Quite brilliant.
The books I've read previously create pockets of world's to tell a story in. The War with the Newts, Capek create an all encompassing story that not only covers the entire planet earth, but also allows for economical, sociological, financial and political effects of the tale being told.
The book can sometimes come across as a quite dry historical account of how the world, and indeed, mankind came to exist with the Newts. But then throughout the book we follow a very small number of characters and eventually returning to the butler who burdened himself with the guilt of introducing the newts to the world, which leads to the inevitable near-end of mankind.
I found the story telling quite brilliant in the ability to describe, in such believable detail, the impact of these newts being on earth, the changes to their environment that allowed for their growth and the world wide impact of this ecological change.
But it was the last two chapters that really won the story for me. The penultimate chapter has us revisiting the butler in his 70s taking a rowing trip with his son, and where he so confidently tells his son that they're safe in Prague. His son isn't so sure, and in a turn towards the end of the chapter, we see that the butler has been carrying the torment of "what if…", what if he had made a different decision: would the world's fate be in safe hands now?
Then the final chapter was (again, sorry) quite brilliant. A discussion between the author and himself as the writer, trying to determine if mankind's fate is truly doomed. Whether humankind has any way to save itself from its own inevitable self destruction through greed and fear. Or whether the newts are inevitably prone to the same failings as humankind too…
A tough, and sometime dry read, but really quite excellent!
23 Highlight(s)
R.U.R. Čapek's play is where we get the word 'robot' from, surely the most widely disseminated pieces of SF terminology ever coined—although Čapek always gave credit for the term to his brother, not himself.
What these means is that the word robot carries within it more than simply an allusion to work, drudgery or slavery (although it is for mere drudgery that Rossum's 'roboti' are originally made); it carries within it, in nascent semiotic form, the larger narrative of the play: serfdom on the road to liberation. Even in the early stages of the drama, Čapek's robots are never mere automata.
Then Abe did something obvious and nonsensical, like Schiller's knight who went into the lion's cage to get his lady's glove. What of that: there are some obvious and nonsensical things that men will do as long as the world turns round.
Submarine monsters are usually well received by the reading public.
might be possible to cut down expenses connected with the maintenance of the Newts very considerably and by that means increase the profits of their enterprise. (Loud applause.)
interested in business myself as an artist. Without a certain amount of art, sir, you will never devise anything new. We must be poets if we are to keep the world turning.'
Six million. Have you got that? Multiply it by fifty. That makes three hundred million. Multiply that again by fifty. That makes fifteen milliards, doesn't it?
S. Weisberger, as a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, hoped that future sales of Newts would be carried out as humanely as possible and in a manner that would not offend human feelings.
It was also stated that the females accept this impersonal sexual relation far more realistically and as more self-evident than the males, who apparently from instinctive male vanity and eagerness for conquest desire at least to maintain the illusion of sexual conquest, and for that purpose they go through the actions of amorous wooing and conjugal ownership.
if left to Nature, without a doubt it would drag on for hundreds and thousands of years; well, Nature is not and never has been as enterprising and systematic as human industry and commerce.
I lost that game. It suddenly struck me that every move in chess was old and had already been played by someone. Perhaps our history has already been played too, and we shift our figures with the same moves to the same checks as in times long past.
'If civilization is to continue, it must be civilization for everybody. We can't enjoy in peace the fruits of our civilization or of our culture as long as we are surrounded by millions and millions of unhappy and lowly creatures kept down by force in the animal state.
what else is civilization but the ability to make use of things that somebody else has invented?
In nothing can we see so clearly the march of time as in children.
'The question runs: Is and has man ever been capable of happiness?
The Chinese delegate rose to speak, but unfortunately no one could understand him.
For instance, the price they ask now for coffee. It's true Brazil has also disappeared below the sea. No doubt it makes a difference to business when part of the world sinks into the sea!
'We must go home. That's the end.' 'What end?' 'A Newt. So they've got here too. We must go home,' he repeated, packing up with uncertain hands his fishing rod. 'That's the end.'
but then I thought perhaps that captain might give me a tip. And, you see, he didn't. All for no purpose we ruin the whole world.'
The earth will probably sink and drown; but at least it will be the result of generally acknowledged political and economic ideas, at least it will be accomplished with the help of the science, industry, and public opinion, with the application of all human ingenuity! No cosmic catastrophe, nothing but state, official, economic, and other causes. Nothing can be done to prevent it.'
Please tell me how can I not be sorry for mankind! But I was most sorry when I saw how of its own will and at all costs it rushed to its ruin.
Must Nature always be asked to straighten out the mess that man has made?
Do you know who lends them money, do you know who finances this End of the World, all this New Flood?' 'Yes, I do. All the factories. All the banks. All the different states.' 'So you see. If only the Newts were fighting-men, then perhaps something might be done; but men against men – that, my friend, can't be stopped.'