Gárdonyi Géza: No még öggyet
A lot of people don't think much after hearing the name Gárdonyi Géza, the first that comes to mind is his work, Egri Csillagok, required reading in grade school about turkish offense against Castle Eger. Since that one is a long, serious book not much look into his other works.
Well, I did. :D Not many know, but for cash he wrote light&fun stories (the Göre Gábor series). Truth be told: he wasn't proud of them. The spelling is horrible (purposely), the characters dumb and selfish. Still on a bad day it can make your day reading one of the Göre Gábor volumes.
The story is always about Göre Gábor judge (something like a mayor in his village) his brother in law Durbints, and a gipsy. One volume is about them visiting the World Fair in Paris, another about going to America, etc. In every part they pump the village's money and reading their adventures one can watch big happenings with the eyes of stupids.
Allmost all stories are separated, but I guess one should know about each character before reading it, and you need to get used to the spelling and grammar there, or you will not understand a word. For example the in law Durbints has a saying "ö.m.a.f." that is the short version of 'ögye mög a fene' ('damn it' in old village-style). I needed to read 3 books to get to this knowledge, since the first two only had the short version. XD
Then there is the judge, Göre Gábor, who always looks for ways to have bites of everything he hears about, and if he already has a bite, then it should be a big one, if not the biggest. The chapters in each book are most writen like he writes a letter to the village or the village teacher. One of his habits is to end it with "to which I wish you the same"... This one line can have quite a mixed meaning if for example he writes it just after he told about how they were beaten by someone. XD
The gipsy is quite the character. He is looking to have anything that the rich have, steals and begs a lot, but there are times that his acting saves the other two... so they always take him to their adventures. XD
The volume 'No még öggyet' is the 10th book, this time with short stories about the characters and the village.
Just in hungarian here is the first page of the book. Sorry, but since the grammar and spelling are purposely horrible and even in village dialect, I can't translate that:
GÁRDONYI GÉZA
NO MÉG ÖGGYET
VAGYIS IHOL AZ TIZEDIK KÖNYVEM AKIT A ZIRÁSAJIMBUL AZ FILYAM
IGAZITOTT RÖNDBE MIVELHOGY A SZÖMÖM NEM FOGJA MÁN AZ BÖTÜT
IRTAM ÉN MAGAM
AZ SALYÁT KEZEMMEL
GÖRE GÁBOR
BIRÓ ÚR
EBBÜL A KÖNYVBÜL EZ MÁN A HARMAGYIK ERESZTÉS
MER MÖGEN ELFOGYOTT
NYOMTATTÁK EBBE A ZESZTENDŐBE
DANTE ÚR
KÖNYVESPÓTZÁRUL KAPKODHATÓ
MÖG MINDÖN KÖNYVES BÓTBUL