Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #117110 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-27
• Binding: Paperback
• 784 pages

Synopsis
Hasek's most important work was centered around the deeply funny story of a hapless Czech soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army -- dismissed for incompetence only to be pressed into service by the Russians in World War I (where he is captured by his own troops). A mischief-maker, bohemian and drunk, Hasek demonstrated his wit in this classic novel of the Czech character and preposterous nature of war.

Customer Reviews

Chose between Schweik and Svejk.
One of my top three favourite books [with' Catch 22' and' Ulysses'], The Good Soldier Schweik is a treat every time. I wanted to point out the differences between the older translation by Paul Selver ['Schweik'], and the 1973 one [Svejk'] by Cecil Parrott. The Selver version is under 500 pages long and the Parrott over 700, and Parrott also has more of the wonderful Josef Lada illustrations [Penguin and Heinemann editions], but Selver lands the knockout blow by being funnier. His prose is fresh and lively where Parrott's is often stilted and cumbersome. Reading the two translations side-by-side is fascinating; how the small differences build to make one book good and the other one great. If you can be bothered, get both versions, but if you're only getting one, be sure it's the pre-1973 Selver!

Timeless, humorous, wonderful
As someone who often has trouble with books not written in the last 30 years, I was a little daunted at the idea of reading a book written at the time of the First World War. I needn't have been - the humour, satire and sarcasm are of a kind that seem extremely modern. The book is a sheer joy to read, very easy going, and will have you splitting your sides with laughter. The only minus is that Hasek died before completing his novel, but this still doesn't stop it from being, without a doubt, one of the best books I have ever read.

A great satire and war novel
Many people have compared ‘…Svejk’ to Catch-22, and I think that this book is worthy of that comparison. Similarly to Heller’s book, it observes war from the perspective of the individual soldiers involved (particularly Svejk) and exposes the absurdity of the situations they find themselves in. Hasek lived through World War One, fighting for the Austro-Hungarian empire on the Eastern front against the Russians, and this is the backdrop to the novel. This is interesting in itself, because it is unusual (for a Brit at least) to read about WWI from the perspective anyone other than Britain and her allies, and also to read about the eastern rather than western front. I certainly learnt a lot from this.
Svejk is a Czech, who enjoys nothing more than having a drink and telling a story. His approach to both civilian and military life is very simple, and he is constantly labelled a half-wit because of this, though the frequency with which things work out in his favour leaves us all wondering whether he is actually a genius. He infuriates all forms of beaurocracy, be it the police or his commanding officers, using straight line logic. In this sense he is very much a ‘Yossarian’-type character, feeling that he is not prepared to be a cog in a machine and striving to maintain his individuality. It is a reminder that wars are fought by people, not casualty figures. His interactions with others are very funny and very cleverly written, so that we are never quite sure whether the joke is on Svejk or whether Svejk is having a good laugh at all of us.
Initially the book concentrates on Svejk’s attempts to join (or avoid –we are never really sure) the war and he is the only constant presence. For me the real joy of the book was the cast of characters in Svejk’s march battalion when he does finally meet up with them. Although the tone of the book is comic, these men are really tragicomic characters, a collection of misfits going off to the slaughter. There is Baloun the glutton, who cannot stop stealing his superiors’ food, Marek the historian, who is writing the heroic deaths of his friends before they occur in the knowledge that reality is likely to be a good deal less heroic, the long suffering Lieutenant Lukas, for whom Svejk is an albatross round his neck. This really did remind me of the characters with which Heller peopled the island of Pianosa for ‘Catch-22’. The absurdity of war is captured brilliantly. They are fighting with allies that hate them (the Hungarians) against enemies they like (the Russians), for superiors who hate them more than anyone.
The only negative (for me) about the book is that the horror of war often seems too remote. Svejk is strangely indestructible. Unlike Yossarian, who was frightened for his life, everything seems to work out for Svejk and you never really get the feeling that he is in danger (unlike his companions). However, the book does get darker as the men approach the front, and if Hasek hadn’t died before he wrote about the fighting perhaps this would have changed. The abrupt ending is also frustrating (though obviously Hasek didn’t have much choice in the matter) but doesn’t detract too much from the book. Regardless of this, I think that this book deserves to be widely read as a great satire of WWI and war in general. It is funny and poignant at the same time and, in Svejk himself, has given us one of the great comic characters.