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

From the Back Cover:

The eponymous hero of The Good Soldier Svjek-the book for which the Czech writer Jaroslav Hasek will forever be remembered-has virtually come to define, since his creation in the aftermath of World War I, the spirit of comic endurance necessary to withstand the manglings of a modern-day bureaucratic war machine. Shrewd, affable, possessed of an unerring talent for finding himself in (and extricating himself from) the most fitfully chaotic and absurd situations, Svejk represents, in his instinct for survival, all those human values which stand opposed to the utter futility of warfare.

From the Inside Flap:

Introduction and translation by Cecil Parrott

About this edition

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