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Karel Capek: Life and Work

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One of the three Czech geniuses of the early twentieth century (the other two being Franz Kafka and Jaroslav Hasek), Karel Capek still has writings that have yet to be translated from Czech into English. Not only is most of Capek's journalistic writings still untranslated, but his last great novel "The Life and Works of the Composer Foltyn" as well as all of his correspondence remains untranslated to this day, to say nothing of the memoirs written about him by people who were close to him, such as his wife, his brother, and his sister, all of whom wrote separate accounts.

Karel Capek was a mama's boy and his relationship with his mother affected his adult relationships with women all his life, although he eventually did marry, however late in his life. Capek was very important to Czechoslovakia and its people politically in that he, along with many others, of course, worked tirelessly to create a new state in 1918, the Czechoslovak Republic: a free country but a country that would eventually lose its freedom entirely and fall to Hitler's Nazi regime in 1938 with the Munich Agreement, a state of collapse that coincided with Capek's own collapse and death despite his efforts to keep Czechoslovakia free while keeping up with his artistic goals to his very last breath at the age of 49.

Although popular wisdom has it that Karel Capek invented the word "robot" and was the first to use it in a book, Norma Comrada, the excellent translator of this critical literary biography (and wonderful translator of many stories and poems by Karel Capek available for the general readership), has publically contested the record by stating in an interview (found online) that it was Karel's brother, Josef Capek, who gave Karel the word "robot" when they were discussion Karel's now-famous science fiction work, "R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots."

In this book, Ivan Klima discusses every published work by Karel Capek (and even some newspaper writings that have never been published outside of Czechoslovakia), summarizing the plots as well as assessing and interpreting each work in light of Karel Capek's philosophy, politics, geographical location in addition to his artistic goals and his life. This was an tremendous undertaking and it's all done with great concision (not a wasted word anywhere), clarity (thanks to Norma Comrada's efforts), compression (Ivan Klima is an artist himself after all) as well as nuance and discrimination in 30 short chapters generally only five to seven pages long.

Reading this critical literary biography is a great joy in that the book is meant to be read more than once, like any great work of literature itself. There is a beautiful, slow narrative arc to the entire structure that ends (with Capek's death and the collapse of a free republic) on a very high note as if the whole work were meant to be understood as a literary symphony and the last notes meant to resound in the memory for a very long time.

Ivan Klima, the author of this beautifully focused and clear work, is himself a Czech who survived the concentration camps that tried to kill him and his family after Capek's death. Ivan Klima writes about this near-Nobel prize-winning author with a natural fondness and appreciation that is at once neither fanatical nor envious, fully appreciative, flaws as well as virtues, discriminating and instructive.

This review cannot possibly recapitulate the rich and full warehouse of refinements and insights that lie in store for the reader who wants to acquaint himself or herself with the man and writer known as Karel Capek. Karel Capek deserves a wide, even universal readership, particularly in this "age of transitions" (Newt Gingrich-speak)(see Capek's "War of the Newts," ha!) to a so-called "post-democratic world" where totalitarian regimes now are led by (foundation) men in suits with smiling faces rather than by men in military uniforms as in Karel Capek's day. Karel Capek believed in the heart, humor and intelligence of ordinary people; he believed in critical thinking; and he believed in freedom to his very last breath. He wrote fairy tales, plays, literary novels as well as science fiction and journalism. He was every inch a man and writer existing to warn the people about the dangers of technology, dogmatism, propaganda, authoritarianism, and war while showing what fun and kindness and beauty there is in the world and in people, too. This world, now, needs his writings more than ever as what Karel Capek warned his readers about is escalating and is more pervasive (and "persuasive") than was true in his own day.