Frigyes Karinthy (; 25 June 1887 – 29 August 1938) was a Hungarian author, playwright, poet, journalist, and translator. He was the first proponent of the

six degrees of separation Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of "friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It is also k ...

concept, in his 1929 short story, ''Chains'' (''Láncszemek''). Karinthy remains one of the most popular Hungarian writers. He was the brother of artist Ada Karinthy and the father of poet Gábor Karinthy and writer

Ferenc Karinthy Ferenc Karinthy (June 2, 1921 – February 29, 1992) was a Hungarian novelist, playwright, journalist, editor and translator, as well as a water polo champion. He authored more than a dozen novels. His father was the writer and journalist Frigyes ...

. Among the English translations of Karinthy's works are two science fiction novellas that continue the adventures of

Swift Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIFT, ...

's character

Gulliver Gulliver may refer to: __NOTOC__ Arts and entertainment *Lemuel Gulliver, the protagonist of Jonathan Swift's novel ''Gulliver's Travels'' *the title character of ''Brian Gulliver's Travels'', a satirical BBC radio series *Gary Gulliver, the ti ...

. ''

Voyage to Faremido ''Voyage to Faremido'' (Hungarian: ''Utazás Faremidóba'', 1916) is a utopian-satirical novel by Frigyes Karinthy. Written as a further adventure of Lemuel Gulliver of '' Gulliver's Travels'', it recounts the story of a World War I pilot who cr ...

'' is an early examination of artificial intelligence, with a

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...

theme,

E. F. Bleiler Everett Franklin Bleiler (April 30, 1920 – June 13, 2010) was an American editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" s ...

and

Richard Bleiler Richard James Bleiler (born 1959) is an American bibliographer of science fiction, fantasy, horror, crime, and adventure fiction. He was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Non-Fiction in 2002 and for the Munsey Award in 2019. He is the ...

. ''Science-Fiction: The Early Years''. Kent State University Press, 1990. (pp. 400–401). . while ''

Capillaria ''Capillaria'' ( hu, Capillária, 1921) is a fantasy novel by Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy, which depicts an undersea world inhabited exclusively by women, recounts, in a satirical vein reminiscent of the style of Jonathan Swift, the firs ...

'' is a polished and darkly humorous satire on the 'battle of the sexes'.

Life and work

Karinthy was born into a

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

family in Budapest. His family was originally Jewish, but converted to Lutheranism shortly before he was born. He started his writing career as a journalist and remained a writer of short, humorous blurbs until his death. He rose to instant fame in 1912 with the publication of his literary

parodies A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...

called ''Here's How YOU Write'' (''Így írtok ti'') in which he parodied the style of his fellow authors. He expanded the collection continuously during the following years. Among his early works, his collection of short stories from school life, ''Please Sir!'' (''Tanár úr, kérem'', 1916) also stands out for its grasp of the trials and tribulations of the average schoolboy. Karinthy was an admirer of H.G. Wells. In addition to translating Wells' ''

The Country of the Blind "The Country of the Blind" is a short story by English writer H. G. Wells. It was first published in the April 1904 issue of ''The Strand Magazine'' and included in a 1911 collection of Wells's short stories, ''The Country of the Blind and Ot ...

'' and ''

The Sea Lady ''The Sea Lady'' is a fantasy novel by British writer H. G. Wells, including some of the aspects of a fable. It was serialized from July to December 1901 in ''Pearson's Magazine'' before being published as a volume by Methuen. The inspiratio ...

'' into Hungarian, Karinthy's own fiction was influenced by Wells. Another popular highlight is his translation of

A. A. Milne Alan Alexander Milne (; 18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956) was an English writer best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh, as well as for children's poetry. Milne was primarily a playwright before the huge success of Winni ...

's ''

Winnie the Pooh Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear and Pooh, is a fictional Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. The first collection of stories about the character w ...

,'' that made it a

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This ...

book in Hungary. From the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, his writing became more serious and engaged, though never leaving a

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

bent. Karinthy cited

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...

as a major influence: from this arose the novel ''

'' (''Utazás Faremidóba'', 1916) and its sequel, ''

'' (1921). Many of his novels and stories also deal with the difficulties of relationships between men and women, partly due to his unhappy second marriage. Karinthy had a brain

tumor A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...

for which he was operated upon in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

in 1936 by

Herbert Olivecrona Axel Herbert Olivecrona (July 11, 1891 – January 1980) was a Swedish professor and brain surgeon, credited with founding the field of Swedish neurosurgery, and pioneering developments in modern neurosurgery. Family, early life and education H ...

