Frigyes Karinthy (January 25, 1887 - August 29, 1938) was an Hungarian journalist, translator, playwright, novelist, and poet.
You might have heard about the One Degree of Separation trope, that weird thing in fiction that causes every character to be tangentially connected to almost every other character. The Unbuilt Trope version of that was proposed by Frigyes Karinthy in his short story "Chains (Láncszemek)". There, he'd come to the conclusion that every single person in this world can be connected to any other person by other six people at most.
Not to be confused with Ada Karinthy, Frigyes' older sister and a notable artist on her own.
Frigyes Karinthy's works:
- Capillaria, a novel
- "Chains", a short story
- A Journey Round My Skull, a novel
- Tragedy of the Embryo, a novel
- The Hungarian translation of Winnie the Pooh
Tropes found across his works:
- The Abridged Series: Tragedy of the Embryo is a parody of Imre Madach's Tragedy of Man as it's deliberately presented as a compressed stage adaptation of the original work.
- Creator Breakdown: His obscure and borderline-misogynistic satirical novel Capillaria was written during Karinthy's second marriage. In it, giant sex-crazed women torment and devour a race of phallus-shaped dwarves. It was not a very happy marriage.
- Dub Name Change: Winnie to Micimackó, or Mici Bear, changes Winnie the Pooh's name to Mici. There's an urban legend about why this happened. Supposedly, Frigyes Karinthy wasn't that well-versed in the English language, so asked his sister, Mici, to translate a rough draft for him. Renaming Winnie to Mici was his way of thanking her. Seeing that Karinthy's other occupations included being a translator himself, this story is often treated as just a rumor, although smaller translation goof-ups present in the books do grant some credibility to it.
- "How I Wrote This Article" Article: He once wrote an article in which he explains that he should write a humorous article. Yet, he can't because a young man is standing behind him and reads everything he writes.note
- Recursive Reality: Parodied and exaggerated.
- Recursive Translation: In "This Is How YOU Write", Frigyes Karinthy translates a philosophical poem by one of his contemporaries into German, then back to Hungarian, then repeating the process several times. The first recursive translation turns the poem into a skit featuring the Jews Ufer and Hertz. The second one yields an ad for Hertz Salami.
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Woolseyism: His Cult Classic Hungarian translation of Winnie the Pooh is highly favored over the original for its extensive use of more "colorful" expressions. No, not swearing, but things like using "barked Pooh triumphantly" in place of "said Pooh". Fans of the translated version tend to see the original as uninspired and dry, some even calling it downright annoying.
