53 pages • 1 hour read
Karel ČapekWar with the Newts
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1936A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Book 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 2: “Along the Steps of Civilization”
Book 2, Chapter 1 Summary: “M. Povondra Reads the Papers”
Povondra, while seeking a hobby, finds an article about the newts building new islands in the paper. He believes this is spectacular progress and tells his wife and son how he played a part in it by showing Captain van Toch in to see Bondy. He believes he and Bondy have “a nose for people” (165); the news article inspires Povondra to begin collecting newspaper articles about the newts.
When Bondy sees the collection Povondra accrues, he has the company send him any clippings that were not going into the syndicate’s archives. These are in a variety of languages. However, Povondra does not clearly mark the date and publication of the clippings, and his wife periodically threw out some clippings when they started to run out of space. So, not all of the information about newts survived. The following chapter gathers and reproduces the information in the surviving clippings.
Book 2, Chapter 2 Summary: “Along the Steps of Civilization (The Annals of the Newts)”
The summary of the newts’ history is somewhat chronological, but also moves between different topics regarding the newts. The points about the newts are supported in footnotes that include Povondra’s newspaper clippings, as well as other reports. It begins with a discussion of the economics of newts after the Salamander Syndicate was established. Newt sales are very profitable. However, some places—like England—ban the use of newts because it violates their laws regarding slavery.
Some labor issues associated with the newts are workers concerned that they are taking jobs away from humans. Many people distrust newts, but some newts save men who were drowning near Madras. The operations that occur in the Salamander Building in Singapore are described—the customers do not view the creatures. There are a variety of types of newts that can be purchased, such as Leading (who supervise other salamanders), Heavy (large and strong salamanders), Team (a group of average newts), Odd Jobs (untrained newts from the wild), and Spawn (tadpoles).
The newt farms are described next. There, the newts learn basic English, construction skills, and how to use weapons. The newts are paid in food, which is to say they do not earn a wage for their labor, and are transported in tank boats. Opponents of the buying and selling of newts consider it slavery.
Some newts are captured by pirates—there is a description of how newts are violently taken from their dance under the moon. Tank boats that transport the newts are often converted oil tankers. The tanks are not completely clean when they put the newts in them, and the dirty water is called soup. Many newts die on the journey, which is compared to the ships of enslaved people that crossed the Atlantic.
The construction of a new Atlantis is summarized in terms of locations, such as Japan and Europe. Newts create new islands all over the world. Scientists begin to conduct experiments on newts that harm and/or kill them. Newts are sensitive to dry and sunny conditions, being amphibious and nocturnal. Scientists also experiment with ways to turn newts into textiles and food. There is a collection of fictional quotes from famous people, such as George Bernard Shaw and Mae West, about the newts.
Then, the “Newt problem” (202) is discussed. Women’s clubs, led by Louise Zimmerman, advocate for newts being provided with a good education. This includes learning languages, learning about art, and about other subjects of a liberal arts education. However, some people advocate for limiting the education of the newts to vocational and scientific programs, while others argue newts need to learn Latin. Institutions of higher education for newts are established, and newts make great discoveries and advancements in science, as well as other fields.
The subject of newt language is debated. Each country wants their language to be the universal language. Newts end up learning the language of the place where they are educated, many speaking a simplified English. Čapek, who is from Czechoslovakia, includes an anecdote about a book called Czech for Newts being created and sold. A Czech man, Jaromir Seidl-Novomestsky, and his wife encounter a newt who owns this book and speaks Czech in the Galapagos Islands.
As the Newt Age progresses, advocates turn their attention to the inhumane treatment of newts. Some people try to stop the experimentation on newts. The “League for Protecting the Salamanders” (215) is concerned with issues like building playgrounds for the newts and sewing clothes for them. A fence is erected around the areas of the beach where the newts gather, separating them from humans. Some people compare the newts with chattel, and laws about newts are passed. These include newts having to abide by human laws, being given parts of shoreline, and being ensured leave during their mating period.
There are a number of legal disputes about the newts. In the United States, newts are lynched after human girls accuse them of sexual assault, even though such an act is physically impossible for the newts. A movement against lynching is founded by Black people. Some of these people are persecuted for their solidarity with the newts.
Furthermore, institutions of human religion respond to newts. The Catholic church creates a prayer for them, but considers them outside of the line of humans that started with Adam. Meanwhile, Protestants printed their scriptures on waterproof paper and attempted to do missionary work among the newts, but ended up preaching near the border wall. Humans also established occult temples for worshiping newts (which involved orgies). Newts begin to worship Moloch underwater, including having statues of their god—a newt with a human head—made.
Political groups become interested in the salamanders. Communists address newts as a nation in a manifesto titled “Comrade Newts” and published in newspapers. They suggest the newts unite and fight with the human revolutionaries. Other groups, such as Bakunin-anarchists and swimming clubs, also publish manifestos inviting the newts to join with them. The International Labor Office in Geneva takes an interest in the newts, as well.
