First Impressions Review: The War With The Newts, by Karel Capek
This 1936 Czech science fiction novel is a satire on colonialism, slavery, fascism…and a dozen other things from newspapers and Hollywood, to education reform, to scientific detachment. The basic premise is that near the turn of the 20th century, intelligent, bipedal amphibians the size of a young child are discovered living in the South Pacific. Almost immediately humans start trying to exploit their labor, and over the next few decades proceed to be incredibly oblivious to what a terrible idea it is to create a hundreds-of-millions-strong underclass that is simultaneously mistreated, educated, and armed. The end of the book was clearly intended as a reference to the “it can’t happen here” attitude that enabled the spread of fascism. However, the way economic arguments are used as an excuse to keep selling the newts weapons even as they revolt, these days feels like it could be a metaphor for the mishandling of climate change responses!
It should be noted that this book has a LOT of people making racist statements; That is part of the satire on the early 20th century, which was extremely racist! However, it is understandable if that isn’t to all readers’ tastes. Moreover, satire is tricky. While I read this as skewering those attitudes rather than reinforcing them, I can’t comment on whether someone who believed some of them would recognize the critique1! That is especially true given how the newts switch from oppressed to aggressor part way through…though it’s not like the humans don’t deserve it! One thing I think is interesting is the way the humans in the book project their own ideas on the newts (who are pretty quiet, most of the time, regarding their true feelings). Even the more positive versions feel very “white man’s burden”/white savior-y, this brand of trying to “uplift” someone without asking what they actually want.
1. See all the men who watched ‘Fight Club’ and decided the message was “The best way to recapture your masculinity is to punch each other in the face” instead of pretty much the opposite of that. Or the Neo-Nazis who have embraced ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Me’ as a theme song…when it was written by gay Jews as part of a story that explicitly frames the rise of fascism as being bad!
The primary analogy when it comes to the newts is the enslavement and mistreatment of Black people, of course. Not being Black myself, I don't feel entirely qualified to say if using a non-human species here accidentally perpetuates harmful stereotypes. However, some of the ways it is done can be pretty effective at pointing out the lack of logic in racist thinking. The newts are indeed mentally classed as “black” by many because that’s what they literally are, despite of course being unrelated to Black humans and entirely culturally distinct - This is an exaggerated version of how very dark-skinned people in Africa, South India, Melanesia, and Australia were mentally lumped together by many Europeans. A death rate of 10% in transport from newt “farms” to new work areas is treated as evidence of how WELL the newts are being treated…at least compared to those who are basically just beaten up and stolen by pirates. The newts are simultaneously infantilized, treated as a sinister threat, and dismissed as uninteresting when they are just EQUAL to humans in some quality or other. The juxtapositions of newts who have “made it” to being recognized as a scientist, for example, while other newts are being bought and sold or experimented on, is stark and horrifying2.
2. “Forgive me, I am not quite sure what it was that Professor Devrient said…my head began to spin at the thought of what disorders would be seen in Professor Devrient if his right temporal lobe were removed; how the smiling Dr. Okagawa would respond if he were given electric stimulants…I started to be tortured with doubt as to whether (strictly scientifically speaking) we have any right to talk of our own(mankind’s) spiritual life…should we turn on one another, scalpel in hand…?”
