Apocryphal Tales

193 Pages·2010·0.45 MB·English

by  Karel Capek

Other Books by and about Karel „apek
from Catbird Press
Toward the Radical Center: A Karel „apek Reader
edited by Peter Kussi, foreword by Arthur Miller
War with the Newts translated by Ewald Osers
Cross Roads translated by Norma Comrada
Three Novels translated by M. & R. Weatherall
Tales from Two Pockets translated by Norma Comrada
Talks with T. G. Masaryk translated by Michael Henry Heim
Karel „apek – Life and Work by Ivan Klíma
translated by Norma Comrada
APOCRYPHAL
TALES
With A Selection of Fables
and Would-Be Tales
by Karel „apek
Translated from the Czech and
With an Introduction by Norma Comrada
CATBIRD PRESS
A Garrigue Book
Translation and Introduction © 1997 Norma Comrada

CATBIRD PRESS
16 Windsor Road, North Haven, CT 06473
203-230-2391; [email protected]
www.catbirdpress.com
Our books are distributed by Independent Publishers Group
Sony ISBN 978-1-936053-09-8
Kindle ISBN 978-1-936053-10-1
Adobe ISBN 978-1-936053-11-X
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
„apek, Karel, 1890-1938
[Kniha apokryfç. English]

Apocryphal tales / by Karel „apek ; translated from the Czech and with an introduction
by Norma Comrada
"A Garrigue book."
ISBN 0-945774-34-6 (trade pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Short stories, Czech--Translations into English. I. Comrada, Norma. II. Title
PG5038.C3K613 1997
891.8'6352--dc21 96-54505 CIP
CONTENTS
Introduction 7
The Moving Business 11

Apocryphal Tales
The Punishment of Prometheus 15
Times Aren’t What They Used To Be 20
Just Like Old Times 26
Thersites 29
Agathon, or Concerning Wisdom 35
Alexander the Great 39
The Death of Archimedes 44
The Roman Legions 47
The Ten Righteous 52
Pseudo-Lot, or Concerning Patriotism 57
Holy Night 62
Martha and Mary 65
Lazarus 71
The Five Loaves 75
Benchanan 79
The Crucifixion 83
Pilate’s Evening 86
Pilate’s Creed 89
The Emperor Diocletian 93
Attila 98
Iconoclasm 104
Brother Francis 112
Ophir 116
Goneril, Daughter of Lear 123
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 127
Don Juan’s Confession 136
Romeo and Juliet 143
Master Hynek Ráb of Kufštejn 149
Napoleon 154
Fables 158
Would-Be Tales
The Libertine 160
The Lawsuit 163
The First Guest 166
Tonda 168
The Man Who Knew How To Fly 171
The Anonymous Letter 179
Ten Centavos 184
Original Publication Order of Apocryphal Tales 190
Introduction
During his relatively short lifetime (1890-1938), the Czech writer
Karel „apek became internationally known for his plays, novels, and
stories, most notably for his 1920 drama R.U.R.: Rossum’s
Universal Robots, which introduced the word “robot” to the world.
His astonishing output also included essays, literary criticism,
children’s books, books on pets and gardening and travel and
getting out a daily newspaper, and numerous other works on a wide
range of topics, in a variety of styles. Many of these first appeared
in Lidové noviny, the principal newspaper for which „apek wrote,
and were published afterwards in book form. This is true of the
Apocryphal Tales as well, except that, in this case, the book did not
appear until 1945, seven years after „apek had died.
The primary reason for the delay was the Nazi occupation of
Czechoslovakia shortly after „apek’s death, and the immediate ban
on all his work. It also appears that „apek had not thought of his
Apocryphal Tales as a discrete collection until late in life: they had
been written intermittently over an eighteen-year period, in no
particular order, and many were responses to internal and external
political issues of the moment. When World War II ended, „apek’s
editor and bibliographer Miroslav Halík, explaining that he had
found the Apocryphal Tales in a separate envelope among „apek’s
posthumous papers, selected and arranged twenty-nine of them in
the order of when the tales occur rather than when they were
written. Despite official disapproval of „apek under the country’s
subsequent communist regime, the Tales were republished whenever
circumstances permitted and continue to be printed today.
The Apocryphal Tales can be read in several ways: as parable,
as allegory, and as „apek’s imaginative, innovative use of these lite-
rary devices to raise ethical questions and to address social and
7
political concerns. There is more than a hint of „apek as “myth-
tamer,” reworking the past for precise purposes: broadly, to enlarge
our understanding of our own and others’ perceptions and inter-
pretations of the world around us; more narrowly, to help forge the
young First Republic of Czechoslovakia into a sustainable, partici-
patory democratic society. At the same time, in a good many of the
Tales „apek is playing with our “of course” assumptions about
familiar historical personalities and events, and turning them upside
down.
When read in the order in which they were written (see the list
at the back of the book), the Apocryphal Tales also become a
window through which to view „apek’s personal and literary
development over the years. Taken in any order, the Tales remain
characteristically „apek: probing the nature of truth, justice, and
human experience, all the while providing a good read.
This new translation of the Apocryphal Tales differs from the
previous version (Apocryphal Stories, translated by Dora Round
(London: Allen & Unwin; New York: Macmillan, 1949) in its use
of updated language, in its corrections of errors, and in its entire
approach to the Tales and to „apek’s narrative voice. Also, I have
added to the collection other stories which appeared first in „apek’s
newspaper and have never before appeared in English translation.
These are the “Fables” and the “Would-Be Tales.”
Fables. This sampling of „apek’s original use of the aphorism
represents no more than a small portion of the whole. „apek occa-
sionally devoted his weekly newspaper column to these terse satirical
observations, sometimes on life and times in general, sometimes as
commentary on some specific issue or event. The single criterion for
inclusion here is direct affinity with the Apocryphal Tales.
Would-Be Tales. The stories rounding out this book are taken from
yet another category of „apek’s literary journalism. In Czech they
share the same volume as the Fables, being too few in number to
8
constitute an entity of their own. Unconnected thematically to the
Apocryphal Tales, these short narratives nonetheless exhibit certain
threads woven throughout all of „apek’s writing: his deep concern
for human life, his humanistic outlook, and his fascination with
human psychology, motivation, and reaction. „apek scholar B. R.
Bradbrook, who helped with the stories’ selection, also came up
with the perfect translation, used herein, for podpovídky, the word
„apek invented for these short narratives.
Like the Apocryphal Tales, some of the Would-Be Tales are in
response to personal and political events of the time. “The Anony-
mous Letter,” for instance, was written in the turbulent and
despairing days following the Munich Agreement, when „apek him-
self was receiving hate mail blaming him for the turmoil into which
the nation had been plunged.
A final note: The Would-Be Tale “The Moving Business” was
chosen to open this edition because of its reference to several his-
torical eras featured in individual Apocryphal Tales, and also for its
affirmation of the unchanging human, social, and political realities
found in any age. The title in translation scores a rare point of
advantage for English: the Czech word used for “moving” refers
solely to packing up and moving out; for us, the word has another,
entirely different connotation as well — a “moving business” it is,
in both senses.
9