While there is a stigma against citing the academic work of the newts, a university in Nice invites a newt speaker, Dr. Charles Mercier, to a conference. The League of Nations forms a committee to investigate the newt problem, but they end up spending most of their time arguing over what to call the newt nation. The newts number in the billions and occupy 60% of the world’s coasts. They have their own schools and newspapers. The older and younger generations disagree on whether or not newts should mimic human culture.
In the Newt Age, humans care more about consumerism and huge outputs than about the arts. Eventually, newts come under the protection of the Hague tribunal. Humans no longer fight over land because they can direct their colonial ideals to new islands built by the newts.
Book 2, Chapter 3 Summary: “Mr. Povondra Reads Newspapers Again”
The narrator returns to Povondra many years later, after his young son, Frantik, is 30 years old. His wife sews one of Frantik’s socks while Povondra reads the papers. He comments on the tension between Japan and China, and his wife asks if a murder has been solved. He is more interested in the tension between nations, noting that England is behind other nations because they are skeptical of newt labor.
Povondra realizes the world is much different in the Newt Age, and feels partially responsible for these changes. As he reads about the tensions growing between newts and humans, Povondra comes to regret showing the captain in to see Bondy.
Book 2 Analysis
Book 2 uses a framing device—how “Povondra began to collect cuttings about the Newts” (166)—before and after a long report on the newts. This develops the theme of Newspapers and the Uses of Information. The report that is bookended by shorter sections on Povondra attempts to chronicle the “Annals of the Newts” (169), or the situation with the newts once Captain van Toch died. The report includes footnotes, Povondra’s clippings, and even a manifesto directed to the newts. In using a documentary style, the novel heightens the parody which juxtaposes a world of giant salamanders with the formal research methods of citation and archiving.
The use of newspapers in this book also connects to the theme of The Problems With Nationalism, as the press of the newts is distinguished from the human press. There are “many hundreds of their own submarine newspapers which are published by the million” (239), yet these documents are unknown to humans, further contributing to human “evidence” of the lack of civilization of the newts. Even if the humans had access to the newt press, humans would not have taken such documents seriously. In the academic world, “it was a matter of honour and of class pride not to take any scientific notice of the work of the Newts” (232). The newts generally ignored the manifestos from human political organizations, and the humans generally ignored the scientific advancements that the newts made. Rather than build communication, newspapers become tools of nationalism that entrench identity.
This book also unpacks, to a small degree, the relationship between nationalism and socioeconomic class. Povondra serves at the representative of the working class in the novel, and when he begins collecting the clippings, he is proud of showing Captain van Toch in to see Bondy. He is proud of the advancements that humans have made after working with the newts. However, after the enslavement of newts develops, Povondra thinks, “perhaps, after all, I oughtn’t to have let that captain in to Mr. Bondy!” (251). Unlike Bondy and other members of the powerful upper class, Povondra takes responsibility and expresses regret. Povondra’s ability to empathize with the newts has not been corrupted by a drive for nationalist power.
The Horrors of Slavery becomes a prominent theme in Book 2. The Annals include descriptions of the places where newts are bred by humans, as well as how humans capture newts who grew up in the wild. The conditions of newts being transported in ships hauntingly mirrors the ships used in the transatlantic trade of enslaved peoples. The dirty tanks that the newts are transported contain what is, “in the trade [...] called soup” (186), and the newts are called “Macaroni” (188). Newts, despite being able to talk and use tools, are categorized as far less than humans and animals—as things. This foreshadows how later, after figuring out how to scald the poison out of the newts’ skin, scientists “ate a Newt called Hans” (199). However, newts are mostly considered a non-edible commodity, or chattel.
England denounces The Horrors of Slavery for newts, comparing it to the West African “slave trade.” The use of newts for labor is banned in England; however, they do not ban the use of newts in their colonies, which illustrates the hypocrisy involved in permitting this abuse and exploitation outside the view of Europeans. Other comparisons between the enslavement of Black people and the enslavement of newts include the phrase “the Newt problem” (202). This echoes a phrase that was once used for discussing the issues surrounding Black Americans, as well as many instances of “othered” identities, including those of Jewish people and women.
When discussing ways to solve the “Newt problem” (202), The Problems With Nationalism come to the foreground. An international Commission for the Study of the Newt Problem forms. However, its meetings are often limited in content, specifically focusing on what to name the newts as a collective. The “international codification of the nomenclature of the Newts was discussed [...] it did not, of course, reach any final and unanimous conclusion” (238). This is a joke that parodies the minutiae of politics, which often prevents meaningful change from occurring. Naming an issue can convey great power on those who do the naming and is a much easier expense of energy than actually enacting a solution to an issue.
The arts—specifically dance, poetry, and film—can be understood in terms of the duality of humans and newts. In War with the Newts, dance is discussed in terms of the newts and their “secret moon dances” (216). Dance, as previously mentioned, is a symbol of the collective male newt identity. Dance also represents newt culture. While newts have their own art, it is not considered a high art. High arts include literature, and newts have “no literature of their own” (241). However, advocates for newt education argue in favor of newts learning about human literature. Advocates believe that “it was not enough to teach them to talk if they were not taught to quote the poets” (205). This indicates how poetry is a heightened form of language—a high art that demonstrates the human soul, emotions, and perceptions.
