The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War: Translated by Cecil Parrott. with Original Illustrations by Josef Lada. - Softcover

Hasek, Jaroslav

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062835440 ISBN 13: 9780062835444

Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2018

Synopsis

Discover "perhaps the funniest novel ever written" (The Guardian ), now beautifully reissued

"The classic comic novel of the First World War." --The New Yorker - "A literary masterpiece." --New York Review of Books - "One of the greatest works of 20th century literature." --Boston Globe

Jaroslav Hasek's The Good Soldier Svejk follows the adventures of Josef Svejk, a boisterous and sometimes bumbling (or brilliantly subversive?) Czech soldier, as he navigates the trials of World War I. Thrust into the Austro-Hungarian Empire's army in 1914, 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-22 by a generation, The Good Soldier Svejk was the first great antiwar satire, and still one of the finest ever written.

About this title

Review

"Hasek was a comic genius."--Sunday Times (London)

"Rich and ranging, endlessly inventive. ... The predicaments of Svejk in an absurd world still continue. And the laughter echoes."--Los Angeles Times

"All the good adjectives apply to [this novel]: robust, bawdy, sly, hugely comic and astonishingly inventive; it is also singularly undemanding on its readers. ... A very funny novel and a wise one."--Newsweek

"[A] comic masterpiece."--Telegraph (UK)

"Without Svejk, Joseph Heller has said, there would have been no Catch-22."--The Guardian

"[Svejk] is one of the great characters of 20th-century literature. ... [Hasek] captures the flavor of life in early-century Prague. ... Hasek's honesty, clarity of detail, and pawky restraint have made The Good Soldier Svejk a near classic."--New Republic

"Continues to have an astonishing afterlife. ... Commonly cited as an ancestor of Joseph Heller's Catch-22... [its] continued resonance suggests how deep a nerve Hasek touched. His comic hero highlights the illogic of war so brilliantly that Svejk's character has been absorbed into Western culture."--New York Times

"The classic comic novel of the First World War."--New Yorker

"One of the greatest works of 20th century literature."--Boston Globe

"Joseph Heller's literary predecessor. ... Jaroslav Hasek's classic The Good Soldier Svejk set the bar for 20th-century military satire."--Washington Post

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0062835440
• ISBN 13: 9780062835444
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 784