anyone can tell me what episode of This American Life the story In New Engladn Everyone Calls You Dave appears, i loved it and i would like to hear the show that it comes from since they have archives of the show on the this american life website, ...

Rating:
Summary: This one is NOT a keeper!
Review: I was very disappointed in this book. I was disappointed enough to return it immediately. I hate to be like everyone else and use David Sedaris as a benchmark but I believe that is the audience this author is trying to capture. There is no comparison. Call me an ... if you must but I don't know anyone who wouldn't have to use a dictionary when reading this book (OK, I know one person but a conversation with him would put you to sleep in minutes).

Rating:
Summary: Amusing, with caveats
Review: Rakoff is a very clever writer with a real talent for sharp and unexpected one-liners. He's particularly good at dropping the sly reference -- to anything from West Side Story to Baudelaire to any number of movies -- to make a point about just how absurd or sad or misguided some person or incident really is. What's frustrating about this book is that only about half the pieces show a real ability to use that skill to make some bigger point . Often the best pieces are shorter, personal ones, like a reminiscence about being an "assistant" whose boss gives him a card meant for a "secretary." (That's one that he did for This American Life, the public radio program.) Several of the book's longer pieces are travelogues, often written for slick magazines, and these tend to be much less successful. There's a piece about Tokyo that's way too earnest on the long road to no particular payoff, and one about a kind of survival camp that Rakoff seems to have enjoyed to a degree that's totally at odds with the ur-urbanite persona that he wears almost everywhere else in the book. A lot of people seem to want to compare Rakoff to David Sedaris, who also made his name by way of public radio. This is a tough comparison for Rakoff -- he can match Sedaris on witty asides, but doesn't approach the latter's narrative knack. He also goes out of his way to show empathy for his subjects to a degree that ends up bogging things down. On the other hand, we shouldn't want him to be Sedaris, because that's what Sedaris is for. Rakoff is a keen observer and can be quite funny, as some of these pieces show. What they also show is that there aren't quite enough good ones to make a fully satisfying book. Maybe if he'd waited another year? Anyway, it's a perfectly fine, fast, and fun read, but probably read in piece-sized bites rather than straight through.