Lunch Break[1]
Wolf Wondratschek[2]
Translated by xia23
She sits in a sidewalk café. Immediately she crosses her legs. She doesn’t have much time. She turns pages in a fashion magazine. The parents know that she is pretty. They don’t like to see that.
As an example, she has friends. Nevertheless she doesn’t say that is her best friend, when she introduces a boyfriend at home.
For example, men laugh and look over, imagining her face without sunglasses.
The sidewalk café is crowded. She knows what she wants. There is also a young girl with her legs sitting on the next table.
She hates lipsticks. She is ordering a cup of coffee. Sometimes she thinks about movies and thinks about romantic movies. Everyone has to leave quickly.
On Fridays there is enough time to order a glass of cognac with coffee. But on Fridays there are always rains.
It is easy not to blush with a pair of sunglasses, it would be even easier not to flush with cigarettes. She regrets that she can’t smoke.
The lunch break is a plaything. If no one comes and talks to her, she would imagine, as if she was talking to a man, she was laughing and she was giving an evasive answer. She would probably say that the chair next to her was being taken. Yesterday someone talked to her. Yesterday the chair was free. Yesterday she was happy because in the lunch break everything happened so fast.
At the dinner the parents talk about how they were once young too. The father says he means good only. The mother even says she actually would have some fear. She answers, the lunch break is not dangerous.
In the meantime, she has learned not to make her mind up. She is a young girl just like other young girls. She answers a question with a question.
Even though she regularly sits in the street café, the lunch break is more strenuous than writing letters. She is watched from all sides. She immediately feels that she has hands.
The skirt is not to be missed. The main thing is that she is punctual. In the street café, there are no drunks. She plays with her purse. Now, she doesn’t buy a newspaper.
It is fine that a catastrophe can happen at every lunch break. She could be very late. She could fall very much in love. If no waiter or waitress comes, she goes in and pays her coffee at the counter.
At the typewriter, she has lots of time to think about catastrophe. Catastrophe is her favorite word. Without a favorite word the lunch break is boring.
[1]. Mittagpause, p. 51-53. V. H. Vail & K. Sparks, Der Weg zum Lesen, 3rd ed., Harcourt Brace Publishers, Fort Worth, Tokyo, 1986.
[2]. Wolf Wondratschek
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Wondratschek#Selected_filmography
Wolf Wondratschek (German pronunciation: [?v?lf ?v?nd?at???k] ?; born August 14, 1943) is a German author. He was born in Rudolstadt in Thuringia.
Life[edit]
Wondratschek grew up in Karlsruhe. From 1962 through 1967, he studied literature, philosophy and sociology at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, Georg-August University of Göttingen, and the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main. In 1968, Wolf won the prestigious Leonce and Lena Prize for poetry given by the city of Darmstadt.[1] The next year, Wolf's first book, Früher begann der Tag mit einer Schußwunde, came out to critical acclaim;[2] the short stories which included his famous piece, Mittagspause. During 1970 and 1971, Wolf was a Research Fellow at the University of Warwick.[3] In 1970, he won the Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden for his radio play Paul oder die Zerstörung (Paul or the Destruction).[4] He continued to publish both poetry and prose during the 1980s, when he took an extended vacation to the United States, and Mexico. Upon his return to Germany, Wondratschek settled into residences in Munich and Vienna, publishing not only poetry and prose, but also radio plays and screenplays. In 2012, Wolf was awarded the Literaturpreis der Wilhelm und Christine Hirschmann-Stiftung, a Bavarian literary prize.[5]
Work[edit]
Wondratschek was influenced mainly by writers from Gruppe 47, such as Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan. His work is characterized by its sparseness and usage of "colloquial language; his sentences are short and clear, grammatically reduced to a minimum."[6]
Selected filmography[edit]
· Violanta (1976)
References[edit]
1. ^ Spaeth, Becker (2013), Preisträger, Literarischer März, retrieved 7 April 2013
2. ^ Wondratschek, Wolf (1969). Früher begann der Tag mit einer Schußwunde (in German). Munich: Carl Hanser. ASIN B0000BU9DZ.
3. ^ Wondratschek, Wolf (1972). Omnibus (in German). Munich: Carl Hanser.
4. ^ Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden, Bund der Kriegsblinden Deutschlands e.V., 2012, retrieved 7 April 2013
5. ^ 20.000 Euro für den Dichter Wolf Wondratschek, Der Standard, 27 September 2011, retrieved 7 April 2013
6. ^ Moeller, Jack, ed. (1991). Wolf Wondratschek. Kaleidoskop. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
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