Who decides to sympathize with the newts and when feels very believable. For instance, workers’ groups are a bit split on whether they ought to resist the spread of newts for fear of losing jobs, or recognize them as an oppressed underclass with shared interests – with the more radical socialist movements leaning toward the latter. And:
“Not for the first time in the history of mankind, the most vigorous activist in the Newt Question was a woman.” Madame Zimmermann mobilizes other women to advocate for newt education. There is soon much debate, though, over what the newts should be taught…and being dressed up in little pinafores to recite poetry was doubtless a bit puzzling to the young newts! There start to be - in the US, naturally – newts lynched on the charge of raping human women, with little attention being paid to evidence. “The Society for the Prevention of the Lynching of Newts…counted hundreds of thousands of members, of whom almost all were mere negroes…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 negroes came under attack and many of them were themselves burned alive…(But this is only incidental to the story of the newts)” Then a lighter-skinned version of newt is found in the Baltic, and “The German press took this Baltic newt as its own…Journalists wrote with contempt of the degenerate newts of the Mediterranean…and of the inferior, barbaric and bestial newts of other nations. The slogan of the day was From the Great Newt to the German Übernewt…This was why Germany needed new and longer shores, it needed colonies”
It is fascinating and chilling some of the things this book predicts about real-world events. Remember, this was published in 1936 – A year before Japan invaded China, two years before Germany annexed Austria and started invading parts of the author’s home country, and three years before the official start of World War II. It isn’t too surprising how well Capek can echo fascist talking points (including having both Germans and Newts talk a lot about the need for “living space”3): After all, the Nazis had won a lot of seats in the Reichstag by 1932. But when the newts attack the UK, it is like a preview of the Blitz: “John Bull was given another moment in history to display his famous doggedness…Just a few weeks later there was a desperate shortage of foodstuffs in the British Isles…The British nation bore it with exemplary dignity, despite having sunk so low that they had even eaten all their racehorses.” One of the first countries they properly invade is China, with the grudging “at least it’s not us” approval of Europe and Japan4. And even with half of Germany and France underwater: “You don’t understand about politics. It’s those countries that are next to the sea, they’re the ones that have been at war with the newts, not us. We’re neutral, we are, and that’s why they can’t do anything against us” (Newt head pops up in the river)
3. The footnote “In Germany in particular all vivisection was strictly forbidden albeit, of course, only for Jewish researchers” caused me to re-read it to try and tell whether such researchers are the actors or the subject in such vivisection! But it doesn’t matter, I suppose – giving certain groups of people a dirty job and then blaming and dehumanizing them for it is an old practice.
4. Even earlier:“Although the earthquake in Kiangsu was far more extensive than the disaster in Louisiana it attracted little attention in the world press because everyone was used to catastrophes happening in China, and the loss of some million lives did not seem very important”
There are quite a few lighter observations as well, of course. For instance:
“It is a well known fact that the more important a man is the less he has written on his door…others might have Julius Bondy, Representative of General Motors on their doors, or Ervin Bondy, Doctor of Medicine…but there is only one Bondy who is simply Bondy without any further details…And God doesn’t have a name plate at all, neither in Heaven nor on Earth.”
Or how it’s the most nonsensical idea for a screenplay about the newts that actually gets made. Or how a newt that taught himself to read says his favorite parts of the newspaper are court cases, football matches, and horse races. “’Have you ever seen a football match?’ ‘No sir’ “Then why do you read it?’ ‘Cause its in the paper, sir’” The scientists concluded: “Its intelligence should not be over-estimated, as it in no way surpasses that of the average modern man.”
Though I know the main point is to look at humanity through their responses to the newts, I did wish we’d gotten to see a bit much of what newt society actually IS. For instance, in one section, there is a description of how newts don’t actually need sperm to fertilize their eggs, but just the acidic conditions the male can produce. Some scientists, combining this observation with the observation that only the males engage in ritual dance, suggest that the only society newts really have is male, as they turn their lack of reproductive usefulness into something else. However, that is just what male scientists of the time WOULD say! I suspect it is not true, but we never really find out.
In the final chapter, “The author talks to himself”, we see the author argue with himself about how to end the story. He rejects “war of the worlds”-type solutions like just having a virus kill the newts: “Why should nature have to put right what’s been done by man?” Asked if he wants to see mankind destroyed: “Don’t ask me what I want…That was just the logical course of events…I did everything I could; I gave people enough warning…don’t give the newts weapons and explosives, stop this vile trading in salamanders, and so on – and you see how it all turned out. They all had a thousand good economic and political reasons why they couldn’t stop.” Ah, but then he remembers – if the newts turned out to be like humans in so many respects, why shouldn’t they have some of our flaws, as well?
Overall recommendation: An old book but – given both the renewed openness of fascist symbols and talking points, and the willful-ignorance approaches to issues like climate change – one that can still send a shiver down your spine!
