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jstilts's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
This is a glorious mess of a book, difficult to read as it changes styles so often: sometimes it reads like a play, sometimes like a mockumentary, sometimes the author argues with his conscience on the page - sometimes it almost manages to have a straightforward narrative for a while. Some parts are short, some are agonisingly long. Characters flit in and out, sometimes seeming to fill the role of lead character only to vanish from the narrative and die off-screen.
But it's funny, with savagely biting satire that takes no prisoners for the whole of humankind and early 20th Century politics, racism and colonialism in particular - and some of it quite prescient, at points Čapek seems to predict the Atom Bomb and Hitler's Lebensraum well before World War II even started. Čapek takes no sides: the USA, Germany, UK, France and his own native Czechoslovakia each suffer under his painfully funny withering glare.
It's a high-concept book: "What if we discovered a new species, exploited them, enslaved them - but began to rely on them and bred them in numbers that swiftly out-grew our own?" and that the author explores every nuance of this idea to the bitter end is what makes this book worth reading.
However, when you realise that this book was published after the likes of "Brave New World" (which gets cheekily name-checked!) and well after "The War of the Worlds" it's hard to understand why this book is such an unusual collection of randomly-firing styles. It might not suit everyone, you need to be quite patient.
I probably wouldn't have picked up this book except the author wrote the play "Rossums Universal Robots" that coined the word "Robot", so I was intrigued about the rest of his work. R.U.R. has some similar themes of human folly and the uprising of enslaved peoples, but "War with the Newts" is different in almost every way imaginable!
It's ideas are interesting and worth exploring, it's wit is savage - but I have a hard time recommending this book as it's an uneven read that can be a slog at times.
But it's funny, with savagely biting satire that takes no prisoners for the whole of humankind and early 20th Century politics, racism and colonialism in particular - and some of it quite prescient, at points Čapek seems to predict the Atom Bomb and Hitler's Lebensraum well before World War II even started. Čapek takes no sides: the USA, Germany, UK, France and his own native Czechoslovakia each suffer under his painfully funny withering glare.
It's a high-concept book: "What if we discovered a new species, exploited them, enslaved them - but began to rely on them and bred them in numbers that swiftly out-grew our own?" and that the author explores every nuance of this idea to the bitter end is what makes this book worth reading.
However, when you realise that this book was published after the likes of "Brave New World" (which gets cheekily name-checked!) and well after "The War of the Worlds" it's hard to understand why this book is such an unusual collection of randomly-firing styles. It might not suit everyone, you need to be quite patient.
I probably wouldn't have picked up this book except the author wrote the play "Rossums Universal Robots" that coined the word "Robot", so I was intrigued about the rest of his work. R.U.R. has some similar themes of human folly and the uprising of enslaved peoples, but "War with the Newts" is different in almost every way imaginable!
It's ideas are interesting and worth exploring, it's wit is savage - but I have a hard time recommending this book as it's an uneven read that can be a slog at times.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
Moderate: Racism, Slavery, Xenophobia, Trafficking, Colonisation, War, Classism, and Deportation