The Good Soldier Svejk - Couverture souple

Hašek, Jaroslav

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0140449914 ISBN 13 : 9780140449914

Editeur : Penguin Classics, 2005

Synopsis

The Good Soldier Svejk Good-natured and garrulous, Svejk 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. Full description

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

The inspiration for such works as Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Jaroslav Hasek's black satire The Good Soldier Svejk is translated with an introduction by Cecil Parrott in Penguin Classics. Good-natured and garrulous, Svejk 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 Svejk 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 Svejk 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 Hasek's turbulent life as an anarchist, communist and vagranty, and the Everyman character of Svejk. This edition also includes a guide to Czech names, maps and original illustrations by Josef Ladas. Jaroslav Hasek (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 Svejk, you might like Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, also available in Penguin Classics. 'Brilliant ... perhaps the funniest novel ever written'George Monbiot 'Hasek was a comic genius'Sunday Times 'Hasek was a humorist of the highest calibre....A later age will perhaps put him on a level with Cervantes and Rabelais' Max Brod

Revue de presse :

“Without Svejk, Joseph Heller has said, there would have been no Catch-22.” (The Guardian)

“One of the greatest works of 20th century literature.” (Boston Globe)

“Hasek was a comic genius.” (Sunday Times (London))

“Rich and ranging, endlessly inventive. ... The predicaments of Svejk in an absurd world still continue. And the laughter echoes.” (Los Angeles Times)

“[Svejk] is one of the great characters of 20th-century literature. ... [Hasek] captures the flavor of life in early-century Prague. ... Hasek’s honesty, clarity of detail, and pawky restraint have made The Good Soldier Svejk a near classic.” (New Republic)

“All the good adjectives apply to [this novel]: robust, bawdy, sly, hugely comic and astonishingly inventive; it is also singularly undemanding on its readers. ... A very funny novel and a wise one.” (Newsweek)

“Brilliant. ... Perhaps the funniest novel ever written.” (George Monbiot)

“Anyone in power, including the president would benefit from Jaroslav Hasek’s The Good Soldier Svejk. ... First because it would make them laugh, and then because it is the best antiwar novel I know.” (Colm Toibin)

“Continues to have an astonishing afterlife. ... Commonly cited as an ancestor of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22... [its] continued resonance suggests how deep a nerve Hasek touched. His comic hero highlights the illogic of war so brilliantly that Svejk’s character has been absorbed into Western culture.” (New York Times)

“[A] comic masterpiece.” (Telegraph (UK))

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Penguin Classics
• Date d'édition: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0140449914
• ISBN 13: 9780140449914
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 784
• Illustrateur: Lada Josef