Cesta na sever – Čapek Karel (2022)

In "The Road to the North," Karel Čapek – a playful traveler with an artistic soul – reveals himself as an exceptionally perceptive observer and an admirable storyteller, whose wit and humor, sense of contrast, insight, and understanding are enhanced by an inexhaustible wealth of language. His thoughts strive for maximum precision and completeness, and the style is as refined as in his best short stories. The depiction of Scandinavian nature resembles a prose poem, in which everything is portrayed so vividly that we feel as if we are inhaling the salty air on the Norwegian coast, as if our eyes are flooded with all the shades of green in the Danish landscape, or as if we have wandered for a long time through the endless Swedish forests. In "The Road to the North," Čapek's artistic talent also reaches its peak. Most of the approximately two hundred color and black-and-white drawings depict inspiring landscapes, and in half of them, we see mountains – conduits of cosmic energy, guardians of underground waters, and solitary bearers of secrets... Čapek reveals to us things we seemingly know and endows them with new charm. For those who have been to the north and perhaps know it well, this land seen through Čapek's eyes is in many ways different from their memories – and quite different from a typical travelogue. We feel an urge to set off there immediately and to...