Beschreibung:
The inspiration for such works as Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Jaroslav Ha*ek's black satire The Good Soldier *vejk is translated with an introduction by Cecil Parrott in Penguin Classics.
Good-natured and garrulous, *vejk becomes the Austro-Hungarian army's most loyal Czech soldier when he is called up on the outbreak of the First World War - although his bumbling attempts to get to the front serve only to prevent him from reaching it. Playing cards, getting drunk and becoming a general nuisance, the resourceful *vejk uses all his natural cunning and genial subterfuge to deal with the doctors, police, clergy and officers who chivvy him towards battle. The story of a 'little man' caught in a vast bureaucratic machine, The Good Soldier *vejk combines dazzling wordplay and piercing satire to create a hilariously subversive depiction of the futility of war.
Cecil Parrott's vibrant, unabridged and unbowdlerized translation is accompanied by an introduction discussing Ha*ek's turbulent life as an anarchist, communist and vagranty, and the Everyman character of *vejk. This edition also includes a guide to Czech names, maps and original illustrations by Josef Ladas.
Jaroslav Ha*ek (1883-1923) Besides this book, the writer wrote more than 2,000 short works, short stories, glosses, sketches, mostly under various pen-names.
If you enjoyed The Good Soldier *vejk, you might like Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, also available in Penguin Classics.
'Brilliant ... perhaps the funniest novel ever written'
George Monbiot
'Ha*ek was a comic genius'
Sunday Times
'Ha*ek was a humorist of the highest calibre....
A later age will perhaps put him on a level with Cervantes and Rabelais'
Max Brod
Produktdetails:
- Autor:in: Jaroslav Ha¿ek
- Illustrator:in: Josef Lada
- Übersetzer:in: Cecil Parrott
- Erscheinungsdatum: 28.04.2005
- Sprache: Englisch
- Seitenumfang: 784 Seiten
- ISBN: 9780140449914
