Thorn Castle
1
Summer peeped into the classroom. Playful clouds were heading for unknown territories. For Lajos Gyula Ladó the vacation was at risk. If he did not get at least four out of five in maths for his end of term grade, his parents would not let him visit his uncle at Lake Balaton. Uncle was head of a state farm. Unfortunately, Gyula had not enjoyed Uncle’s idyll on his own for very long. Lajos’s parents were rather protective. “It matters whose company you are in. Or do you want him to learn from old Matula? He’s an old man who smells of tobacco who can hardly read or write,” said his mother. “I like him but Gyula won’t learn anything from him,” she added. “That’s not true. Matula is a pure-hearted, wise man, who can teach your son a lot,” said István, Gyula’s uncle. 9
Gyula was thinking of Matula, who was a ranger in the reeds of Lake Balaton, smelled of pipe-smoke and marsh, who had not aged a day, and wore the same clothes since the time they first met. He badly wanted to meet him again. The day of the school report hand-out had come. Both Gyula and his friend BĂŠla got five out of five for their maths. They were free to go anywhere in the summer holiday. Two whole months of freedom.
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Glossary
1 to peep into sw beles vhova
idyll idill
at risk veszélyben
ranger csősz
pure-hearted tiszta szívű
to head for halad valami felé
marsh mocsár
state farm állami gazdaság
2 still nyugodt
to capture elfoglal
landscape táj
hiding-place búvóhely
surface tükör, felszín
glitzy csillogó mist köd
endless végtelen groves liget
hillock halom
enemy ellenség
bullrush nád
to appreciate sg örül vminek
to deserve sg megérdemel vmit lad
legény
no use értelmetlen
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About the Author István Fekete (1900–1970) was an agronomist by profession and started his career as a highly efficient agricultural engineer. He made a very successful start as a writer in 1937, but after the Second World War he was manhandled by the authorities for his political views, and was put on blacklist for nearly a decade. During this time he supported his family by doing occasional physical work, and later by teaching. After he managed to publish a textbook on fishery in 1955 – which is still in use today – he was allowed to appear in print again, and authored several immensely popular works, many of which was adapted to film, for example Vuk and Bogáncs.
About the Title Thorn Castle (Tüskevár) is a piece of educational juvenile literature, which tells about the adventures of two schoolboys, Lajos Gyula Ladó and Béla Pondoray, that is, Tutajos and Bütyök, who spend their vacation by Small-Balaton in the company of an old ranger, Matula. The novel has been highly popular since its first publication in 1957, and earned István Fekete the József Attila Prize Book Award in 1960. A serialised film version of the novel was first broadcast in 1966. Its sequel, Winter Grove (Téli Berek) was published in 1959.