War with the Newts
"War with the Newts (1936)" is Karel Capek's darkly humorous allegory of early twentieth-century Czech politics. Captain van Toch discovers a colony of newts in Sumatra which can not only be taught to trade and use tools, but also to speak. As the rest of the world learns of the creatures and...
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"War with the Newts (1936)" is Karel Capek's darkly humorous allegory of early twentieth-century Czech politics. Captain van Toch discovers a colony of newts in Sumatra which can not only be taught to trade and use tools, but also to speak. As the rest of the world learns of the creatures and their wonderful capabilities, it is clear that this new species is ripe for exploitation - they can be traded in their thousands, will do the work no human wants to do, and can fight - but the humans have given no thought to the terrible consequences of their actions.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780141192703 (0141192704)
Publish date: 2010
Publisher: Penguin
Pages no: 348
Edition language: English
Category:
Fantasy,
Classics,
Novels,
Humor,
Science Fiction,
Literature,
European Literature,
20th Century,
War,
Dystopia,
Czech Literature
It's good. The satire is still timely. It does go after the rise of fascism and is anti-capitalistic. But it's too long.
Having run out of Sumo DVDs, and whilst awaiting the beginning of baseball season, we've been watching Wooster and Jeeves videos. One of Wooster's buddies is fanatical about newts. When I discovered that Harold Bloom considered this book to be part of the western literature canon (I discovered this ...
Funniest book, evah (yes, including The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - for Adams couldn't resist himself and so the joke finally ran dry).Though quite possibly the saddest too.If you could read only one book of fiction in your whole life, this is it.
Ein intensives Buch, das seiner Zeit (1936) weit voraus war: Galt es damals in erster Linie als Kritik am und Warnung vor dem Vormarsch der Nazis, kann man es heute aus unendlich vielen Perspektiven lesen.Aber erst ein paar Worte zur Handlung: Irgendwann in den 1920er Jahren entdeckt der niederländi...
VÁLKA S MLOKY: A RECIPEIt may not be a conventional Czech or Slovakian speciality, but a válka s mloky is an excellent and tasty alternative to the unbearable lightness of being when a metamorphosis into an engineer of the human souls is too loud a solitude.Preparation time: 1936-1937Cooking time: a...
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