Showing results for title "The Good Soldier Svejk", by author "Jaroslav Hasek" in All Categories

The Good Soldier Švejk, written shortly after the First World War, is one of the great antiwar satires - and one of the funniest books of the 20th (or any) century. In creating his eponymous hero, Jaroslav Hašek produced an unforgettable character who charms and infuriates and bamboozles his way through the conflagration that tore through the heart of Europe, upending empires and changing social history. It is the closing period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The assassination at Sarajevo has just occurred and armies are on the march.

This tale charts the exploits during the First World War of ‘European Forrest Gump’ Svejk, in his progress through the ranks of the Austro-Hungarian army. Good-natured and garrulous, Svejk becomes the Austrian army’s most loyal Czech soldier when he is called up on the outbreak of the First World War - although his bumbling attempts to get to the front serve only to prevent him from reaching it.

A soldier in the First World War who never actually sees any combat, Josef Svejk is the awkward protagonist - and none of the other characters can quite decide whether his bumbling efforts to get to the front are genuine or not. Often portrayed as one of the first anti-war novels, Hasek's classic satire is a tour-de-force of modernist writing, influencing later writers such as Hemingway, Faulkner and Joseph Heller.

Good-natured and garrulous, Švejk becomes the Austro-Hungarian army's most loyal Czech soldier when he is called up on the outbreak of the First World War - although his bumbling attempts to get to the front serve only to prevent him from reaching it. This story of a "little man" caught in a vast bureaucratic machine combines dazzling wordplay and piercing satire to create a hilariously subversive depiction of the futility of war. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.