Capek, Karel;
War with the Newts (tr??)
ISBN 0945774109
Catbird Press 1990 Feb Paperback, 240 pages [$11.95]
topics: | fiction | czech
Karel Capek is a Czech playwright who gave us the word "robot" in his play, R.U.R or Rossum's Universal Robots - see essay on this aspect of Capek's by Jana Horakova / Jozef Kelemen.
'Look mummy' 'Look, a newt,' came a voice behind [keeper Greggs]. Mr. Greggs spun round; that black newt, that Andrias, was looking at him, blinking its lower lids. 'Yuk, isn't it ugly?' the newt suddenly said. 'Let's go on, darling.' Mr. Greggs' mouth gaped in amazement. 'What's that?' 'Does it bite?' the newt croaked. p.79 [the newt is repeating what it has heard repeatedly through the day.] [about Povondra's zeal for collecting news articles on the Newts] It is a well-known fact that all collectors are prepared to steal or do murder for the sake of acquiring a new piece for their collection; but this does not in any way reflect on their moral character. 119 Mrs. Povondra knew that every man was partly a nutcase and partly a little boy. 119 colonial discourse: If those salamanders weren't so terribly mediocre... Yes they are mor or less educated -- but that makes them even more blinkered because they have acquired from human civilisation only that which is mediocre and utilitatian - mechanical and repeatable. 205 --- blurb The visionary Czech writer Karel Capek (1890-1938), one of the century's great authors, first gained fame during the 1920s and 1930s when his short stories, novels, satires, journalism, children's books, and plays made him the most important writer in his native country. War With the Newts, one of the great dystopian satires of the century, is about the discovery by a Dutch sea-captain of a race of giant, intelligent, talking, and walking newts. When humans begin to exploit the newts as slaves, the creatures organize to fight the oppression, taking up arms and challenging the humans for control of newt destiny and freedom.