Cohen Leonard - Hydra and the bananas of Leonard Cohen: a search for serenity in the sun: (a Greek parabola for us all)

N ancy Drew says I have written a story, and if Nancy Drew says I have written a story, then that must be what I have written. Nancy Drew has had at least one novel published, so she should know.

Steve Sanfield is a professional storyteller. He attends storytelling conventions. He gets paid to stand up and talk for hours about the time he drove 40,000 turtles across the Midwest, or the time he kept a pet ant and learned its language. I am not that kind of narrator. For a start, I seldom get paid.

My father was known as a raconteur. People used to come up to me and say: Your father is the finest raconteur I have ever heard. These people were usually businessmen. My father used to sell them advertising space over expense-account lunches. At home my mother and my father would sometimes invite people to dinner. Often lively conversations would develop. The meaning of life would seem to be only just around the corner when my father would suddenly and loudly cut in, saying: Now, that reminds me of a story. He would then hold the floor for the next fifteen minutes or so, very often with a story that had been told to him by somebody else over one of his business lunches. As I cringed inwardly, I vowed that I would never become that kind of raconteur.

I once worked for ten years for the Ministry of Defence. After I left, I tried to write a novel based on my experiences. I wasnt happy with it. Life is so extraordinary that I can never see the point of inventing characters and situations that have never existed, or of pretending that real people and events are really fictional. Crazy. Being a moderately law-abiding person, I dutifully sent the first hundred pages or so to my former employers, seeking their imprimatur. I was honestly relieved when their reply came, saying: We wish you well writing on another subject. I dont believe I had infringed the Official Secrets Act. But I believe that They could not forgive me for betraying a different kind of secret namely, that what goes on inside the Ministry of Defence is Not Serious. Be that as it may, it was clear that I was not that kind of tale-spinner either.

I write poetry and verse, notebooks and discourses. Never have I set out to write a story. Nevertheless, people have attempted to film my notebooks, while others have said: I liked your story after reading or hearing one of my poems. All I intended to do this time was to present a short poem of mine as an entertainment for my friends, on the occasion of my fifty-seventh birthday, in the small square that is a natural street-theater outside my favorite restaurant, the Pyrofani (in the area known as Kamini on the Greek island of Hydra), run (after a fashion) by my dear friend Theo, who must be unique among great restaurateurs in that his highly deserved reputation does not rest on his cooking abilities.

The poem was to be a throwaway piece summarizing my life (a tad cryptically) since I had come to the island as an English teacher four years previously. I was becoming known and even tolerated as the bard of the Pyrofani. I produced verses for birthdays, for the opening and closing of the restaurant, for other occasions. There was no reason to suppose that this poem would be any less ephemeral. What happened? Or rather, what has happened and is continuing to happen?

When a few friends who had been present at the first rendition of Fun de Sicle (as I called my ditty, partly with reference to the end of an epoch in my own life, partly with a nod toward the approaching millennium, and partly to stress my own philosophy that humor is an essential ingredient of everything) requested photocopies of the text, I complied, but I thought it would be helpful to add half a dozen pages of notes.