The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

In France, two young American students are studying abroad. Madame Raphael, their teacher, asks them to prepare a report about Rhinoceros, an absurdist 1959 play by Eugène Ionesco. The two girls—named Michelle and Gabrielle—are perplexed by the play, particularly the way in which the characters are turned into the titular animals. Michelle suggests that these rhinoceroses symbolize something, so they must decode this symbolism. Gabrielle suggests that the horns of the rhinoceroses might be phallic symbols, but Michelle cannot understand why the female characters would also change into rhinoceroses if this were true. The girls are pleased when Michelle decides that the rhinoceroses are simply for “comic effect.” They laugh with delight at figuring out the play.

The narrator thinks about laughter, citing a passage from Parole de femme by Annie Leclerc. The passage presents laughter as sensual, which the narrator suggests is a contrast to male expressions of sexuality. The narrator suggests that the violent, fleeting nature of male sexuality is contrasted with the gentle sensuality of female sexuality, with Leclerc valorizing the latter. Everything, according to Leclerc, is a sensual experience that can provide pleasure. Since laughter is such a pleasant experience, Leclerc suggests, people should not need a reason to laugh. This sentiment has been co-opted, the narrator notes, and turned into cliché. Michelle and Gabrielle laugh together as they prepare their oral report. They are sure that Madame Raphael will be impressed.

The narrator tells a story about his experiences in 1968 in Bohemia. He was ostracized, having lost his job and his friends. The only person who would speak to a dissident like him was a woman named R. She was willing to help the narrator, despite the threat of the secret police who wanted to “starve” dissidents. R. wrote for a magazine targeted at young people. The narrator needed a job, so R. offered him the position of horoscope writer under an anonymous byline. She said she would lie to her employers, claiming that the writer was actually a respected scientist with an interest in astrology and was too embarrassed to write under his real name. The narrator was not paid much, but the editor-in-chief was so impressed by his work that he offered the narrator a commission to write a personal horoscope. He insisted that the commission must remain private, however. The narrator was paid well, and he used information from R. about the editor’s flaws to create a personalized horoscope. The message of the horoscope was that the editor must change his life if he was to avoid a dark future. Later, R. reported that the horoscope was a success. The editor changed, but he also feared a dark future filled with “suffering.”

The narrator thinks about the nature of angels and devils. He challenges the idea of angels as benevolent soldiers of God, instead suggesting that their function is to protect God’s creations. The devil exists, the narrator says, to challenge these creations. The narrator views the world as a balance between these two forces. Laughter is on the side of the devils, he says, as laughter is caused by subversion. The first time an angel saw a devil laughing, the narrator says, the angel was confused. However, the angel deduced that laughter was contagious and—in some way—sacrilegious. The angel tried to stop the devil laughing by mimicking the laughter in a mocking tone. This mockery, the narrator says, is similar to the laughter of Gabrielle and Michelle. According to the narrator, the devil emerged victorious from the interaction with the angel because the idea of a laughing angel seemed so absurd as to make the devil laugh even more. Laughter, in its many forms, can be both diabolical and divine. Humans must determine which; this is seemingly a cosmic joke in and of itself.

The narrator discusses a photograph in which youthful protestors dance together in front of a line of soldiers. Their ring of dancing seems to unite them in innocence. The soldiers are predatory, joined together falsely, while the protestors are truly unified and joyful. This, the narrator says, is like an ancient form of magic. Madame Raphael seems to agree as she looks at the photograph. As she stares at the picture, she dreams of being accepted into this kind of group. She dreams of being accepted into any kind of group.

Michelle and Gabrielle read the play to one another. They discuss the play’s debate about whether a cat’s paws can be considered real. The theory eludes the girls, who decide that Ionesco must simply be using absurdity for “comic effect.” Delighting at their clever interpretation, they laugh again. Madame Raphael, walking in the street, seems to hear the girls’ manic laughter. She wonders whether someone is creating a magic ring of dancers. Once again, she notes, she has not been invited.

