Karel Čapek's life as a writer largely coincides with that of T. G. Masaryk's Czechoslovak republic. Čapek published at least two volumes of short stories (many of which he wrote in collaboration with his brother, Josef) during the so-called Great War; but the bulk of his output spans the years from 1918 up until his death at the end of 1938, a few months after Chamberlain (and Daladier) met with Hitler (and Mussolini) at Munich and perfidiously awarded Nazi Germany the Sudetenland. Over the course of those two decades hardly a year went by without a volume appearing in Čapek's name, thanks in no small part to his regular contributions, from 1921 on, to the newspaper Lidové noviny, in which a fair number of his short stories and novels (among other things) originally appeared. Two periods, however, stand out as having been especially productive for his literary imagination: the early 1920s and the mid-1930s. The second of these moments is marked by, though not confined to, what Čapek advertises as a trilogy, comprising Hordubal (1933), Meteor (Povětroň, 1934), and An Ordinary Life (Obyčejný Život, 1934). The same is also true for the earlier moment, except that its trilogy neither Čapek nor anyone else has recognized as such. Presumably the prime reason why R.U.R. (1920; rev. ed., 1921), The Makropulos Secret (Věc Makropulos, 1922), and The Absolute at Large (Továrna na absolutno, 1922) have not been regarded as belonging together is that the first two are plays and the last a roman feuilleton. That they have none of the elements in common which normally make for a trilogistic connection doesn't help; but this is equally the case with the three 1930s’ novels. They, too, share neither characters nor plotline nor mise en scène. An argument for seeing the three immediately post-war works as a trilogy might therefore begin with the grounds for accepting Hordubal, Meteor, and An Ordinary Life as one.

The Point-of-View Trilogy

Hordubal tells the story of its eponym after his return from America, where he had been a manual laborer for eight years.