FRIGYES KARINTHY
[biography] - [quotes] - [publications]

 

- 1912 Esik a hó (et. Snow Falling) his first volume was renowned for itsnaturalism.
- 1912 Így írtok ti (et. That's How YOU Write) Literary parodies. With this volume Karinthy reformed the genre of satire; he deeply influenced Budapest humour, some of his lines became proverbial. "Although this book is more than seventy years old, it has remained devilishly entertaining, and it also manages to be a penetrating critical study; indeed, it is the best stylistic analysis of the entire Nyugat generation. Instead of making its points in pompous academic jargon, it reflects the rich folklore of the city of Budapest, replete with puns, nonsense words, and all the associations that can only come from truly knowing a field from within. Countless anecdotes are still being told today, recounting the verbal wit that was fired across the marble tables of the famous Café New York in Budapest where Karinthy and Kosztolányi used to meet, regularly surrounded by colleagues and younger admirers." (László Cs. Szabó)
- 1915 Utazás Faremidóba (et. A Travel to Fremido), a fictitious travelogue in the satiric style of Swift, emphasizing Karinthy's pacifism. The novel reveals Karinthy's longing for a less irrational world - Gulliver here is rescued from the battlefields of the First World War and is transported to the unknown land, Faremido. "Instead of the bloody and ulcerous concoction of organic life [Karinthy creates] a fuller life of sizzling electricity, of machine-men made of steel... whose speech is music, and whose brain is the mixture of quicksilver and minerals." (Dezső Kosztolányi)
- 1916 Tanár úr, kérem (et. 1916 Please, sir!) A novel; an extremely humorous account of a schoolboy's life, it is a perennial favorite in Hungary.
- 1918 A bűvös szék (et. The Magic Chair) A play.
- 1921 Capillária (et. Capillaria) Novel; a sequel to Utazás Faremidóba. Conveying the writings of Swift and H. G. Wells, it is a science-fiction novel on Capillária, a land populated exclusively by females; a satiric account on the "sexual contract" between man and woman.
- 1930 Nem mondhatom el senkinek (et. I Cannot Tell It to Anyone) Poems. "In his serious poetry, Karinthy, the great humorist, confessed the torments of a Rigoletto-like clown, in total nakedness and with no self-pity." (László Cs. Szabó)
- 1937 Mennyei riport (et. Heavenly Interview) a satire on the "netherworld".
- 1937 Utazás a koponyám körül (et. 1939 A Journey Round My Skull) A documentary novel. In 1936 Karinthy endured brain surgery under local anesthetics; the novel is a record of his illness and treatment by professor Olivecrona. His undefeatable humor shows in his handling of his own life-and death struggle (the cause of his death one year later): "[I] went from humorist to tumorist" he said. "Behind the walls of my skull something was happening. What it was I knew less than anyone. Even the others could do no more than guess. Those walls enclosed a soft, rubber-like mass the convulsions and yellowish-white color of which are so strikingly similar to the kernel of a walnut as almost to convey a warning. At one particular point in this mass a process of some kind was beginning. For the moment it was impossible to say where it started." (An excerpt from the book, translated by Vernon Duckwoth Barker)
- 1938 Üzenet a palackban (et. Message in a Bottle) His last book of poems; he did not live to see its publication.

 

 

FOREIGN LANGUAGE PUBLICATIONS

Grave and Gay. Selections from his work.
Sel. and tr. by István Kerékgyártó.
Budapest: Corvina, 1973.

Utazás a koponyám körül
A Journey Round my Skull. Tr. by Vernon Duckworth Barker,
London: Faber & Faber, 1939.
Budapest: Corvina, 1992.
Milan: Ed. Corbaccio, 1937.
Stockholm: Höherbergs, 1939.
Barcelona: Angos, 1942.
Bucharest: Lit. Univ, 1964.
Prague: Odeon, 1981.
Berlin: Union Verl, 1985.
La Habana: Arte y Literatura, 1987.
Paris: Hamy, 1990.

Tanár úr kérem!
Please, Sir! Tr. by István Farkas.
Budapest: Corvina, 1968.
Berlin-Leipzig: Vogel, 1925.
Warsaw: Nasza Kriegaia, 1959.
Prague: Ceskoslov. spisovatel, 1959.
Tel Aviv: Éked, 1960.
Tallin: Ajalehtede Ajakinjade Kinjasten, 1960.
Bucharest: Ed. Tineretului, 1961.
Novi Sad: Forum, 1965.
Ozoir-La-Ferriére: In fine, 1992.

Utazás Faremidóba - Capillária
Prague: Krasna Literatura, 1960.
Berlin: Das Neue Berlin, 1983, 1989.
Paris: La Différence, 1976, 1990.

Kötéltánc
Paris: Quintet de France, 1985.

Short stories
Soliloquies in the Bath. Short stories. Tr. by Lawrence Wolfe, London-Edinburgh:
Hodge and Co., 1937.
Warsaw: Centratua Poradnia Amator. K., 1985.

A cirkusz
Berlin: Reurs-Pollack, 1913.
Prague: Odeon, 1975; Dilic, 1959.
Brussels: Van Belberghe, 1995.

Feljelentem az emberiséget
Paris: Hamy, 1996.

Humorous sketches:
Vienna-Leipzig: A. Höger, 1937.
Warsaw: skry, 1959.
Berlin: Welt Union, 1960.
Berlin: Rutten und Leipzig, 1972.
Bucharest: Albatros, 1972.

A bűvös szék, komédia
Barcelona, 1965.

 

 

[biography] - [quotes] - [publications]

 

 

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