The Good Soldier Svejk: And His Fortunes in the World War (Penguin Classics)

The Good Soldier Svejk: and His Fortunes in the World War is my favourite book because it's central character is outwardly an imbecile but inwardly highly sophisticated. This literary vehicle is expertly used to illustrate the absurdity of the final years of the Austro-Hungarian empire through the medium of fine humour. The Good Soldier Svejk was the inspiration for many great 20th Century satirical novels, but for my money it is the funniest and best.

A masterpiece, Parrot's, remains the best translation! (7/7 people found this helpful)

I have lost my copy of this book, and in searching for a possible replacement I found there is a newer translation in "print on demand" form. However whilst being praised as better and more accurate than Parrot's version (this one) it looses the sense of the original as a rendition of Czech in comprehensible English. Parrot however whilst perhaps toning down some of the swearing seems to capture the Czech idioms with that halting quality I experienced when traveling through Bohemia and Moravia with a good Czech to English translator during the 1980's. Indeed it is only when you come across a bad translator who managed to make Czech sound exactly like Shakespeare (for archaic expressions and flow) that you realize just how hard it is to translate Czech to English or for that matter any other language. The problem lies in the use of idioms rather than direct speech and in order to render the language comprehensibly in English the idioms have to be reinterpreted. Parrot does this brilliantly in my view. This is a must read book for anyone especially those interested in military activity during WW1, the remnants of Austro-Hungarian rule and the history of Bohemia & Moravia. Highly enjoyable by the way!

Unsteady but great book (4/4 people found this helpful)

I don't know much about novels but I recognise when I read one like Svejk. I must also admit that style of book is unsteady, I believe that is because author didn't get the book quite ready before he died. Some parts of the book could need some editing but when author is dead it's better not to touch the text. So if you feel that there's a bit boring twenty pages go a head read on good stuff might burst you to laugh on a very next page.

hilarious and poignant (3/3 people found this helpful)

Svejk's journey from dog breeder to orderly in a Czech regiment sent to fight on the Galician front against the Russians in WW1 gives us a fascinating and humanising glimpse into a world usually only accessed via grainy black and white snaps. The wicked humour Hasek employs transcends the 90 year time gap and lays bare the moral bankruptcy of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The author's many delirious ravings, while lengthening the book enormously, are often unspeakably funny and inspired!

In the spirit of Hasek. (11/11 people found this helpful)

Cecil Parrott, the translator of this edition, was the British Ambassador to Czechoslavakia for a time in the 60s and is also the author of The Bad Bohemian, a biography of Jaroslav Hasek. The previous reviewer complained of basic grammatical errors in the translation and about a slapdash approach which obscured plot details. These faults, if they are to be considered faults, are more true to the original serialised novel than previous translations of Svejk have allowed for.
The last translation of Svejk published by Penguin was translated by Paul Selver and had been abridged to such an extent that it was two-thirds the length of the Parrott version. Also, much of the coarse language of Hasek was removed altering the spirit of the novel. For instance, when the secret police agent arrests Palivec, in Selver's version he says,
'I've got you for saying that the flies left their trademark on the Emperor'.
Parrott's translation, truer to the original, reads;
' "But what am I going for?" moaned Palivec. Bretschneider smiled and said triumphantly: "Because you said the flies shitted on His Imperial Majesty." '
As Hasek says in his epilogue to part I; 'in these two volumes the soldiers and civilian population will go on talking and acting as they do in real life.'
Which, presumably, means including not only their swearing but their grammatical errors.
Concerning the problem with translation, the following is a paraphrase of Parrott's introduction. 'There is no authorised text to base a translation on. Hasek only saw the first and second editions of Svejk during his lifetime and their is no certainty that even these texts represent what he wrote or approved as only a part of the manuscript has been preserved. Hasek cared little about what he had written once he sent it off to the printer. There are two groups of texts, the texts published before the second world war and the texts published from the 50s onwards which were revised in orthography, grammar and syntax. (Parrott) drew on both groups of texts, chosing whichever version seemed clearer and more consistent. Svejk and many of the other characters in the book use what is called common Czech. This cannot adequately be rendered in English, since the only equivalent would be dialect or bad English. (Parrott) felt dialect would create the wrong atmosphere as any British dialect would be associated with people and conditions of a very different kind.
It is characteristic of Svejk's way of telling a story that he does not bother about syntax. This of course is an indication of his mentality and a part of his character, but it is also a reflection of the author's disregard of grammatical rules.'
As for lapses in the plot, the very nature of the novel is plotless, episodic, elliptical, meandering. Hasek was writing to make money and spun out the book to increase his earnings, digressing as he saw fit.
The Good Soldier Svejk is an anarchic masterpiece. And, if you're a literary train-spotter, compare it with Catch 22 and Slaughterhouse 5 to see where Heller and Vonnegut 'borrowed' from...

The Good Soldier Svejk: And His Fortunes in the World War (Penguin Classics)

Jaroslav Hasek

Reader Reviews:

My favourite book (0/0 people found this helpful)

A masterpiece, Parrot's, remains the best translation! (7/7 people found this helpful)

Unsteady but great book (4/4 people found this helpful)

hilarious and poignant (3/3 people found this helpful)

In the spirit of Hasek. (11/11 people found this helpful)

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