Krakatit

Classics by Karel Čapek

"It's a novel about explosives and dreaming, about human passions and God, but God appears at the end of it all - which is his natural place." Karel Čapek wrote these words about his second novel in a letter to H. G. Wells. Although Čapek's most extensive prose immediately gained popularity and status as one of his best works, opinions on its interpretation have changed over time. "One suddenly wonders what this krakatit is. If that really is the explosive in Capek, invented by Engineer Prokop as the main character, or if it's something, that is in every man, inside, Something, that creates tension, explosiveness, which then leads to major and global conflicts. What is it actually in a person and when does he have a disposition for it, that simply the explosive in him begins to work in such a way that he cannot handle it," reflects Lukáš Hlavica.