The Absolute Indeterminacy of Karel Čapek’s Science Fiction

Abstract

This article reintroduces readers to the science fiction novel The Absolute at Large (1922) by Karel Capek, one of the most influential but largely unacknowledged voices in early twentieth-century literature. I frame The Absolute at Large as a narrative about ‘free energy’, a term I have proposed to examine a range of relationships implicated in speculation about super-abundant or ‘virtually-limitless’ energy sources. I argue that Capek’s commentary emerges in the double meaning of the titular ‘Absolute’—a reference to both free energy and the divine—which foregrounds an inherent indeterminacy folded into the promise of abundance. This reading is made by examining Capek’s serious engagement with the philosophy of pragmatism, which has been consistently misrepresented in the existing literature on Capek’s legacy.