History Literature / WarWithTheNewts

* TheManBehindTheMonsters: The elusive "Chief Salamander", who leads the war on humanity and makes threatening world-scale radio broadcasts. He is secretly a human named Andreas Schultze.

Along the way, the novel sharply satirizes a wide swath of westernized culture in the 1930s, including UsefulNotes/{{Hollywood}}, racism, Nazism and the global arms race. The plot even foretells the Munich Agreement, except Czechoslovakia is China, and [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany Germany]] is the Newts.

* GratuitousForeignLanguage: The Czech original novel has tons of GratuitousEnglish to spice it up and give it a feel of exotic lands and the life on the sea. There is some GratuitousGerman, already lurking as BlackSpeech connected with ThoseWackyNazis. "Solche Erfolge erreichen nur Duetche Molche." (''Only German newts accomplish such great things.'')

* ScrapbookStory: Capek worked also as a journalist, and this novel shows. It is a collage of various story-telling methods and Capek employed and spoofed techniques of popular journalism for expressing scientific, political, social or philosophical ideas related to the story. The story is presented from multiple perspectives, and there are many documents, scraps and clippings from in-verse scientists, journalists, politicians, businessmen, celebrities or working-class people.

''War with the Newts'' is an 1936 satirical science-fiction novel by Czech author [[Creator/KarelCapek Karel Čapek]].

''War with the Newts'' is an 1936 satirical science-fiction novel by Czech author Karel Čapek.

''War with the Newts'' is an 1936 novel by Karel Čapek.

Czech Captain Van Toch is ordered to go pearl fishing and ends up on Tana Masa, an island near Sumatra. The natives won't let him into Devil Bay, contending that there are demons there, but Van Toch goes there anyway with a few gutsy native boys, who return with several pearls and a strange tale of darkly colored newt demons. Toch, after quite a bit of drinking, teaches these newts to fetch him pearls but sees that their small population is threatened by sharks. As he has become to see these newts as almost his children, he becomes enraged, and goes to his old childhood rival from his village, Bondy, who is now an industry magnate. Which isn't as unlikely as it sounds, considering the small size of [[UsefulNotes/CzechRepublic Czechoslovakia]].

The doorman Povondra is not sure whether to let him in, which eventually becomes a plot point. Bondy does not believe the insane, rambling, racist-epithet-full tale, but has a feeling that he should grant the request of a ship to carry the newts around and establish newt colonies. Which happens to have some very far-reaching effects on the planet Earth.

Karel Čapek segues from this point into short stories and newspaper clippings to tell of the eventual eponymous war with the Newts, as they come to be called, while sharply satirizing everything from Nazism to UsefulNotes/{{Hollywood}}. Oh, and he seemingly foretells the Munich Agreement, except Czechoslovakia is China, and [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany Germany]] is the Newts.

[[caption-width-right:200:[[AlienInvasion Aliens]], [[ZombieApocalypse zombies]], [[RobotWar robots]], [[PlanetOfTheApes apes]], sure... but ''newts!?'']]

Czech Captain Van Toch is ordered to go pearl fishing and ends up on Tana Masa, an island near Sumatra. The natives won't let him into Devil Bay, contending that there are demons there, but Van Toch goes there anyway with a few gutsy native boys, who return with several pearls and a strange tale of darkly colored newt demons. Toch, after quite a bit of drinking, teaches these lizards to fetch him pearls but sees that their small population is threatened by sharks. As he has become to see these newts as almost his children, he becomes enraged, and goes to his old childhood rival from his village, Bondy, who is now an industry magnate. Which isn't as unlikely as it sounds, considering the small size of [[UsefulNotes/CzechRepublic Czechoslovakia]].

Czech Captain Van Toch is ordered to go pearl fishing and ends up on Tana Masa, an island near Sumatra. The natives won't let him into Devil Bay, contending that there are demons there, but Van Toch goes there anyway with a few gutsy native boys, who return with several pearls and a strange tale of darkly colored lizard demons. Toch, after quite a bit of drinking, teaches these lizards to fetch him pearls but sees that their small population is threatened by sharks. As he has become to see these lizards as almost his children, he becomes enraged, and goes to his old childhood rival from his village, Bondy, who is now an industry magnate. Which isn't as unlikely as it sounds, considering the small size of [[UsefulNotes/CzechRepublic Czechoslovakia]].

The doorman Povondra is not sure whether to let him in, which eventually becomes a plot point. Bondy does not believe the insane, rambling, racist-epithet-full tale, but has a feeling that he should grant the request of a ship to carry the lizards around and establish lizard colonies. Which happens to have some very far-reaching effects on the planet Earth.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: The final chapter is titled "The author speaks to himself". He stops the story as a deus ex machina character and asks himself whether he doesn't feel sorry for the human race and their sad fate.

* FictionalDocument:
** The novel contains many fictitious newspaper clippings about the Newts.

