A very amusing book, with rather diminishing rewards; there are only so many times you can make the joke about how the soldier ate the officer's food before it starts to get boring, and I more or less stopped paying attention to those jokes at the end of part two--which meant part three was more tedious than entertaining. Hasek didn't finish it, and that's probably a good thing. I fear the 1000 page monster which is still recycling jokes by page 989. It's also good because the point of the book as it stands seems to be that Svejk avoids ever actually, you know, fighting in the war, and if the book had ended, he would have had to i) fight, which would have ruined the effect, or ii) not fight, which would have led to still more endless jokes.

This review is getting as drawn out as the book, so: read this over a long period, long enough that you can respond to the repeated jokes the way people used to respond to repeated jokes in TV sitcoms. Hasek had an endless supply of stupid stories for Svejk to tell, which is the heart and joy of the book; he did not have an endless supply of stories for Svejk to act act, which means long stretches of this are static and uninteresting. Better, then, for dipping into than for concerted reading (which is, I regret, how I usually read).

And extra star for being the best-illustrated novel I have ever and probably will ever read, graphic novels included.

شوایک، مرد ساده دل و پرحرفی است که به علت احمق بودن از سربازی معاف شده اما با شروع جنگ جهانی اول تصمیم می‌گیرد برود و در جبهه بجنگد. هاشک این کتاب را ابتدا به صورت جزوه‌های جدایی منتشر می‌کرد و می‌فروخت. در بخش‌هایی از کتاب خود نویسنده نیز وارد می‌شود و توضیحاتی در مورد کتاب و برخی از اتفاق‌های واقعی جنگ می‌دهد. شوایک یکی از مهم‌ترین و معروف‌ترین کتاب‌های طنز قرن بیستم است. هاشک قبل از کامل کردن کتابش می‌میرد.
متاسفانه نتوانستم تمامش کنم و از اواسط کتاب ولش کردم. با اینکه خواندنش را برای خودم واجب کرده بودم و داستان‌هایش هم طنز بود و اتفاقا طنز خوبی هم داشت اما از یک جایی به بعد ماجراهایش برایم تکراری می‌شد. به نظرم قسمتی از طنز کتاب هم به دلیل ترجمه و آشنا نبودن به جزییات فرهنگ چکِ صد سال پیش از بین رفته بود. با این حال نگاهِ ضد جنگ هاشک و دست‌انداختن قدرت‌های نظامی و مذهبی‌ را دوست داشتم.
پ.ن: قسمت اول شوایک را «ایرج پزشکزاد» نیز ترجمه کرده. حتی برخی اعتقاد دارند که شخصیت «مش قاسم» در «دایی جان ناپلئون» از روی شخصیت «شوایک» گرفته شده است. برتولت برشت نیز با اقتباس از این کتاب نمایشنامه‌ای دارد به نام «شوایک در جنگ جهانی دوم»

I wanted to read this because I knew that Svejk was the forbear of one of the ur-texts of sad-eyed high school existentialists, namely, Catch-22. Joseph Heller said he could never have written his surreal epic without having read this WWI picaresque by Hasek. I thought I was going to love it, obviously. While perusing Svejk was interesting in a historical sense, unfortunately I ended up not finding it as enjoyable as I had hoped. Despite the many lavish descriptions of how to fight bureaucracy with drunkenness and ironic stupidity, it's long, it gets very repetitive, and I don't think I had the cultural context to really appreciate it.

Which made me realize something though....maybe every time a writer, artist, or filmmaker thinks they are "ripping something off" that they like...perhaps they are really just helping it make it into the next few generations in a form that's better adapted for the people of the future to understand. Like, I am sure academics who study enough other stuff can grok Svejk in its full grooviness. But I for one, am glad that Heller transmitted whatever he saw in Svejk to me in a way that could blow my teenage mind forever in his own book.

3.5*
This WW1 classic Czech novel reminded me of Catch-22 or M.A.S.H. -- black humor about the way armies work. I much prefered this older translation to that of Sadlon's new one I started off with in Book 1 and also enjoyed Lada's illustrations this book had.

“A humanidade tem apenas uma arma eficaz: o riso.” - Mark Twain

“O humor é a revolta superior do espírito.” - André Breton

tO Bom Soldado Švejk foi das pouquíssimas peças de produção artística, que teve o condão de me provocar gargalhadas descontroladas, até às lágrimas. Jaroslav Hašek, através das aventuras e desventuras do seu herói, tenta de alguma forma estruturar o caos, em particular o da guerra, no geral, o da existência.
tCurioso é o facto de Hašek ser mais velho três meses, que o seu patrício Kafka, o que me leva a pensar que, assim como a Saudade fascina os Portugueses, talvez os Checos se deixem encantar pelo Caos.