. He describes this experience in his autobiographical novel, ''Journey Round my Skull,'' (''Utazás a koponyám körül''), originally published in 1939; a reissue appeared in the Corvina Hungarian Classics series (Corvina Books, 1992) and then as a NYRB Classic in 2008 with an introduction by neurologist

Oliver Sacks Oliver Wolf Sacks, (9 July 1933 – 30 August 2015) was a British neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and writer. Born in Britain, Sacks received his medical degree in 1958 from The Queen's College, Oxford, before moving to the Uni ...

. He died two years after the operation, during a holiday at

Lake Balaton Lake Balaton () is a freshwater lake in the Transdanubian region of Hungary. It is the largest lake in Central Europe, and one of the region's foremost tourist destinations. The Zala River provides the largest inflow of water to the lake, and th ...

Private life

Karinthy was married twice. He married the actress Etel Judik in 1913. The marriage was serene and happy and they had a son called Gábor. Tragically, Etel died very young during the

Spanish flu The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...

in 1918. In 1920, he married the psychiatrist Aranka Böhm, with whom he had another son, the writer

. Although he did not speak the language, Karinthy was an ardent supporter of

Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...

, attending Esperanto congresses, and even became president of the Hungarian Esperanto Society in 1932.

Esperanto Wikipedia The Esperanto Wikipedia ( eo, Vikipedio en Esperanto, or ) is the Esperanto version of Wikipedia, which was started on 11 May 2001, alongside the Basque Wikipedia. With over articles , it is the - largest Wikipedia as measured by the number o ...

He is well known for his dry sense of humor, as he himself noted: "In humor I know no jokes." Just one example of it was his advertising slogan for his book ''Journey Round my Skull'': The Newest Novel of the Famed Tumorist.

Selected filmography

* '' The Stork Caliph'' (1917) - Karinthy was the scriptwriter for this film by

Alexander Korda Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; hu, Korda Sándor; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)Mihály Babits Mihály Babits (; 26 November 1883 – 4 August 1941) was a Hungarian poet, writer and translator. His poems are well known for their intense religious themes. His novels such as “The Children of Death” (1927) explore psychological pro ...

Works in English translation

*''Drama: A Farce-Satire in One Act'' (1925) *''Refund : a farce in one act'' adapted, from the Hungarian, by

Percival Wilde Percival Wilde (New York City, March 1, 1887 – September 19, 1953) was an American author and playwright who wrote novels and numerous short stories and one-act plays. He also authored a textbook on the theater arts. Native to New York City, ...

. *''A Journey Round My Skull'' (1939) translated from the Hungarian by Vernon Duckworth Barker. *''Voyage to Faremido & Capillaria'' (1966) Introduced and translated by Paul Tabori. *''Please Sir!'' (1968) Translated by István Farkas. The foreword translated by Mary Kuttna. * ''Grave and gay : selections from his work'' (1973) Frigyes Karinthy; selected by István Kerékgyártó; afterword by Károly Szalay.

Notes

References

Please Sir!
– the complete translation

– a short story with an introduction

– a poem, and two other short quotations * A Journey Round My Skull, First American Edition published by Harper and Brothers, New York, 1939 (repr 2008)
Famous Hungarian Jews: Frigyes Karinthy

External links

* *
Works by Frigyes Karinthy

* ttp://www.karinthy.hu/pages/kf/en/ Biographyat the website of the secondary school named after him
The Grotesque: Frigyes Karinthy
In: Lóránt Czigány: ''A History of Hungarian Literature,'' chapter XIX.

* ttps://50watts.com/A-Journey-Round-My-Skull A Journey Round My Skull- book review at 50watts.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Karinthy Frigyes Hungarian Esperantists Hungarian male novelists Hungarian science fiction writers Hungarian satirists European pacifists Translators to Hungarian 1887 births 1938 deaths Deaths from intracranial haemorrhage Neurological disease deaths in Hungary 20th-century Hungarian novelists 20th-century translators Burials at Kerepesi Cemetery People of Hungarian-Jewish descent 20th-century Hungarian male writers Network scientists