Karel Capek is largely known as the author of War with the Newts and for popularising the term ‘robot’, but his career as a writer was extensive with numerous plays, novels, travel writing and collections of stories. Apocryphal Stories falls into the latter category. Originally published in 1932, an expanded version was released posthumously in 1945, and translated into English by Dora Round in 1949. The stories it contains are brief – between two and seven pages – and were written over a period of almost twenty years; all concern important historical persons or events, each seen from a new, and often irreverent, angle. For that reason, they appear in chronological order of the history they retell rather than the order in which they were written.
The volume begins with ‘The Punishment of Prometheus’ which gives us some indication of the approach Capek will take. Firstly, the story takes the form of a debate over whether, and how, Prometheus should be punished, just as many of the stories will use dialogue to make their point. The debate takes place in the Senate, so politicising it, and the characters are named in relation to Prometheus by changing the ‘pro’ prefix – Hypometheus, Apometheus, Antimetheus. The arguments against Prometheus are numerous: that his discovery is blasphemous, dangerous, will lead to “effeminacy, the degeneration of morals” and that he did not report it to the “appropriate authority” (the Senate, of course). Despite the condemnation, however, they do not deny that fire is a “tremendous thing” but intend to punish Prometheus severely despite this – as Hypothemeus tells his son, “You wouldn’t understand.”
This sets the tone for the generally satirical, and occasionally cynical, stories which follow. Sometimes his target is the everyday attitudes of ordinary people, such as in the story of prehistoric man, ‘Times Aren’t What They Were’, which largely writes itself, but more frequently they are aimed at power and those in power. In ‘Alexander the Great’, for example, Alexander writes to Aristotle justifying each conquest in terms of the previous one and asking him to prepare the way “to justify my proclamation as a god,” making entirely clear amid his excuses that he will never be satisfied. In the story which follows, the Romans attempt to persuade Archimedes to join them:
“…a man like you might win world mastery.”
But Archimedes explains that his focus is on “something more important. Something more lasting, you know.” Rather than cruel, the powerful are portrayed as calculating – such as the Emperor Diocletian outlawing Christianity because “a Christian State could not hold together for a month” – or foolish. In ‘Ophir’ a sailor’s tale of the mythical land which trades gold for iron is disbelieved by the Doge as it does not entirely match what he has read in books and the sailor is imprisoned.
A number of the stories retell the events of the New Testament from the point of view of those who were there. In ‘Christmas Eve’ the innkeeper’s wife complains that her husband has allowed strangers to sleep in the stable:
“He says she’s his wife. His wife, is she? I know the sort of thing that goes on among those vagrants.”
The story of ‘Mary and Martha’ is told by Martha, who does all the work while Mary gets the attention (“someone must cook and wash and mend and keep the place clean, and our Mary hasn’t the gift that way”). Perhaps the most amusing of these is ‘The Five Loaves’ through the eyes of an irate baker:
“If it became the custom for anyone who liked to feed five thousand people with five loaves and two small fishes what would become of the bakers, tell me that?”
In ‘Pilate’s Creed’ Capek, like Pilate, is more philosophical, telling Joseph of Arimathea (who insists there is such a thing as ‘truth’):
“You are like little children who believe the whole world ends with your horizon and that there is nothing more beyond.”
It is one of a handful of more thoughtful stories like ‘Agathon, or Concerning Wisdom’, where the philosopher separates wisdom from cleverness and reason by point out “wisdom cannot be cruel”, and ‘Brother Frances’, where the monk is able to help a woman overcome her grief.
In the later stories Capek’s aim is more literary, with Hamlet, Don Juan and Romeo and Juliet all featuring. The very last story focuses on Napoleon. Such variety showcases Capek’s erudition and invention in what is an endlessly entertaining volume.