«Жизнь и творчество композитора Фолтына»: загадка последнего романа Карела Чапека

Abstract

Karel Čapek`s novels of the 30-ies have been always an enigma for the theorists of literature and readers. They are undoubtedly great according to the artistic standard. It can be proved by the fact that Čapek, especially his novels, were proposed to take part in the Nobel Prize of 1936 by the number of famous European writers. By the way, it is a mystery why Čapek was writing those novels exactly at that time. Why in early 30-ies, during the period of social, economical and political challenges in Czechoslovakia did he write his “philosophical trilogy” “ Hordubal”, “Meteor”, “An Ordinary Life”, considering in it mainly absolutely philosophical problem if a person can really get to know and understand another person? Why four years before the beginning of the Second World War, when nothing had predicted a future world catastrophe did he started to write the gloomiest his dystopia – the novel “War with the Newts”? Still, probably, the most paradoxical was considered to be his last novel “Life and Work of the Composer Foltyn”, which he didn`t finish. The article states that for Čapek the reason of creative failures and different social conflicts is deviation of ethical canon. He always thought that relationship between classes, nations, states and religions is not unequal to the relationship between ordinary people as it had to be based on respect to the others, ability to try to hear and understand another person, on the ethical moral canon and humanism. No matter what is the occupation of the person – music as Foltyn`s or politics – this occupation couldn`t be based on selfishness, falseness and demagogy. Actually, because of them a person can be on the roll for some time but the failure is inevitable – both for a musician and a politician.