Czech soldier, as he navigates the trials of World War I. Thrust into the Austro-Hungarian Empire's army in , Svejk, "one of the great characters of 20th century literature" New Republic , embarks on a wild trip through war-ravaged Europe as he fakes illnesses, is captured by his own men, and takes on various quixotic quests to avoid arriving at the front lines, always with a bizarre—and often hilarious—anecdote at the ready.
Predating countercultural American classics like Catch by a generation, The Good Soldier Svejk was the first great antiwar satire, and still one of the finest ever written. A picaresque series of tales about an ordinary man's successful quest to survive, and a funny but unrelentingly savage assault on the very idea of bureaucratic officialdom as a human enterprise conferring benefits on those who live under its control, and on the various justifications bureaucracies offer for their own existence.
That has been described as 'Perhaps the funniest novel ever written. In his preface, Cecil Parrott, translator and biographer of Hasek, crisply defines its purpose.. The best of these deserve to be made available to the Western public and are included in this volume. There is a selection from his Bugulma stories Hasek as Bolshevik and Red Commissar , some early Svejk stories, reminiscences of Hasek's apprenticeship days, and the hilariously funny speeches made by Hasek when promoting his political 'Party of Moderate Progress within the bounds of the Law'.
In The Good Soldier Svejk, celebrated Czech writer and anarchist Jaroslav Hasek combined dazzling wordplay and piercing satire in a hilariously subversive depiction of the futility of war. The OverDrive Read format of this ebook has professional narration that plays while you read in your browser.
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I've been with this character for a few years now. Slowly though, I found myself picking the book up on occasion, to the point which I said, "I should really finish this. I tried a sample of the new translation and was so stunned even by the difference in the meaning of the dialogue of the opening scene, I embarked on the story again from page 1. Adieu Svejk. I'd toast your passing with a good Czech beer, except you can't get any here.
It's been a great ride, and I'll miss the image of his beatific face in my mind's eye. This is truly an epic novel, and if you enjoy war satire, I heartily recommend it. I was an editorial consultant on this new English translation. Thus I read it--with a microscope, multiple times--before it was published. Not as smooth as, but more faithful and interesting than, the standard Parrott translation.
So it was with his character Josef Svejk. I had the unsurpassed pleasure in of sitting in the Czech Crown Inn of Lipnice, where Hasek wrote the closi I was an editorial consultant on this new English translation.
Visit Lipnice if you get the chance, where the Hasek family now owns that inn. Nov 22, Nick Klagge rated it liked it. OK, I've been putting off this review long enough. I worked my way through all four books three volumes of Sadlon's translation of this classic of Czech literature, and though it may make me a bad Czech, I felt pretty neutral about it.
Much like Tristram Shandy, and to some extent Don Quixote, the book is more or less a piling-up of marginally related stories, "just one damn thing after another. I doubt Hasek had a satisfying conclusion in mind that died along with him. The novel contains very little in the way of character development. Svejk doesn't really change over the course of the book, although his character is complex enough that I do think you continue "getting to know him" a fair amount at least into Book Two.
But he remains something of a cipher. He's clearly an active and enthusiastic shirker, and uses his "certified idiocy" to the fullest advantage.
He is an anarchist in spirit, like his creator, with little time for the absurdities of church and state, but is not political about it. He is a frequent spinner of yarns, but it was never clear to me whether he really took pleasure in it, did it compulsively, or used it as a diversionary tactic. I suppose it is a combination of all three. He's not a totally likable character; he has a definite vindictive streak and is impulsive.
But at the end of the novel, I still didn't really feel I had a sense of Svejk as a person; what motivates him, what he would be doing if he wasn't drafted, etc. He came across to me as more of a symbol than an individual. It doesn't seem like this is particularly of interest to Hasek as a writer; none of the other characters in the book are rounded or develop over time either, and Svejk doesn't have any complex relationships.
His relationship with his commander Lukas does span the full novel, and is charming at times, but it doesn't come across to me as very deep. I guess in summary, Svejk is basically a negative presence, kind of a Bartleby--you know what he is against but not really what he is for.
This seems to me the biggest contrast with Quixote, who clearly has a positive if deluded vision of the world, and is much more relatable for that reason.
Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that a national symbol for a people who have generally been ground under one or another heel is of this type. One thing I will say in the novel's favor is that I think it is very valuable to have a protagonist in a military story who is cowardly and, more or less, a deserter. I think this can often be the most honorable or moral way to respond to a military situation, but it is virtually never portrayed as such in literature or other pop culture.
It is interesting to me that Finn, one of the leads of the new Star Wars film, is such a character. Also of note, in Potsdam, Germany, there is a memorial to the Unknown Deserter, dedicated to "a man who refused to kill his fellow men.
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