누웠더니 불난 침대

Abstract

This paper is a translation of the book It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It by Robert Fulghum. This translation is intended for the Korean readers who have been waiting for this particular bestseller to be translated into their language. This volume picks up where the writer left off in his debut book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. In this collection of essays, the writer continues to tell with wit and humor about the lessons he learned from observations and remind us of simple things that truly matter the most. One of the recurrent themes of the book is comedy. Readers laugh at the heros and heroins while reading the insightful anecdotes in the comfort of knowing that it is someone else who is in "comic despair"—but not without some "painful self-recognition." We know that we all are the irrational Medea as depicted by the ancient Greek dramatist Euripides. Reading the stories, readers cannot help but ask themselves these questions: Why did he lie down on the burning bed? Why was she sitting on her own ticket that would get her up and moving? And why do we look for a drink while standing knee-deep in a flowing stream? This is a dilemma that we all live with. "Psychiatrists make a lot of money off this dilemma, and theologians make a lot of noise. But not only is it unresolved, it is unresolvable," says the author. And he advises us to lay claim to the bed we choose as our own and get on with it; to suspend our judgement more often; to forgive others and ourselves; and to free ourselves from whatever is bothering with laughter. Such laughter is what the writer calls "unquenchable laughter." As long as the readers keep up the laughter, the comedy becomes a happy ending. And so do their lives.