The duty to be happy
The duty to be happy (French: Propos sur le bonheur ) is by far the most famous book in the German-speaking world by the French philosopher Emile-Auguste Chartier , published under his pseudonym Alain . The collection of brief, pointed considerations on the subject of “lifestyle” dates from 1925. The first German translation came out in 1960.
title
The German title of the book goes back to a much-quoted remark by the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson : No duty is so neglected as the duty to be happy .
character
Guided by the conviction that no human being on earth has a worse enemy than himself, Alain plays out the contrast between negative and positive thinking in everyday incidents - as one would say today. His unshakable belief in free will helps him in the art of getting the best out of every situation. “If you want to get rich, you get rich.” All he has to do is take the necessary steps. Furthermore, the son of a veterinarian thinks big things about the physiological point of view: a cramped chest will make very few people confident. On the other hand, he puts a lot of emphasis on forms: “A naked person is unrestrained.” If Alain's considerations go far beyond the popular belief that everyone is their own blacksmith, then it is because of his pleasantly clear, simple, yet unusually sparkling language. It peels away insights and suggestions from every object it circles, like a rough diamond. Even this “waste” of splinters has the rank of aphorisms.
Quote
“A lover who no longer sleeps or a person whose ambition has been disappointed: what are they actually suffering from? This kind of suffering is entirely in the mind, although it might as well be said to be entirely in the body. The excitement that drives sleep away comes only from empty decisions that do not decide anything and, by acting back on the body, make it flounder like a carp on dry land. There is something violent about indecision. 'Stop it now; I will break with everything. ' But the thought immediately sees possibilities for reconciliation. You weigh the consequences of one step against those of the other without ever getting lost. The benefit of real action consists in the fact that the possibility, for which one has not decided on, is forgotten and, strictly speaking, no longer exists because action has changed everything. Just acting in thought, on the other hand, is nothing; everything remains as it was. There is an element of gambling in every deal; because you have to break off your deliberations before the subject is exhausted. "
effect
The first German edition of the book was published in 1960 by Karl Rauch Verlag in Düsseldorf . It was granted three editions by 1965. In 1975 the license went to Suhrkamp . In this publishing house, the book has had more than a dozen editions to this day.
For the first German edition, Der Spiegel wrote that in the years before and after the First World War, the author had been regarded as the columnist moral teacher of the French middle class, whose lifestyle had perished with the “Third Republic”. The remedies Alain used to deal with human adversity included yawning, dancing and gymnastics.
“More complicated social contexts do not fit these life teachings any more than wars and similar catastrophes that terrorize the century. The witty and polite book, translated by essay writer Albrecht Fabri ('Der Rote Faden') into concise German, comes in handy to do its part for the restoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. "
expenditure
Albrecht Fabri translated all currently available editions (2011) from French and wrote an afterword for them.
- Karl Rauch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1960 (EA)
- Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 2005, ISBN 978-3-518-06821-2 .
- Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / M. 2005, ISBN 3-518-01470-6 ( Library Suhrkamp ; 470).
- Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / M. 1982, ISBN 3-518-37359-5 (st; 859).