"Please tell me how I can 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. At the sight of it you would shout. You would scream and throw up both your arms as if you saw a train run on to the wrong track. It's too late to stop it now."
Brilliantly clever, "War with the Newts" combines satire, humor, science fiction, and allegory to eviscerate the natural tendencies of the human race to exploit any new discovery of value.
Karel Capek peppers his novel with memorable characters (Captain van Toch is hysterical) and inventive names (the Salamander Syndicate would be a stellar band name), but weaves in pertinent commentary on colonialism, fascism, segregation, and the arms race.
Written in 1936 and translated from Czechoslovakian, context and meaning matter when considering "War with the Newts." The book becomes almost overly scientific and dense at times (56 pages alone on the annals of the newts), but the ability to meld comedy with a mounting horror speaks volumes to Capek's talents (this is a man who, like, invented the word "robot") and ability to see the future ("What destroys us will not be a cosmic catastrophe but mere reasons of state, economics, prestige, etc.").
"Never before has man experienced such opportunities in life as he does to-day; but show me one man who is happy; one class which is contented, or a nation that does not feel threatened in its very existence.
"All unhappiness of the man lies in the fact that he was compelled to become mankind, or that he became mankind too late, after he had already been irrevocably divided into nations, races, faiths, professions, and classes, into rich and poor, into educated and uneducated, into the rulers and the ruled."
The author himself considered the novel's protagonist to be "nationalism," and much of his material appears oddly prophetic and contemporary.
Eighty-five years after its publication, "War with the Newts" is a masterwork of insightful political theory and incisive writing.
"Captain van Toch shook his head. 'Man, there aren't any devils. And if there were, they would look like Europeans.'"
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