In 1948, the narrator recalls, he had his own experience of dancing in a ring. As the communists came to power, he joined his fellow students in celebrating whenever someone was hanged or the state proclaimed an anniversary. Since the narrator decided to criticize the communists, he “had to leave the ring dance” and was banned from the party (92). This saddened him, as he realized he would never be able to return to the circle. He felt as though he was free falling toward a terrible death. His human nature meant that he yearned to be back in the circle. One day, however, he witnessed an event. On the day after the historian Zavis Kalandra and the politician Milada Horakova were hanged as traitors, the narrator walked through the streets and saw people celebrating. Kalandra, the narrator explains, was associated with the poets André Breton and Paul Éluard. But Éluard refused to write in defense of Kalandra, as he was too involved in the theory of communism and the utopic vision of a communist future. He did not understand the bitter reality of life in communist Czechoslovakia. The narrator realized that he was closer to the men on the gallows than the people in the street. When he saw Éluard dancing and reciting poetry, he seemed to float up joyously into the sky. In the sky, he and his fellow dancers mixed with the smoke of the crematorium where Horakova and Kalandra were being burned. The dancers did not seem to notice. As he yearned to join the dancers, the narrator felt himself falling.

When the Soviet crackdown came, the narrator explains, he was in a vulnerable position. Writing his astrology column anonymously, he was considered an enemy of the state. R. warned him that his identity had been revealed and invited him to meet at a friend’s home to make a plan. When he arrived, however, the narrator found no one inside. Hearing a toilet flushing inside, he believed that R. was running to the bathroom so often because she was nervous. When he finally met with her, R. warned that the secret police questioned her. They asked her about the writer of the astrology column, and R. told them the truth, at which point she was warned not to collude with an enemy of the state. Once she signed a statement, she was freed, only to be fired from the magazine two days later. She could not find a job. The narrator assures her that he has the money from the editor’s commission, which the secret police do not know about. When R. laughed, the narrator was pleased that she could see the irony of the situation. They devised a plan to respond to future questions from the police, but she was often interrupted by her need to use the toilet.

Michelle and Gabrielle deliver their oral report on Rhinoceros. Standing before the rest of the class, they have made paper rhinoceros horns that they are now wearing. When they laugh, Madame Raphael laughs with them. The rest of the class watches with “a kind of embarrassed compassion” (101). Alone among them is a Jewish girl named Sarah. Previously, Sarah asked Michelle and Gabrielle to lend her their notes. They refused, and ever since, Sarah has sought revenge. As they deliver their report, Sarah walks to the front of the class and kicks each of the girls. The girls cry, but Madame Raphael—believing this to be part of the theatrical report—begins to laugh. Fearing that the teacher is laughing at them, Gabrielle and Michelle being to cry even harder. Thinking that their emotions are part of a dance—a dance that she is desperate to join—Madame Raphael begins to dance alongside them. As she forms a ring with the two girls, their tears turn to laughter.

The other students watch in “mute horror,” but the trio of dancers ignores them. The dancers lift off the ground, and the ceiling opens up above them, allowing them to float free. They ascend into the heavens, still laughing.

In someone else’s apartment, the narrator remembers, he met with R. He came to the realization that the people around him were always getting hurt, so he had decided to flee the country. Until this point, the narrator says, his relationship with R. was purely platonic. With R. having been tormented by the secret police, however, he found himself strangely aroused. He was overcome with “the wild desire to rape” her (105), having become obsessed with her hidden self. He sought to get to the essence of R. and believed that the only way to do so was through violence. The more she suffered, the deeper his obsession became. The thought of acting upon this urge horrified the narrator, however, so he decided to leave. However, the urge stays with him. The narrator reflects on this urge, wondering whether it involves a desire to catch R. before she fell from grace. He, too, feels as though he were falling away from the dance to a place where he would be tortured by the laughter of angels. The narrator likens himself to Sarah in his desire to rebel against the absurdity, only to be outdone.