Karinthy's First Fifty YearsAuthor(s): Vernon Duckworth BarkerSource: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 16, No. 48 (Apr., 1938), pp. 544-545Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4203417 .

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THE SLAVONIC REVIEW. THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

my braves, lift me on your axes and carry me to the Black Mountain; there I have loved, there will I also die. On Kedrovaty stand two pine trees, they are my little sisters; there stand two oaks and they are my brothers. Bury me there! "

They carried him on their axes to the Black Mountain. There he died and there he is buried: in the shadow of the wild rocks, on an unknown spot, in the midst of treasures which, if they were disclosed, would dazzle the world.

God loves Dovbus. And he glorified him even after his death. Not later, not earlier, but on the very day when, for the first

time in the year, the first sunbeam pierces the shadow of the rocks on his grave and touches his heart, the world awakes to Easter Sunday, the greatest Festival of all Christian souls.

KARINTHY'S FIRST FIFTY YEARS In the K6zponti Cafe in Budapest, a little apart from the main

stream of the city's traffic, sits a writer who will be fifty years old in June. His name-Frigyes (Frederic) Karinthy-would be familiar to the whole world had he written his remarkable books in English or French instead of Hungarian. His mother tongue has condemned him to a place also a little apart, where it is difficult to catch the ear of those passing along the highways of world intercourse. Europe's readers have been the poorer by a rare experience.

It was almost accident which turned Karinthy from scientific to literary ambitions. When very young, he achieved a reputation with a volume of brilliant parodies, This is How you Write (Igy Irtok Ti)-the first of a long series of comic books. A remarkable duality of talent has enabled him, side by side with these, to write works of profound philosophical seriousness. Though he is a born humorist, and though the comic history of mankind which he is planning may turn out brilliantly, the essence of his art is to be found in the more serious works. There was something simpler and more direct than mere talent in his early story A Meeting with a Young Man, in which he describes a conversation between Karinthy, the successful author, and a young man who turns out to be his forgotten self and who reproaches him with infidelity to the ambitions of youth. In his finest stories, Karinthy expresses his criticism of life from a point of view so original and striking that one can only apply to it the word genius. His theme may be the problem of sex, as in the wonderful Ballad of Silent Men (Ballada a Nema Ferfiakr6l),

my braves, lift me on your axes and carry me to the Black Mountain; there I have loved, there will I also die. On Kedrovaty stand two pine trees, they are my little sisters; there stand two oaks and they are my brothers. Bury me there! "

They carried him on their axes to the Black Mountain. There he died and there he is buried: in the shadow of the wild rocks, on an unknown spot, in the midst of treasures which, if they were disclosed, would dazzle the world.

God loves Dovbus. And he glorified him even after his death. Not later, not earlier, but on the very day when, for the first

time in the year, the first sunbeam pierces the shadow of the rocks on his grave and touches his heart, the world awakes to Easter Sunday, the greatest Festival of all Christian souls.

KARINTHY'S FIRST FIFTY YEARS In the K6zponti Cafe in Budapest, a little apart from the main

stream of the city's traffic, sits a writer who will be fifty years old in June. His name-Frigyes (Frederic) Karinthy-would be familiar to the whole world had he written his remarkable books in English or French instead of Hungarian. His mother tongue has condemned him to a place also a little apart, where it is difficult to catch the ear of those passing along the highways of world intercourse. Europe's readers have been the poorer by a rare experience.

It was almost accident which turned Karinthy from scientific to literary ambitions. When very young, he achieved a reputation with a volume of brilliant parodies, This is How you Write (Igy Irtok Ti)-the first of a long series of comic books. A remarkable duality of talent has enabled him, side by side with these, to write works of profound philosophical seriousness. Though he is a born humorist, and though the comic history of mankind which he is planning may turn out brilliantly, the essence of his art is to be found in the more serious works. There was something simpler and more direct than mere talent in his early story A Meeting with a Young Man, in which he describes a conversation between Karinthy, the successful author, and a young man who turns out to be his forgotten self and who reproaches him with infidelity to the ambitions of youth. In his finest stories, Karinthy expresses his criticism of life from a point of view so original and striking that one can only apply to it the word genius. His theme may be the problem of sex, as in the wonderful Ballad of Silent Men (Ballada a Nema Ferfiakr6l),

