Trapiti

ILDIKÓ BOLDIZSÁR

What induces a contemporary writer to embark on writing tales? He/she may get the main inspiration from a child of his/her who gets fed up with the "and they lived happily ever after" outlook of folk tales, and asks for something different. Or the writer may be prompted just by the ingenious verbal inventions and fantastic mental caprices of the child to mould them into a tale.
In Darvasi's novel Trapiti there is much gaiety, though his characters are far from being self-confident winners. Many of them are nothing more than deranged and enchanted figures that can't remember who they are or how they've got into the tale. Nor can they recognise each other. Oliver Dismay, for instance, hears someone snore peacefully beside him in the bed, and as he opens his eyes he sees a shaggy little hobgoblin. He rubs his eyes saying: "Zounds, this must be a Trapiti!" but frightened by his own perception he immediately adds: "Why, I have no idea what a Trapiti is!"
And it is the same with the others as well: before the real Trapiti appears, the name - or the word trapiti - means widely different things to each inhabitant of Pebbleburgh. It means his hat with gaudy duck feather for one, the little skirt from her childhood or a complicated equation in maths for another. The precise meaning of the word becomes clear only when the above mentioned little boy with shaggy red hair and freckles pops up in the house of Oliver Dismay, wearing patched trousers and a shirt buttoned awry, and claims that he can trapiti. Trapitiing, as it turns out in the novel, is the most important thing in the world. To trapiti, as I understand it, means to ask for help, to perceive, to comfort, to save lives, to wriggle out of trouble and, above all, to be free. At other times to trapiti means to play hide-and-seek, to fold paper cap or to confess your love.
One of the finest sentences in the novel is connected with the amorous meaning of to trapiti. When Trapiti observes the loving glances that Oliver Dismay casts at Viola Flourish, he exclaims: "I see your heart trapiti, Oliver!" One can't help thinking of a famous and likewise all-round world of Ervin Lázár: domdodom. The tale character named Domdodom who, as everybody knows it, can't utter anything but domdodom, could live notwithstanding a full life in a world where love, solidarity and mutual attention were the main values and the safeguards of cohesion. As a matter of fact, Trapiti is likewise accepted by the community based on the same values. The notions trapiti and domdodom may remind us of a third tale character, the fox in Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince who said: those who can see with their hearts (i.e. can trapiti or domdodom with their hearts) will easily spot that which is essential in an invisible world.
In László Darvasi's novel everything needed for a good tale is present: fine scenes of action, characters interesting even with their slowed-down tempo, surprising turns of the story and a couple of miracles. The novel begins with the history of Bisour-Misour people restored on the base of the Bisour-Misour chronicles preserved in Pebbleburgh. A lot of other peoples lived, of course, in the vicinity of Bisour-Misours, like the Hatters, the Sockholes, the Sobbers, the Lustfighters, the Bickersquabbles, the Nightsnores, the Fastidious and the Snatchers, but the Bisour-Misours enjoy the author's special attention because of some secret hidden in their history. Darvasi is a born tale-teller: if he was, instead of writing, telling his story, he probably wouldn't take a breath while disclosing the fabled past of a fabled people, beginning with the one-day rule of Mighty Emil XXLIII., continued with the revolutionary king Most Important Stevie I. to the last but one monarch Alfred Buckaluck III. who once disappeared in the rain without leaving the slightest trace. One of the mysteries in the novel is the whereabouts of king Alfred Buckaluck III. A prime mover of Trapiti is revealing unsolved mysteries, investigation after disappeared or unidentified tale characters. László Darvasi promised sequel to the story in the concluding sentence of the novel. The sequel is now in the bookshops. We could have written about it as well, but we would like to induce the treasure hunters, who have taken to reading Trapiti and Horrible Hare, to start trapitiing again. Or if they can't afford it, let these lines give them some information.
This book is totally different from those that we have so far recommended to our readers as means of mental cure. It is no story with action in a straight line and a moral. Its forte lies in the inexhaustible richness of details. This book is not for reading it through but for browsing, reciting and quoting it, with other words, for using it. That's how it can be the most useful to us.
(Domdodom, I Mean Trapiti or You May Not Rush into a Tale Like Hey, I'm Here, Hello)