The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some terms to describe this epic: Kafkaesque, Joseph Hellerian, Douglas Adamsonian, Voltairian (‘Candide’ – which is satirical take of Leibniz’s “This is the best of all possible worlds”).

This Bacchanalian romp through central Europe during World War I is a satire like Heller’s Catch-22 is of World War II. Joseph Heller’s fictional island of Pianosa appears as a paradise when compared to the hellish conditions of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire which shanghies the Czech canine-peddlar Svejk like Bukowski in “Hair”.

Svejk is like an affable version of Yossarian, apparently an innocent victim of circumstances but eventually emerges as an astute, loquacious and scheming individual, albeit resigned to his fate. Whereas Yossarian was a shirker, Svejk is willing to do everything. Svejk’s dissolute chaplain is in sharp contrast to the Chaplain in Catch-22 ‘yearning for Mary tragically’.

The venal Quartermasters will put the money-grubbing Milo Minderbinder to shame. This is how the NCOs justify the purloining of military stores: “Every man in the course of his eternal life undergoes countless changes and has to appear once in this world as a thief in certain periods of his activity. I’ve gone through this period myself”.

Esurient Baloun, cantankerous Lieutenant Dub, edacious generals, avaricious officers abound the plot as our gallivanting protagonist tries to keep up with his army unit. The garrulous and indefatigable Svejk is always ready with fables from his past to validate present events as he traipses around the countryside scrounging for drink and food.

The horrors of war are sharply brought out. War – the great equalizer: “And as the troops passed through and camped in the neighbourhood there could be seen everywhere little heaps of human excrement of international extraction belonging to all peoples of Austria, Germany and Russia. The excrement of soldiers of all nationalities and of confessions lay side by side or heaped on top of one another without quarreling among themselves”.

Alas, before Svejk has a chance to engage the enemy the book ends – the author Jaroslav Hašek dies!

The crowning glory of the book are the simple but evocative illustrations by Josef Lada.

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