Content War with the Newts
War with the Salamanders, Valka s mloky
War with the Newts (Válka s mloky in the original Czech), also translated as War with the Salamanders, is a 1936 satirical science fiction story by Czech author Karel Čapek. It concerns the discovery in the Pacific of a sea-dwelling race, the Newts, who are initially enslaved and exploited. They acquire human knowledge and rebel, leading to a global war for supremacy.
Plot summary
Only the last four of the book's 26 chapters deal with the eponymous war. The rest of the book is concerned with the discovery of the Newts, their exploitation and evolution, and growing tensions between humans and the Newts in the lead-up to the war.
The book does not have any single protagonist, but instead looks at the development of the Newts from a broad societal perspective. At various points the narrator's register seems to slip into that of a journalist, historian or anthropologist. The three most central characters are Captain J. van Toch, the seaman who discovers the Newts; Mr Gussie H. Bondy, the industrialist who leads the development of the Newt industry; and Mr Povondra, Mr Bondy's doorman. They all reoccur throughout the book, but none can be said to drive the narrative in any significant way. All three are Czech.
The novel is divided into three sections or 'books'.
Book One – Andrias Scheuchzeri
The first section recounts Captain van Toch's discovery of the Newts on a small island near Sumatra, their initial exploitation in the service of pearl farming, the beginning of their spread around the oceans of the world, and the development of their speech and absorption of human culture. The section closes with the founding of The Salamander Syndicate, an ambitious plan developed by Mr Bondy to redirect Newt resources away from the declining pearl industry and into larger hydroengineering projects. Though this is the close of the narrative development of this section, there is – oddly enough as it is positioned at the end of the section, but in the middle of the novel – a further appendix entitled 'The Sex Life of the Newts'. This examines the Newts' sexuality and reproductive processes in a pastiche of academese. The tone of the first section is generally light-hearted satire, in contrast to the darker tone of later parts of the story. Čapek targets a range of human foibles, from the superficiality of Hollywood startlets, to the arrogance of then-prevalent European attitudes towards non-white races. He also skewers the self-assurity of science; scientists are repeatedly seen underestimating the capabilities of the Newts and misassessing other related issues, always in full confidence of the validity of their claims.Book Two – Up the Ladder of Civilisation
The second section concerns the development of the Newts from the founding of The Salamander Syndicate to the outbreak of the first hostilities between Newts and humans. It contains only three chapters: one long one – by far the longest in the novel – bookended by two short ones. In the first chapter Mr Povondra begins collecting newspaper clippings concerning the Newts. The long middle chapter then takes the form of an historical essay written at some unspecified time in the future. The essay cites Mr Povondra's clippings as its main source of historical evidence, and includes a number of footnotes and quotations from his collection. The third chapter returns to the Povondra household a number of years after the events of the first chapter and introduces an early Newt-human conflict.
Book Three – War with the Newts
The final section reverts to the same form as the first section, but with a darker tone. It relates a series of skirmishes between Newts and humans, eventually resulting in the outbreak of war when the Newts declare their need to destroy portions of the world's continents in order to create new coastlines and so expand their living space. Čapek's satirical targets here are mainly nationalism (the British, French and Germans are all portrayed as irredeemably stubborn and nationalistic), German racial theories (see below), and the perceived inefficacy of international diplomacy. In the penultimate chapter, the tone becomes didactic: 'We are all responsible for it', declares Čapek's mouthpiece, Mr Povondra's adult son.
The last chapter, entitled 'The Author Talks to Himself' takes a metafictional turn. With earth's landmass one-fifth destroyed and humanity offering little resistance, the chapter cuts away from the action to a conversation between two personas of the author, called the Author and the Writer. Between them they map out the long-term history of the Newts: the Newts will all but destroy the Earth's landmass, leaving only a tiny rump humanity to work for them in their factories. Eventually they will form separate countries and destroy themselves by committing the same follies as humanity; humans will then inherit what remains of the earth.
Connections to other works
There are obvious similarities to Čapek's earlier Rossum's Universal Robots, but also some original themes.
Robert Zubrin claims that War with the Newts partly inspired his novel The Holy Land.
As satire and social commentary
The book is a dark satire, poking fun extensively at the contemporary European politics, including colonialism, fascism and Nazism, segregation in America, and the arms race. A notable satirical point is the mentioned research of a German scientist who has determined that the German Newts are actually a superior Nordic race, and that as such they have a right to expand their living space at the expense of the inferior breeds of Newts.
The author's opinion of the United States' social problems also appears very pessimistic, as whenever that country is mentioned as dealing with a crisis, American mobs "lynch negroes" as scapegoats. Sometimes the Newts are shown in the same manner as the blacks, as when a white woman claims to have been raped by one of them. In spite of the physical impossibility of the act, people believe her and carry out newt lynchings.
One passage, depicting the European nations willing to hand over China to the Newts as long as they are themselves spared and overriding the Chinese's desperate protests, seems a premonition of Munich Agreement, a few years after the book was written - in which the writer's own country suffered a similar fate in a futile effort to appease the Nazis.