I love sci-fic 

capek is unbelievably hilarious. lovely execution of a political satire which is (shockingly / sadly) still so easily applied to modern-day politics even though it was written in the 1930s. i thoroughly enjoyed the collage-ism of it all, i was really feeling as i was reading scientific publications and real newspaper articles. my version also includes illustrations from the wonderful hans ticha, which was really a cherry on the top (as they say…).

I really don't know what to think about this book. Some parts were fantastic, I liked the way the chapters in the first part seemed to be chaotic but then they started to make sense and fit together, I loved the chapter about the development of the newts, however, I really didn't like the war part. I was utterly shocked with the motive for the war, it seemed ridiculous, logical and evil at the same time. Some parts were really boring and dare I say unnecessary. It's as if Čapek wanted to show off all his knowledge, because there was a lot of english, german and other words, many biological paragraphs (like 10 pages of biology), philosophical things and many other areas that require deep knowledge. At first I admired it but then I realized, most of it is unnecessary. You don't need the biology terms, the political terms, etc. It was a nice thing but maybe less. 
Personally, I didn't really see a lot of satire for society, only in the end a little bit and in the start, but when I did I liked it. There was also chapter which disturbed me, it was, idk, suggestive? I really disliked it. Also, animal cruelty was present, but I liked how the author made you think about it in a new way. 
The end was very creatively written, I have never read an end like that, but I don't think I'm 100% okay with it. It was against the things the author mentioned earlier, and despite him defending this argument, I disagree with the end.
Overall, I'm perplexed. It had good things and not so good things. Nothing downright bad but nothing exceptional either. Would I recommend? Not particulary, but it's a pretty good classic.

Two ship crew are talking together about Captain Van Toch. The Irishman says 

" 'hideous brutes,' shuddered dingle. " notring but warts. Holy mary, I wouldn't touch em for anyting. And I'm sure dey must be poisonous and all!'

'But why not?' grumbled the swede. 'listen. I served once on a ship that was full of people. All over the upper deck and the lower deck, nothing but people, full of women and all that sort of thing, dancing and playing cards. I was the stoker there, see. And now you tell me, you idiot, which do you think is more poisonous?'

'Dingle spat. 'well if it's Caymans you're talking about, den I won't say notting against you. There was one time I was takin a shipload of snakes to a zoo, from bandjarMason they were, and God how they stank! But dese lizards, jensen, dese are some very strange animals we're talking about. All through the day they stay in that tank o water o theirs; but in the night they climb up out of it - Tip Tap Tip Tap Tip Tap and the whole ship was crawlin wid him. Stood up on their hind legs, they did, twistin their heads round to get a good look at you... ' the Irishman crossed himself. 'and they'd go ts-ts-ts at you, like dem whores in Hong kong. God forgive me, but I tink there's sometin funny going on there. If it wasn't so hard to get a job I wouldn't have stayed there a minute, Jens. Not one minute.' "

With Captain van Toch 's ship having a tank in it, he ships the newts to different parts around the south seas, and they are beginning to proliferate.

"... relatively Reliable Reports came from the Solomon isles, schoutoen island, Kapingamarang, butarit and tapeteuea, and then further reports came from entire archipelagos: nudufetau, fanufuti, nukunono, and fukaofu, and then from Kiau, uahuka, and pukapuka. Rumors about captain van toch's demons and Miss Lily's Tritons circulated around melanesia and Polynesia respectively; and the papers judged there must be various kinds of underwater and prehistoric monsters, especially as the summer had begun and there was nothing else to write about. The underwater monsters were especially successful among their readers and tritons became the height of fashion in the USA that season; a spectacular Review called Poseidon was performed 300 times in New York with 300 of the most beautiful tritonesses and sirens; on the beaches of Miami and California young people big in costumes of tritons and nayads ( ie. Three strings of pearls and nothing else), while in the states of the Midwest the movement for the suppression of immorality gained enormously in numbers; they were public demonstrations in several Negroes were hanged or burned alive."

Now this is what I don't like it all. Somehow Blacks got lumped together with the newts and both of them got lynched and hanged.

The narrator of the book has supposedly pieced this narrative together from the clippings of the butler, a Mr Povondra, who let Captain Von toch into his boss's house to talk to him about the capital needed to raise for the company of the newts. They pieced together where the news were originally from: 

" a small island in the Australian ocean, yes. A small saltwater lake. It sounds like a coral island, an atoll with a salt lagoon, difficult of access: just the sort of place a prehistoric's species of this sort might survive, isolated from The evolutionary developments of other species and undisturbed in a natural reservation. Of course they wouldn't have been able to multiply because of the lack of food in the lake. It's obvious, the professor said to himself. An animal similar to a lizard, but without scales and walking on its hind legs like a man: it could only be Andrias scheuchzeri, or another newt closely related to it. Supposing it was the same andrias. Supposing those damn divers in that Lagoon wiped them out and just the one pair were taken alive on to that ship; a pair that escaped into the sea by sumatra. That would mean right on the equator, and conditions highly favorable for life and with unlimited food. Could it be that this change of environment gave this miocene newt a powerful new evolutionary impulse? It was certainly used to salt water: let's suppose its new home was a calm, enclosed Bay with plenty of food; what would happen then? The newts transposed into an environment with optimal conditions, having enormous Vigor; their population would burgeon. That's it, the scientists declared joyfully. The newts would start to develop uncontrollably; at an amazing rate because their eggs and their tadpoles would have no particular enemies in the new environment. they would colonize one Island after another - it's only strange that some islands have been overlooked. In all other respects it's typical of Migrant migration patterns and pursuit of food - and that raises the question of why they didn't develop earlier. Could it be to do with the fact that there is no known species of Newt in the area between Ethiopia and Australia? Or rather it hasn't been until now.... "?

