The Good Soldier Svejk (1922)

המלחמה מעולם לא נראתה כל כך מטומטמת וחיי צבא מתוארים בצורה שכל חייל בכל צבא מזהה. מצויין ( )

Well, we read this for one of our f2f book groups, and I got about 2/3 of the way through before my eyes glazed over and I found myself falling asleep and dreaming the end of each sentence. Classic though it might be, it wore out its welcome with me. Schwiek is a con-man and otherwise a cypher at the start of WWI in the Czech-speaking part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and the book is a series of escapes from a bureaucratic, idiotic and mismanaged army and surrounding society. No one actually gets into battle by the book's ending, but the cruelty and mismanagement the erstwhile hero keeps subverting is a sarcastic look at a rotting system. Glad I peeked at it, not sorry I didn't finish it. ( )

Very little of the humour appealed to me. I smiled once or twice, that was about all.

The satirical tale of a czech soldier, part of the austro-hungarian army during WWI. A lot of the humour of this story still holds up well. It would have been nice to know that the book is unfinished, however although you'd like more closure the story still stands up well as it is.
Svejk is very much like Baldric from Black Adder or Homer Simpson, but your never entirely sure how stupid he is. Oh he's certainly not the brightest but behind that suspiciously honest face is a pretty devious mind, at least at times.
The Czechs are looked down on by the rest of the army and people are constantly trying to find traitors or reasons to punish the lower ranks. Svejk has developed the perfect defense to survive in these dangerous conditions, constantly agreeing with everything the army does, coupled with a garrulous nature that usually drives his superiors nuts and makes them forget what they planning on doing to him.
His constant stream of little stories, are both a highlight and a problem of the book. It might be quite annoying for some to have these innumerable diversions and i personally thought it would get old fast but it never really did for me, i did however quite like it on those occasions when Svejk was ordered to shut up before he could finish :) .
Oh.. and the constant suspicion and risk of being locked up or executed by your own side, made it seem like a parody of 1984 at times.
As i said its unfinished and more of a denouement would have been nice but overall very good and i won't be forgetting Svejk any time soon. ( )

Jaroslav Hasek is the Czech equivalent of Joseph Heller and Mark twain among Americans. Perhaps inadvertently he manages to convey the mental atmosphere of a time period through a collection of apparently humorous episodes. but as "If it not true they won't laugh" he also illuminates the world of Central Europe in a timeless fashion. If you want to step out of the English-speaking box, to join hands with another set of survivors who live a good deal closer to the risk of imminent destruction, this is the book. Warning, the book is incomplete, we don't know whether the author planned a happy ending for our hero, but, as it is central Europe i rather doubt it. ( )