Following up on my promise last month to read a bit more of Karel Capek, I wanted to pass along that I have enjoyed several of the short stories compiled in Toward the Radical Center published by Catbird Press. Though simply written, the stories are insightful, provocative, and full of an optimistic attitude towards life.The same can be said about two more of Capek's plays that I've read since last month. They are The Makropulos Secret, about a woman whose discovery of a "fountain of youth" still leaves her without the knowledge of what makes life worthwhile, and Life of the Insects, a clever, colorful and softly satirical look at human values through the interchange of talking insects and a personable down and outer.
The latter was really delightful to read but oh, how I would have loved to have seen Life of the Insects staged there on Broadway in the late 1920s! New Yorkers were said to have raved about it...and I can understand why.