544 544

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KARINTHY'S FIRST FIFTY YEARS. KARINTHY'S FIRST FIFTY YEARS.

or his Swiftian satire Capillaria, the new psychological discoveries as in Thirst (Szomjusag) and The Hurdy-Gurdy (Verklisz6), music as in A Journey to Faremido (Utaza Faremid6ba), time and metaphysics as in News from Heaven (Mennyei Riport), or the speculations about life in general which form the subject of his volume Who Asked my Opinion? (Ki Kerdezett?). The introductory essay to this latter book is a typical example of his style. Nobody has asked his opinion about this tragi-comedy of life, but he cannot help giving it. And all the great teachers and artists who have caught their contemporaries by the sleeve? They, too, spent their lives answer- ing questions no one put to them.

I had intended to write a longer study of Karinthy's work, with shorter illustrations, but perhaps it will be better on this occasion to let him speak for himself. The two examples of his work that follow cover much of his writing life. The Circus is a symbolical picture of his struggle against becoming the mere clown and acrobat in words which his public wished him to be, and it is also the tragedy of every artist in a callous world. My Mother, a recent autobio- graphical piece, shows him in a mood of serene detachment, with tragedy and humour intermingled in an evocation of the mind of a child making its first contact with suffering. Taken together, the two may suggest something of the achievement of a writer who, at his best, can be ranked with the great imaginative masters.

VERNON DUCKWORTH BARKER.

THE CIRCUS Translated from the Hungarian of KARINTHY by

VERNON DUCKWORTH BARKER. I KNOW that I had a passionate desire to go to the circus, but perhaps my longing to possess a violin was just as intense. As time went on, I got my violin, yet still no one would take me to the circus, so I fell to dreaming of it at odd moments as best I could. Once I caught sight of it far away beyond the mountains, and I felt as if someone were leading me to it by the hand. On another occasion, I found myself standing in the midst of a great city I did not know, but the circus was still the same, with the same entrance as before and doors opening in two directions. This time, it seemed as if I had taken my ticket and could have gone in, but at that moment my dream broke off, leaving me once more outside.

M

or his Swiftian satire Capillaria, the new psychological discoveries as in Thirst (Szomjusag) and The Hurdy-Gurdy (Verklisz6), music as in A Journey to Faremido (Utaza Faremid6ba), time and metaphysics as in News from Heaven (Mennyei Riport), or the speculations about life in general which form the subject of his volume Who Asked my Opinion? (Ki Kerdezett?). The introductory essay to this latter book is a typical example of his style. Nobody has asked his opinion about this tragi-comedy of life, but he cannot help giving it. And all the great teachers and artists who have caught their contemporaries by the sleeve? They, too, spent their lives answer- ing questions no one put to them.

I had intended to write a longer study of Karinthy's work, with shorter illustrations, but perhaps it will be better on this occasion to let him speak for himself. The two examples of his work that follow cover much of his writing life. The Circus is a symbolical picture of his struggle against becoming the mere clown and acrobat in words which his public wished him to be, and it is also the tragedy of every artist in a callous world. My Mother, a recent autobio- graphical piece, shows him in a mood of serene detachment, with tragedy and humour intermingled in an evocation of the mind of a child making its first contact with suffering. Taken together, the two may suggest something of the achievement of a writer who, at his best, can be ranked with the great imaginative masters.

VERNON DUCKWORTH BARKER.

THE CIRCUS Translated from the Hungarian of KARINTHY by

VERNON DUCKWORTH BARKER. I KNOW that I had a passionate desire to go to the circus, but perhaps my longing to possess a violin was just as intense. As time went on, I got my violin, yet still no one would take me to the circus, so I fell to dreaming of it at odd moments as best I could. Once I caught sight of it far away beyond the mountains, and I felt as if someone were leading me to it by the hand. On another occasion, I found myself standing in the midst of a great city I did not know, but the circus was still the same, with the same entrance as before and doors opening in two directions. This time, it seemed as if I had taken my ticket and could have gone in, but at that moment my dream broke off, leaving me once more outside.

M

545 545

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