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Loading... SALAMANTERISOTA (original 1936; edition 1962)by KAREL CAPEK
Work InformationWar with the Newts by Karel Čapek (1936)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Eine bisher unentdeckte Molchart, die von den Menschen im Tausch von Perlen gegen Waffen zum Selbstschutz gegen Haie ausgerüstet wird, schwingt sich durch hohe Fertilität zur neuen dominierenden Gattung auf, die Menschen verstehen es nicht und lassen sich die Welt von den Molchen abkaufen, indem sie anfangs Küstenstriche, später ganze Kontinentalteile von den Molchen abgraben und ins Meer versinken lassen. Für mich ein Gleichnis auf die Globalisierung - wir, der Westen lagern kleinweise alles, aber auch alles in Off-, oder Nearshore Länder aus, um die Gewinnspannen hochzuhalten und den Aktionären ihre Renditen zu sichern. Čapek wiederum ging es 1937 darum, die nationalen Konflikte am Vorabend des 2. Weltkriegs aufzuzeigen. Ein Seitenhieb auf eine nordische Mutation der Molche, mit weißerer Haut und aufrechterem Gang, auf die Deutschland sehr Stolz ist, zeigt Čapeks Weitblick. Čapeks Sprache ist über weite Strecken so neu und frisch, dass dieser Roman, wüsste man es nicht, auch ein zeitgenössischer sein könnte. http://twitpic.com/5j8d3g Both a sci-fi and a satirical read. Light on the sci-fi and heavy on the satire. This book was written in 1936 and the author takes a lot of pot-shots at the Nazis, if you know your history. He died before the Nazi's could come after him. I believe the entire premise of the book is that man must live in a homogenous society to be happy; he will annihilate anything different. I thought the first third and the last third a compelling read, but it bogged down in the middle. I think this might have been a better short story than a novel, although I'm glad I read it. A classic of the genre, so I am told, and I can see why. Satirizes Western Civilization & capitalism pretty effectively. It's a bit slow in the beginning, and there is an early interaction between Captain Van Toch (discoverer of the newts) and Mr. Bondy, the business magnate who brings them to the world, that does not ring true to me. But once we get past this, the story unfolds in a way best described as harsh but fair. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesCaminho de Bolso (13) Club Joven Bruguera (37) Colecção Argonauta (102) Colecção Mamute (2) Distorsions (29) — 9 more AwardsNotable Lists
One of the great anti-utopian satires of the twentieth century, an inspiration to writers from Orwell to Vonnegut, at last in a modern translation. Man discovers a species of giant, intelligent newts and learns to exploit them so successfully that the newts gain skills and arms enough to challenge man's place at the top of the animal kingdom. Along the way, Karel Capek satirizes science, runaway capitalism, fascism, journalism, militarism, even Hollywood. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)891.8635Literature Literature of other languages Literature of east Indo-European and Celtic languages West and South Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Slovene, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian, and Macedonian) Czech Czech fiction 1900–1989LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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“The world will probably disintegrate and become inundated—but at least it will do so for universally accepted political and economic reasons, at least it will do so with the aid of science, engineering and public opinion, with the application of all human ingenuity!” ( )