When you’re an English major, much of your reading material is, unsurprisingly, rooted in the realm of fiction. It becomes habit day in and day out, reaching for prestigious names like Hemingway and Dickinson and Shakespeare because you think, “Ah, yes, this will make me look smart.” (The keyword there is “look.” I assure you I am no smarter than your average pig swindler.) But, eventually, you realize that there’s more out there, that sometimes you just want to read a book that doesn’t feel the need to wax poetic about booze and war and flowers that are awkward metaphors for sexuality.
So, I picked up a memoir.
I didn’t give it much thought other than a glance at the author’s name, which I vaguely recognized as some funny guy on Twitter who was in that movie "Wet Hot American Summer," and stuffed it into my Amazon cart, then checked-out. I think I drank some orange juice after that. I’m not sure.
Two days later, however, "Navel Gazing: True Tales of Bodies, Mostly Mine" (but also my mom’s, which I know sounds weird) by Michael Ian Black had arrived at my doorstep. After the ritualistic and totally normal smelling of the pages and dust jacket that all English majors are definitely required to engage in, I dug in.
Now, on Amazon’s website, this book that we shall simply abbreviate to "Navel Gazing," is listed under categories such as “Mid-Life” and “Self-Help” and “Aging.” Being a relatively healthy 21-year-old woman, I wasn’t expecting much of a connection. Maybe a chuckle here or there, a new perspective on the middle-aged man.
I can tell you in confidence that I was crying by the end of the book and felt the need to call my mother to tell her I love her even though she was standing, approximately, fifteen feet from me. She also asked me why I was crying, which only prompted another deluge of emotions to pour down like ash from a freshly erupted Mount Vesuvius.
Beginning with a snappy introduction titled, “‘Oh sh*t,’ you may think, ‘I am going to die,’” author Michael Ian Black sets the stage for what will be a recurring theme throughout the book. Pulling from the real world experience of his mother’s tenuous and declining health, he then begins a graceful description of an expectedly none-too-graceful reevaluation of his own health and mortality.
By utilizing the format of a collection of short personal essays, he creates a narrative that is not direct in its approach, often dipping into what appear to be tangents, but ends with a very solid message. Through these tangents he pulls similar thematic elements together into his arms, giving insightful glimpses into them to the reader, then, like a literary magician, creates something entirely new and wonderful. His writing scrapes away at his well-known comedically caustic persona, and reveals something softer, something vulnerable. To quote a review of "Navel Gazing" by New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jacobs, “‘It’s true: Michael Ian Black has emotions!’”
Black’s ability to combine comedy and heartfelt passages should not be overlooked, either. Often writers struggle to strike such a seemingly effortless balance, but Black stretches his linguistic wit when he goes from a lovely description of what it feels like after working out at a gym (“I’m dying,’ I thought. ‘I am dying from a brain aneurysm on 22nd Street between Park and Lex. I am dying on a street that doesn’t even have a decent coffee shop.’”) to reflections on a less-than-ideal childhood (“I never felt unloved. I took being loved for granted, and I think any success I have in my life is at least partly attributable to that simple statement.”)
After I finished the book and pulled myself together, I was left with something else that perhaps hadn’t been intended: a sense of connection. Though I’m still a 21-year-old woman (and I’d like to add that I still hesitate when writing “woman” because in my eyes, I am still nothing more than a confused child with more responsibilities), I felt the universality of Black’s messages regarding both mortality and morality, and how they’re often intertwined. Life is full of failures, that’s just part of being human, and the real lessons in life are found through cracking those failures open to see what’s inside — even if it means dealing with things like regret, fear, and shame.
Packed with what some may call embarrassingly honest stories about “[saving] a stupid human life!” to eating a penis cake at his lesbian mother’s fortieth birthday, to starting a punk band in high school that destroyed his hearing, Michael Ian Black shows that, well, we’re all full of embarrassingly honest stories, and there’s immense strength to be found in sharing them.
