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In french class, we had to write a little story based off a poem by Prévert, "Le Cancre." What is the dunce's name? What is the name of the schoolmaster? Why is he a dunce and what was the teacher's reaction to his sudden action? These are the questions asked in the assignment, and this is the story that answers them.
The poem is here: http://membres.lycos.fr/artistiqueweb/poeme22.htm
The english translation is here: http://www.artofeurope.com/prevert/pre6.htm
Here is my story, with translation below:
Le nom du cancre était Jacque et c'était le nom du maître aussi. Le cancre avait seulement une moitié d'un cerveau, la moitié droite. Pour cette raison il ne pouvait ni parler ni écrire, mais à la place il communiquait par le dessin.
Un Jour, il devenait irrité avec la tyrannie du monde du cerveau gauche. Son état ne l'avait jamais empêché de l'action symbolique. Il a effacé tout les écritures du professeur comme protestes. Pour les remplacer, il a dessiné le symbol du cerveau droit, un griffonnage uninterpretable du bonheur.
Mais, sans savoir, cet acte a incité les autres étudiants à la violence. On ecoutait leurs cris : ‹‹ L'école est une prison ! ›› Le maître est tombé ; les enfants prodiges l'ont entouré. Le jour suivant, les gendarmes ont arrêté le cancre responsable du decontruction mortel du professeur par la foule enthousiaste.
---
The name of the dunce was Jacque and this was the master's name also. The dunce had only half a brain, the right half. For this reason he could neither talk nor write, but instead he communicated through drawings.
One day, he became irritated with the tyranny of the left-brained world. His state had never prevented him from symbolic action. He erased all the writings of the teacher as a protest. To replace them, he drew the symbol of the right brain, an uninterpretable scrawl of happiness.
But, without knowing it, this action incited the others to violence. They cried out, "The school is a prison!" The master fell; the prodigal children surrounded him. The following day, the police arrested the dunce responsible for the fatal deconstruction of the teacher by the enthusiastic mob.
>>2
I suppose you did a good job for class, but it was unentertaining to read as a creative assignment. You translated the poem into fiction well, but it seems like just that. An interesting translation. If this were to be fleshed out into an actual story with character names and some real tension, one might find themselves actually investing in it. Good luck in the future, and I hope you get a good grade.
Here, to be fair, I won't give 10 whole minutes of material, but some poems I had to finish recently for a class:
________________________________________
Red Marrow’s Beginning
“Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.”
I remember my first day on a ship,
my legs like my brother’s bodhrans,
beating out her measure.
I worked hard aside the crew,
my mouth dry like it longed home,
air’s salt keeping my tongue sticky.
By lunch, my hands were likely to bleed,
unfamiliar calluses swimming up my fingers,
but knots tied tight reassured my worth.
I feared falling off firm rigging,
too excited by horizon’s potential to pay
attention to my hands’ attempts to lead me up.
Dinner called my nose downward,
into the womb of Whore’s Necklace, diving into
mugs of fresh water, and the bite of orange.
Though limp from a long day above,
I could not sway my mind away from the crew’s
stories that one day I might tell.
My back protested the rough hemp swing,
but quieted as I kept my mother’s lullaby strung
throughout the cabin; the other men’s breath slowed.
_______________________________________________________
Upon Learning that Another Homecoming Will be Spent in Defeat
or
Cavalier– 21 ; Pirates– 2
CLANG
and another one goes down,
dented and gaping
in the Williamson’s driveway.
The metal numbs my hands through
my fingerless gloves,
and my nose feels gone, hacked off
by the cold wind.
But I won’t come back in the truck,
hanging out for all the woods to see,
my pigtails whip into my face,
my brother, behind the wheel, hollers at me -
but the words don’t reach my ears as my bat
wreaks vengeance for a game sorely lost,
another Cavalier mailbox (a Johnson this time)
eats aluminum.
_____________________________________________________
A Child’s Game
Duck
You sit in a circle
The rhythm of words
Punctuated
Only by the
Space
Between children.
Duck
Fear of
Exclusion
Grows at each revolution,
As her hand
Pats and passes
You by.
Goose
Then, as she
Hits
Harder than before,
Yelling the magic word -
You give chase,
Your hand outstretched,
Waiting for a
Touch.
_____________________________________________
Enjoy!
By popular request:
BLOG BLOG LOL
So today I finally tried out the laundry room in the new appartment building. It was pretty exciting! There's a really big washing machine, the side-loading kind with a window that I've never really used before. I didn't try sitting next to it and staring into it though.
It's red. Also, it's coin-operated, and wants 7 20-cent coins to work, which was a bit of a problem since I wasn't prepared for it but I did manage to gather together the seven coins I needed for it, and it's churning away as we speak.
It's not all that fast, so that's why I came back up to the appartment to post this. There's also a big drying room, with some sort of circulating fan. I'm going to have to try out that too, to see if it'll really dry the clothes quickly enough.
Actually, I've got a couple of shirts hanging in there which I washed by hand because they didn't fit in the washing machine, and I didn't have enough coins to do two runs. Not that I know the first thing about how to properly hand-wash clothes, but how wrong could that go, anyway? I'm not too worried.
>>4
I think the middle poem of yours is the most mature. Its subject matter is not as melodramatic, and it's about smashing mailboxes so of course I like it already.
A Death to All Neta
I call for a death to all neta, for the benefit of the world at large, and you yourself in particular.
I borrow the term "neta" from the Japanese. Neta can be a story, a photograph, or a concept. Uniting all neta, though, are their worthlessness. If you have finished reading a story and can say, "This story will not affect anything I do now or in the future," then you have absorbed neta. Many well-read blogs such as Boing Boing focus themselves on neta. A focus on some humorous topic, such as monkeys, robots, zombies, or pirates, also has its roots in neta. But neta need not be funny; as long as they are of no use to you, even if they are the most solemn piece of unimaginative fiction, they fall into this category.
What chocolate does to the innards, neta does to the brain. While you enjoy them, neta make you happy; once you are finished, though, you find that an interval has elapsed, and your organs have been bloated with the excess load. If the most valuable thing you can do with your time is catch these tiny, temporary bursts of happiness, only to watch them flutter away, then there is no further reason to live. You know this is not true; so, neta must be disposed of.
Ridding yourself of neta is not something that can happen instantly. Like chocolate, neta is addictive; it calls out to you from its position on the highest shelf in the kitchen. But if you can recognize something to be neta, you can learn to distance yourself from it before you are absorbed.
Reader, your time on this planet is short. You have been placed here in a body of goodly manufacture, the envy of all the lower creatures, and yet I see you sitting still, not knowing what to do. There exist ancient temples towering above the sea of neta, populated by dead and living men who claim to offer you this knowledge if you can acquire the will and effort to approach them. The difference they have from neta is that some of their stories are true.