* GratuiousForeignLanguage: The Czech original novel has tons of GratuitousEnglish to spice it up and give it a feel of exotic lands and the life on the sea.
** There is some GratuitousGerman, already lurking as BlackSpeech connected with ThoseWackyNazis. "Solche Erfolge erreichen nur Duetche Molche." (''Only German newts accomplish such great things.'')

* BilingualBonus[=/=]FunWithForeingLanguages: For five languages. There is a group of five scientists, the most renowned biologist of the time in field of fish parasites, segmented worms, plant biology, ciliates and aphids: P. L. Smith, W. Kleinschmidt, Charles Kovar, Louis Forgeron and D. Herrero. The surnames mean "smith" or "blacksmith".

* DownerEnding: The ending seems to be this; Newts are about to take over the world, and Povondra is dying, guilt-ridden, as he considers himself responsible. However, the author then starts an argument with an internal voice, that tells him that he can't finish the story like that. He eventually envisions a war between the different kind of Newts in which they destroy themselves, and humanity can retake what remains of Earth.
* FictionalDocument: The novel contains many fictitious newspaper clippings about the Newts.

* PunnyName: The story opens with introducing Captain J. Van Toch and the name of his ships and that he works for a company based in Amsterdam strongly imply he's Dutch. However, it's later revealed his name is actually Vantoch which is a very ordinary-sounding Czech surname. He comes from Moravia and speaks in irresistible local dialect.

* ScrapbookStory: Capek worked also as a journalist, and this novel shows as it is a collage of various story-telling methods. He employed and spoofed techniques of popular journalism for expressing scientific, political, social or philosophical ideas related to the story. The story is presented from multiple perspectives, and there are many documents from in-verse scientists, journalists, politicians, celebrities or even ordinary people.

* FictionalDocument: The novel contains many fictious newspaper clippings about the Newts.

Karel Čapek segues from this point into short stories and newspaper clippings to tell of the eventual eponymous war with the Newts, as they come to be called, while sharply satirizing everything from Nazism to {{Hollywood}}. Oh, and he seemingly foretells the Munich Agreement, except Czechoslovakia is China, and [[NaziGermany Germany]] is the Newts.

!! ''War with the Newts'' provides examples of:

* YouHaveToBelieveMe: Partially averted when Bondy does eventually listen to van Toch about the Newts.

[[caption-width-right:200:Aliens, zombies, robots, apes, sure... but ''newts!?'']]

[[caption-width-right:200:Aliens, Zombies, Robots, Apes, sure... but ''Newts!?'']]

[[caption-width-right:200:Aliens, Zombies, Apes, sure... but ''Newts!?'']]

[[caption-width-right:200:...''Newts!?'']]

[[caption-width-right:200:...''Newts''!?]]

!! ''War With the Newts'' provides examples of:

* SameStoryDifferentNames: The general plot of ''War with the Newts'' is very similar to that of Čapek's ''RossumsUniversalRobots''.

Czech Captain Van Toch is ordered to go pearl fishing and ends up on Tana Masa, an island near Sumatra. The natives won't let him into Devil Bay, contending that there are demons there, but Van Toch goes there anyway with a few gutsy native boys, who return with several pearls and a strange tale of darkly colored lizard demons. Toch, after quite a bit of drinking, teaches these lizards to fetch him pearls but sees that their small population is threatened by sharks. As he has become to see these lizards as almost his children, he becomes enraged, and goes to his old childhood rival from his village, Bondy, who is now an industry magnate. Which isn't as unlikely as it sounds, considering the small size of Czechoslovakia.

Karel Čapek segues from this point into short stories and newspaper clippings to tell of the eventual eponymous war with the newts, as they come to be called, while sharply satirizing everything from Naziism to Hollywood. Oh, and he seemingly foretells the Munich Agreement, except Czechoslovakia is China, and Germany is the newts.

'''War With the Newts provides examples of:'''

* DownerEnding: The ending seems to be this; Newts are about to take over the world, and Povondra is dying, guilt-ridden, as he considers himself responsible. However, the author then starts an argument with an internal voice, that tells him that he can't finish the story like that. He evntually envisions an war between the different kind of Newts in which they destroy themselves, and humanity can retake what remains of Earth.

* ItsAllMyFault: When the use of the Newts has positive effects, Povondra likes to claim that it's all thanks to him, because he let Von Toch in. When the war breaks out, and the Newts reach Czechoslovakia, he feels horrible guilt. His son, however, tells him that it isn't really his fault; everyone is gulity.
* MasterRace - Poking fun at the Third Reich, Čapek has German government claim that German Newts are a superior Nordic race and deserve more Lebensraum than the inferior newts of other countries.
* SameStoryDifferentNames - The general plot of "War With the Newts" is very similar to that of Čapek's [[RossumsUniversalRobots R.U.R.]].
* SlaveRace - The Newts
* TurnedAgainstTheirMasters - The inevitable Newt rebellion
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman - The debates surrounding treatment of the Newts
* YouHaveToBelieveMe - partially averted when Bondy does eventually listen to van Toch about the Newts.