The Laugher Part I
The Laugher is a wonderful short story by Heinrich Böll (Translated by Leila Vennewitz) (I located this version here - with some changes - though I am not sure that this is a complete translation.)
For a variety of reasons, I think this an incredibly poignant narrative about, among many other things, some people in the field of Chinuch.
When someone asks me what business I am in, I am seized with embarrassment: I blush and stammer, I who am otherwise known as a man of poise. I envy people who can say: I am a bricklayer. I envy barbers, bookkeepers, and writers the simplicity of their avowal, for all these professions speak for themselves and need no lengthy explanation, while I am forced to reply to such questions: I am a laugher. An admission of this kind demands another, since I have to answer the second question: "Is that how you make your living?" truthfully with, "Yes." I actually do make a living at my laughing, and a good one, too for my laughing is - commercially speaking - much in demand. I am a good laugher, experienced, no one else laughs as well as I do, no one else has such command of the fine points of my art. For a long time, in order to avoid tiresome explanations, I called myself an actor, but my talents in the field of mime and elocution are so meager that I felt this designation to be too far from the truth. I love the truth, and the truth is: I am a laugher. I am neither a clown nor a comedian. I do not make people gay, I portray gaiety: I laugh like a Roman emperor, or like a sensitive schoolboy. I am as much at home in the laughter of the 17th century as in that of the 19th and, when occasion demands, I laugh my way through all the centuries, all classes of society, all categories of age: It is simply a skill which I have acquired, like the skill of being able to repair shoes. In my breast, I harbor the laughter of America, the laughter of Africa, white, red, yellow laughter - and for the right fee, I let it peal out in accordance with the director's requirements.
continued.....
For a variety of reasons, I think this an incredibly poignant narrative about, among many other things, some people in the field of Chinuch.
When someone asks me what business I am in, I am seized with embarrassment: I blush and stammer, I who am otherwise known as a man of poise. I envy people who can say: I am a bricklayer. I envy barbers, bookkeepers, and writers the simplicity of their avowal, for all these professions speak for themselves and need no lengthy explanation, while I am forced to reply to such questions: I am a laugher. An admission of this kind demands another, since I have to answer the second question: "Is that how you make your living?" truthfully with, "Yes." I actually do make a living at my laughing, and a good one, too for my laughing is - commercially speaking - much in demand. I am a good laugher, experienced, no one else laughs as well as I do, no one else has such command of the fine points of my art. For a long time, in order to avoid tiresome explanations, I called myself an actor, but my talents in the field of mime and elocution are so meager that I felt this designation to be too far from the truth. I love the truth, and the truth is: I am a laugher. I am neither a clown nor a comedian. I do not make people gay, I portray gaiety: I laugh like a Roman emperor, or like a sensitive schoolboy. I am as much at home in the laughter of the 17th century as in that of the 19th and, when occasion demands, I laugh my way through all the centuries, all classes of society, all categories of age: It is simply a skill which I have acquired, like the skill of being able to repair shoes. In my breast, I harbor the laughter of America, the laughter of Africa, white, red, yellow laughter - and for the right fee, I let it peal out in accordance with the director's requirements.
continued.....
posted by T.Y.I.I. at
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
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