Örkény (1912-1979) was a humorist, specifically a Budapest humorist who, rather unusually, managed to stay in print in Hungary through all its post-war régimes and even at the height of Stalinist censorship. His humour in fact ranges, as one might expect, given all these ‘régimes’ from grey to black via the ironic, the absurd and the grotesque. The ‘one-minuters’ here may be brief but they are often genuinely funny, and usually in a strongly local context, giving an intimate picture of everyday life in the country. In one of the relatively longer pieces ‘Ecstasy’ we get three pages about a man on a splurge, the most wonderful part being the description of the place where the splurge occurs; a Central European delicatessen of a kind never seen in England or America, albeit the name ‘delicatessen’ flies airily above many a mere cold meats counter. In another, the provocative story ‘Harem’, we have the tongue-in-cheek tale of a man with seven wives. This lucky chap explains that each wife has a different virtue: Franci or Franciska for example ‘can imitate the murmur of the ocean waves’ — undoubtedly very soothing.

Other stories, less humorous vignettes than little morality tales touch on the war (‘Song’), death (‘Slaughterhouse’) and betrayal (‘Coal’). ‘Coal’, which confronts a war-time informer with his informed-upon neighbour who then, after the end of the war, counter-informs seems to sum up all the misery of Hungary’s geo-political tragedies between 1940 and 1980.

Interestingly, Örkény attributes his super-economical style, his masterful ability with the ultra-short story, to the many obstacles — conscription, prison, a disrupted education — he encountered before being able to write at all...

‘Life should be so simple’

1. remove fire extinguisher from bracket

2. open valve

3. approach source of fire

4. extinguish fire

5. close valve

6. replace extinguisher on bracket