за ці сімсот із хвостиком сторінок бравий вояк швейк так і не добрався до власне воювання, але гашекові для сатири вистачило й дороги, повної незручних пригод і веселих історій: у швейка, вочевидь, чудово працює асоціативне мислення, тому на кожну ситуацію він знаходить приклад із життя, більш чи менш (що трапляється частіше й немало вибішує всіх довкола, крім хіба читача) доречний. а сатира вийшла хороша, донині зрозуміла й актуальна – часом настільки, що аж трошки лячно робиться.
найцінніший у цій книжці для мене переклада степана масляка. мова його легка й смаковита, а що в тексті є чимало сцен інтеракції між військовим начальством і підлеглими, читач неодмінно поповнить свій словниковий запас гарнючими лайками:
• свіжими лексемами: харцизяка, драпуга, халамидник, лапіга, прицуцуватий, мурмило, лобуряка, заморене посюсяло, збовдурілий, шкарбун, недолюдок, шулька;
• висловами про гівно й дупу: обробитися; дурний, як куряче гузно; пердодупа; пристати, як гівно до плота; напудити у штани; аж з дупи клапті летіли;
• про чортів і тварюк: збаранілий; де козам роги правлять (аналог до "де раки зимують"); якби в чорта грива, була б з нього кобила; пишатися, як заєць хвостом; не мати глузду й за дурну курку;
• про речі високі й сакральні: хрест би їх побив; дістати на церкву господню; п'яний, як папський прелат. сюди ж – не лайки, але хороше: приматкобожитися в сенсі "підлеститися" або "примоститися" і висповідати в сенсі "віддухопелити".
список можна розширювати все далі – усе-таки в нас багата мова, а степан масляк добре постарався.

Read this book ages ago thanks to my Dad to whom I am eternally grateful. Probably one of the best novels of the 20th century on war.

Çok merak ettiğim bir romandı ama pek aradığımı bulamadım sanki biraz formülleşen bir hikaye anlatımı vardı döngüseldi zaten başlangıcında çevirmen kusursuz bir roman olmadığını belirtmiş. Biraz fazla uzatılmış hissettirdi özellikle de ortalardan itibaren bunalmaya başladım. Yer yer komikti ve bazı kısımlar çok çarpıcıydı.

Juokingos istorijos apie tai, kaip kvaileliui sekasi išsisukti. Bet kažkaip skaitai, skaitai ir atsibosta.

Although this is a novel, it's not always best to think of it as one. Generally, this book reads more like a long collection of short stories, each of them connected to the previous events by circumstance, and by the presence of the main character, the titlular 'good soldier' Švejk. Sometimes secondary characters will stick around for a while, but once they leave, they're generally gone for good.

As for the stories themselves, they are pure comedy and satire. They lampoon the absurdities of both war itself, and wartime life in general. Some stories are deeply absurd in and of themselves, while others highlight the absurdity of ordinary life. Many border on the Kafka-esque. Hašek's comedy is generally lighter-hearted than Kafka's comedy, but they both engage with the same darkness inherit in civilised society: the randomness which lurks just below the surface which can ruin a man in an instant, and the sinister mob mentality, through which people will blindly follow petty authority, even into idiocy, freely condeming friends and family along the way.

Like Kafka, Hašek is interested in the fragility of human relationships: the tendency to let people go when it is inconvenient to keep them around, and the shallowness of most of our inter-personal relationships. The Good Soldier Švejk is funny and silly, but fundamentally it concerns a character who is discarded again and again and again. The only affection he finds is ephermeral and more often than not it ends with his betrayal. There is an ever-present crushing authority above Švejk's existence, constantly applying pressure not only on him, but on all of the other characters in the novel. The thing that makes it funny is just that Švejk doesn't seem to mind.

If you followed TV News too much and just need something anti-militaristic and hilarious at the same time - you've found the right book! Worthlessness and cruelty of a regime (literally - Austro-Hungarian one) towards its own people, fraud, corruption and queen of them all - the WAR. Year 1914. Josef Svejk, a dog seller, drafted into army to fight on a meaningless war, somehow knows a way around those things - he feigns idiocy. And it works! Especially when we get to see who is real idiots there - bureaucrats and army ranks.

Once upon a time there was a region called Bohemia which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. An assassination, a war, and a post-war renaming lead to the now country the Czech Republic. Svejk is a Czech soldier in the Austro-Hungarian military. He is a blunderer, a long-winded storyteller and a master escape artist. He gets lost, navigates officers good and bad, chronicles bureaucratic and culinary nonsense, and gets on with generals and voluntary enlistees.

Along the way he steals dogs, works for an alcoholic clergyman, gets captured, enters a mental institute, and narrowly escapes a death sentence for desertion. Much of these adventures are pulled from Hasek's colorful and wandering life. He was a man who liked his drink, fought against injustice, joined the military in the Great War, loved to cook, and was captured by the Russians during the war.

The appeal of Svejk is his straight-man routine. Outwardly he presents a simple-minded fool. His non-sequitur stories seem purposeless. Hasek's winks and nods inform the reader that the fool is wiser than his audience. He wears down his tormentors as they try and penetrate his seemingly child-like innocence. They are no match for Svejk. He knows how to stay in character, when to use the truth, when to use the half-truths, and when to fabricate extraordinary lies.

The story rolls out in vignettes and adventures. Many of the stories are repetitive with supplies and dietary concerns of the army being central. Most of the stories end with Svejk getting into or out of a tight squeeze. The many cartoon illustrations are fitting. The story reads like a Beetle Baily strip. There are laughs and wisdom intertwined through the stories. What there is not is a plot. We have no idea where Svejk will be or for what purpose from chapter to chapter. Hasek does this to show the absurdity and pointlessness of war, empires and bureaucracy. Hasek is the comic lampooning our nihilistic existence.