by Andrew H Brown

Created on: January 06, 2011

The Good Soldier Svejk did not come to enjoy the same success as some other novels about World War I, probably because the style of the book is not dark and sombre. In my opinion though, it's every bit as valid as All Quiet on the Western Front, and is in no way inferior just because it is not a tear-jerker.

This book is one of the classics of literature that sprang from the human-fertilized killing-grounds of WW1. But it's a war book with a twist. It's profoundly funny - hilarious in fact - an anti-war novel that haplessly wanders throughout the old Austro-Hungarian Empire without getting anywhere near the Russian front. Unlike Remarque's book, Hašek's novel views the war as an absurd event, a colossal stupidity as seen through the eyes of colossally stupid man.  

The Plot ? What plot?

This isn't a book with a beginning, middle and end. It's a rambling journey of pointless little stories that are told to illustrate examples of whatever situation our hero finds himself in - of course, they never do. The story begins with Svejk, a citizen of Prague, being drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army on the eve of WWI. It then goes on to document his excruciatingly delayed arrival at the Eastern Front and his farcical capture by his own side. This is not an epic tale of the death of an Empire, but a collection of satirical anecdotes about the Austrian army, and life in the Austro-Hungarian empire during WW1. It follows our hero through the trials and tribulations of being prosecuted for treason, confined for idiocy, being treated for simulating arthritis, nursing the hangovers of a debauched Jewish-Catholic army chaplain, stealing dogs while batman to an officer with a passion for expensive pets, and eventually going to the front lines as a soldier in the Austrian army.

Svejk's particular trait is a tendency to misinterpret orders, or rather to interpret them far too literally, whilst attempting to please his superior officers to the extent that it infuriates them. He seems completely obtuse, doing everything with his customary blank expression of stupidity. All the while, and at every single conceivable opportunity, he recounts wandering anecdotes that, although they simply go nowhere, are usually laugh-out-loud funny. (It has been estimated that there are around 200 such stories interwoven throughout the novel). Svejk is a happy-go-lucky drunk and a joker, who wanders from pub to pub and infuriates his superiors with silly stories. He expresses his patriotism

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