I am delighted to welcome Fran Hill to my blog today. She has just released her second book, Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean?, a memoir filled with comedy – but also tragedy. Here she explores the relationship between the two…
The actor Peter Ustinov said: ‘Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.’ He won Grammys, Tonys, Baftas, Emmys and Golden Globes, so I’ll take his word for it.
Despite what he says, we’re still tempted to create false dichotomies. For instance, we categorise comic and serious fiction in separate generic boxes, confidently labelling novels ‘rom-coms’ or ‘domestic noir’, or perhaps that’s for the convenience of booksellers.
But Ustinov is right, surely. Comedy is rarely just ‘funny’, free from underlying, serious themes. Think Bridget Jones, Adrian Mole or the fool in a Shakespearean play. Whether commenting on loneliness, teenage angst or the foolishness and vice of monarchs and nobles, each uses comedy, making us laugh while simultaneously plugging in to universal issues of humanity.
The Bible isn’t afraid to mix funny and serious either. How about Balaam’s donkey having better angel-vision than Balaam did and then backchatting his sulky master? Then there’s Jonah, trapped inside a giant fish (vowing never to eat spare ribs again). And Jesus’ own parables were filled with ironic humour and implication, sometimes lost on his listeners.
However, my favourite Bible story (Acts 20) is of Eutychus. A young man, he falls out of a third-floor window from the windowsill on which he’s perched, having nodded off during a long sermon of the apostle Paul’s.
Imagine the scene: everyone listening to Paul, the respected man of God. Their faces are serious, intent on learning from the great man. Suddenly, Eutychus disappears, there is a thud and everyone waits for a scream. They rush downstairs to find him dead on the path outside the house.
Paul could have said: ‘He found my sermon boring. Someone else resurrect him!’ but instead he graciously throws himself on the boy who is instantly revived.
This is a funny story but it speaks compassionately of average people, trying to do the right thing, and not always managing to keep up or cope: normal folks, not able to meet society’s expectations. That’s all of us at some point. Just like Eutychus, we can’t maintain interest or momentum. Sometimes it’s just too much because we’re tired of life: its worries, griefs, addictions, illnesses or pains. In the same way as Eutychus struggled to keep his eyes open, we too struggle to stay focused, despite it all.
The story also speaks of a world in which dead things can be brought back to life. Paul makes it look easy, in fact. After he resurrects the youth, he trudges back upstairs to finish his sermon. Eutychus doesn’t get taken home until afterwards, so, where did he sit for Part 2, I wonder? Also, we’re told ‘they took the young man home alive’ as if this was a bonus event, rather than what they’d have expected! Or maybe it suggests that he’d made a habit of this and had been resurrected 17 times before. ‘Honestly, Eutychus!! Again?’
I wrote a little poem in his honour:
I’m comforted by Eutychus
to find that he is one of us.
Asleep, he falls without a push
when Paul the preacher will not shush.
This poem’s an ode to him because,
though dead and gone, that Eutychus
gets resurrected with no fuss.
I think that makes him Euty-plus.
Erma Bombeck, the American humorist, said: ‘There is a thin line that separates laughter from pain, comedy and tragedy, humour and hurt.’ And, of course, there’s a tenuous distinction between laughter and tears; they both make us feel better, releasing tension-relieving hormones.
Two Radio 4 comedies I’ve enjoyed have been set in depressing situations. One called ‘Rigor Mortis’ is set in a hospital’s pathology department and another – ‘Old Harry’s Game’ – in hell. Somehow the more sombre the setting, the sharper the comedy. And as Dr Adam Kay’s recent book, This is Going to Hurt demonstrates, many whose professions involve tragedy speak of black humour as a vital coping mechanism even amidst horror.
Teaching can’t be compared to pathology or emergency gynaecology – relief! – but my new book, Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean? also combines comedy and tragedy. It’s a funny memoir in diary format about a typical year in my teaching life and portrays comic classroom moments and the hapless attempts of the protagonist (me!) to keep control of her days as they slip out of her grasp. But it also explores the misbehaviours of both pupils and teachers, including my own, examining why people misbehave, are cruel to others or lack empathy. Sometimes this is linked to past trauma that affects our relationships, perhaps making it hard for us to accept the kindness of others, even though that kindness is vital to survival.
To go back to Ustinov, Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean? is my attempt to say something serious by being funny.
Hopefully, no one will fall out of a window at any of my readings.
Fran Hill is a writer and English tutor living in Warwickshire with her husband. She has three grown-up children and two grandchildren. Her first book Being Miss was self-published in 2014. Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean? is her second. Fran has been a freelance writer for over 20 years, contributing to a wide range of publications, both faith-based and secular. Read more at www.franhill.co.uk