And now we get to the strange experiments performed on the newts to understand their reproductive techniques: 

"( the experiments performed by Miss kistemaekers was followed up with some interesting research by the Learned Abbé bontempelli. Having prepared some dried and powdered milt from the Andrias he put it in the females' water, who then began to discharge fertile eggs. He obtained the same result if he dried and powdered andreis's male organ or if he took an extract in alcohol or by infusion and poured it into the females' water. He tried the same experiment, with the same result, when he took an extract of the males' pituitary gland and even when he took a scraping from the males skin, if taken in the rutting season. In all these cases, the females did not respond at first, but after a while they stopped seeking food and became stiff and Motionless in the water, then after some hours they begin to discharge eggs in a gelatinous coating, each about the size of pig's droppings.)"

cruelty from humans came in the form of the way they captured the newts  and brought them on board ships: during their male newts ceremonies on shore, they were clubbed in the head: 

"back on board, the captured newts were thrown into a tank. Our ship was an old oil tanker and the tanks stank of oil because they hadn't been cleaned out properly, and the water had an obvious oily film over it. All that had been done was that the cover had been taken off so that the air could get to it. When the newts were thrown in it looks thick and repulsive, like some kind of noodle soup. In some places where they moved about they looked weak and pitiful. Over the next day they were left alone while they came to, then the day after, four men would come along and jab long poles into the soup, as everyone called it, they mixed all the bodies together and watched to see if there were any that weren't moving or where the flesh was falling off; they'd hook them on Long poles and pull them out of the tank. Then the captain would ask is the soup clean? - yes sir. - pour the water in - yes sir. That soup had to be cleaned like this everyday, and each time they'd throw 6 to 10 pieces of damaged Goods as they called them, into the sea; there was always a lot of big and well fed sharks closely following our ship. The stink from the tanks was awful; despite being changed now and then the water in them was yellow, full of excrement and bits of wet food; there'd be these black bodies lying about in it, splashing weirdly, or just doing nothing, hardly able to breathe. Well they've got it good, old Mike insisted. I saw a ship once used to transport them in metal Benzene barrels; they all died."

Cruelty to the newts abounds and the reader is reminded of the time when the KKK had nothing stopping them in the torture of blacks:

"at this point it is worth mentioning that the press, especially in the united states, would occasionally publish reports of girls who had been raped by a newt while bathing. As a result, the number of cases in America where a newt was captured and lynched or burned alive multiplied rapidly. Scientists came forward to protest at this folk custom, insisting that their Anatomy made it physically impossible for any Newt to commit a crime of this sort, but their words were in vain: too many girls had sworn that they had been assaulted by a newt and so for any regular American the matter was clear. Later on at least, the sport of burning a newt alive was only allowed to take place on a Saturday and under the supervision of the fire brigade. The society for the prevention of the lynching of newts was established under the leadership of the Reverend Robert J Washington and counted hundreds of thousands of members, of whom almost all were negroes, including the Reverend washington. The American Press began to maintain that this was a political movement with the intention of overturning the government; as a result the areas inhabited by Negros came under attack and many of them were themselves burned alive, especially those who prayed for brother Newt in their churches. The climax of indignation against Negros reached its peak when a black church in gordonville (L. ) was burned down and the fire spread to the whole of the city. ( but this is only incidental to the story of the newts)."

The newts get tired of the discrimination against them. They have gotten explosives and certain arms from humans in order to do their underwater work, and now they turn these tools and explosives on humans. It's war with the newts.

" 'hello you people! Remain calm. We wish you no harm.. we merely need more water, more coastline, more shallows in which to live. There are too many of us. Your coastlines are already too limited for our needs. For this reason we need you to demolish your continents. We will convert them into bays and islands. In this way, the length of Coastline can be increased five fold. We will construct new shallows. We cannot live in deep ocean. We will need your continents as materials to fill in the Deep waters. We wish you no harm, but there are too many of us. You will be free to migrate inland. You will not be prevented from fleeing to the hills. The hills will be the last to be demolished. 

We are here because you wanted us. You have distributed us over the entire world. Now you have us. We wish that you collaborate with us. You will provide us with steel for our pics and drills. You will provide us with explosives. You will provide us with torpedoes. You will work for us. Without you we will not be able to remove the old continents. Hello you people, Chief salamander, in the name of all newts everywhere, offers collaboration with you. You will collaborate with us in the demolition of your world. Thank you. "

And in the end: 

"And in the name of true newtdum. In the name of Glory and greatness. The slogan is, it's us or them! The lamurians, armed with Malay kukries and daggers cut down the Atlantian Intruders without mercy; but the Atlantian newts had been educated by Europeans and are more advanced and released chemicals and specially cultured bacteria into the Lemurian sea and these weapons are so effective they poisoned all the oceans of the world. The sea is infected with artificially cultivated plague. And that's it. All the newts die. 

'all of them?'

all of them. Down to the very last one. They'll become an extinct species. All that'll be left of them will be the old fossil of Andrias Scheuchzeri in oningen. 

'and what about the people?'

the people? Oh yes, the people. Well, bit by bit they start to come back down from the hills back down to the coast of what's left of the continent; but the ocean will still be full of the stench of decomposing newts. The continents slowly grew back because of the silt deposited by rivers; the sea is pushed back bit by bit, and everything will be almost the same as it was before. There's a new legend about a great flood sent by God to punish man for his sins. And there will be new legends about lands that disappeared under the water, and these lands will have been the Cradle of human civilization; and there will be myths and legends about places like England and France and germany... "

I took with this book with me when I had a stereo optic breast biopsy. But I was put in such an uncomfortable position that i couldn't read it. Que lastima. The mammographer did yell me that the doctors asked what book I was reading.