Tales from Two Pockets

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About Tales From Two Pockets

Product Description Capek wrote 48 stories that deconstruct the mystery story by breaking one rule here, three rules there, and yet also make for wonderful reading. His unique approaches to the mysteries of justice and truth are full of the ordinary and the extraordinary, humor and humanism. Amazon.com Review Karel Capek (1890-1938), one of the greatest Czechoslovakian authors of the century, and who mastered numerous forms of writing, was particularly inventive with the genre of mystery, detective, and crime fiction. In Tales from Two Pockets, however, Capek took the crime story and related forms of the genre to new levels, weaving strange, short, and powerful psychological studies of ordinary human beings caught in extraordinary and improbable circumstances. Through these intense but always fun stories, Capek moves brilliantly but lightly in the philosophical realms of human existence, exploring the nature of crime and justice, even the very concept of truth. From Publishers Weekly This newly translated collection of all Capek's mystery stories originally published in Czechslovakia in the late '20s is one of the great works of the mystery genre. In 48 gripping short works, Capek ( War with the Newts ) proves that he had not only mastered the plot and mood necessary for good suspense but that he was able to take his mysteries to philosophical heights few in the genre aspire to. His stories deconstruct the very suppositions that make crime fiction plausible by calling into question the reliance of the typical literary detective on the powers of deduction and the moral correctness of human judgment. Thus the title character of "The Adventures of a Breach-of-Promise Con Man" turns out to be more honorable than the detective pursuing him; the man asked to judge a murderess in "The Juror" discovers that his entire society is on trial; and in the book's most surreal story, "The Last Judgment," God himself leaves the eternal fate of a multiple murderer in the hands of a human court, claiming that "Because I know everything, I can't possibly judge." In their dissection of truth and our capacity for judgment, the dilemmas in Capek's work are not always resolved, or are solved incidentally. These haunting, parable-like works reconfirm Capek's standing as one of Czechoslovakia's most intellectually piercing literary voices. Illustrations not seen by PW . Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Known primarily by English-speaking readers as the author of the science fiction play R.U.R., the late Czech author Capek also wrote numerous short stories and novels. The present collection of mystery stories, which includes several previously untranslated tales, is simply delightful. All 48 tales deal with the twin questions of truth and justice, so that while they really are "detective" fiction, the approach is generally philosophical. Capek was also a first-rate observer of human nature whose personal interest in various activities is reflected in his writings. Altogether, the tales make for entertaining, intriguing reading and are absolutely essential for any short story collection. Sister M. Anna Falbo, Villa Maria Coll. Lib., Buffalo, N.Y. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Capek (18901938), a noted Czech story writer, novelist, playwright, columnist, and children's author, is not well known in the U.S., even though some of his stories and novels have been published here (in fact, some of the stories that appear in this volume were published in the U.S. in 1932 in a book by the same name). He is a delightful, talented, articulate, eccentric, intelligent author who has much to offer, and those readers who pick up this volume will be well rewarded with 48 wonderfully rich and idiosyncratic short tales that are less about crime and mystery (even though Capek was a devoted fan of Chesterton, Christie, and Doyle) than they are about the foibles and follies of human nature, about truth and jus