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Title: Toward the Radical Center: A Karel Capek Reader by Karel Capek, Peter Kussi ISBN: 0-945774-07-9 Publisher: Catbird Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.29 (7 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Helpful introduction, if a grab-bag in intrinsic interest
Comment: My three stars aren't to fault Capek's evident talent and his humanistic charm. It's simply that a lot of the pieces here gathered seem lackluster (the detective tales, the vignettes, a good chunk of the plays) and may not have weathered well the shifts in literary taste since WW2. The decline in tension in RUR from its strong beginning to a too-romantic fadeaway surprised me; I expected a harder-hitting plot. Still, worth a read for anyone curious about the robot vs. human conflict at its birth. The next play, the Makropoulos Secret, only gathers steam near its conclusion, in the whole rationale for immortality. Capek's genius to me appears erratic and while powerful in certain speeches given his theatrical characters, dissipates over the course of these two plays taken as a whole.
As for the stories, the two versions of the single footprint mystery deserve attention, and the "money" story, although contrived, makes an effective point. The more investigative tales doubtless will appeal to fans of the detective genre, but they didn't do much for me. The feuilletons anthologized here make for pleasant reading, continuing a French/Czech specialty, but really aren't meant to be earthshattering in their simply observed reflections. As a journalist, Capek shows both the immediacy and the impermanence common to much of this genre.
The shorter pieces included rarely roused my interest; exceptions, however, made my reading worth it. Two superb considerations of how the bakers felt about Jesus' miracles of the loaves and the fishes and (especially) Pilate's reflections on his famous query "What is truth?" show off Capek's skills very effectively.
Also, the reflections in the last quarter of the book, on Czechoslovakia (just before the Nazi invasion) as the center of Europe, on what's truly revolutionary as centered more in the transformation of the individual by gradual change rather than sudden political overthrow, and a brief essay that shows the plight of the urban poor rival Orwell in their combination of the perspective of the little man with the insight of the intellectual.
Rating: 3
Summary: useful, but inconsistent levels of translation
Comment: Capek was a genius and an all-around literateur, succeeding with fairytales, novels, plays, and sketches. He could even draw. (and he liked cats, which endears him to me).
A Czech friend first got me interested in Capek, and made me read WAR OF THE NEWTS, one of his novels, which I adored. WAR OF THE NEWTS is part of this series.
This reader is certainly a good addition to any library, particularly for anyone interested in Capek's work or Czech writing in the Golden Age (the first Republic, before Chamberlain's bargain with Hitler carved up the new state of Czechoslovakia).
However, the translations here do not do Capek justice. While e the translation of the play R.U.R. (a play which introduced the word "robot" to the English language, and which was once more heavily anthologized and taught in America than O'Neill)does include scenes that were cut from the Broadway productions of 1921 and 1945, scenes never before available in Englishl, the translator also takes idiomatic Czech and makes it oddly formal, stilted. "To staci" for example is translated as "That will suffice," which is literally the meaning, but doesn't capture the informality of the phrase. "That's enough" would have been more speakable. If you're a director, use this text only for research but don't give it to your actors-- it will bore an audience, and lacks Capek's humor and zest. And some of the translation, according to native speakers, is simply inaccurate (a word that can mean "scissors" in context was translated as "provisions.") Just as poetry should really only be translated by a poet, plays should really only be translated by playwrights (working with native speakers if necessary). Too much is lost.
Still, the book does put in English, however flawed, much that had been long out of print, and all of it is worth reading.
Rating: 5
Summary: Capek's genius
Comment: This book is a compillation of some of the greatest works by the brilliant Czech writer Karel Capek. Here there are some of his best-known plays and a selection of tales which can be found entirely and unabridged in "Crossroads" and "Tales from Two Pockets". The plays included are "RUR" (Rossum's Universal Robots), "The Makropulos Secret", Act II of "The Insect Play" and "The Mother".
"RUR" is a comical though moving to thought play about the limits of technology from a social and moral point of view, and how men playing God can lead humankind to a complete disaster. However, the play has a happy and very funny end.
"The Makropulos Secret" is a sort of Faustian comedy which leads to discussion upon immortality and the final conclusion that it's better to remain mortals because nobody could bear immortality's boredom.
"The Insect Play" (better read it complete) depicts the insects' world as a microcosmos which reproduces human behaviour, greed, powerlust, war, shallowness, every human vice incarnated in insects.
"The Mother" is related to Capek's increasing worry about war and the rising of totalitarianism.
One of the best qualities about Capek, apart from his obvious wit, is that he never moralizes, he takes things from the side of the "ridicule" rather than from a sort of preacher's view. His works are very funny, but no less deep. His sense of humour never conceals the depth of his thought, and humour thus makes things even more serious.
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Title: Apocryphal Tales by Karel Capek, Norma Comrada ISBN: 0945774346 Publisher: Catbird Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Tales from Two Pockets by Karel Capek, Norma Comrada, Karel Povidky Z Jedne Kapsy Capek ISBN: 0945774257 Publisher: Catbird Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Rossum's Universal Robots (Dover Thrift Editions) by Karel Capek, Paul Selver, Nigel Playfair ISBN: 0486419266 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
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Title: War With the Newts by Karel Capek ISBN: 0945774109 Publisher: Catbird Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1990 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Cross Roads by Karel Capek, Karel Trapne Povidky Capek, Norma Comrada ISBN: 0945774540 Publisher: Catbird Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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