#96: The Good Soldier Svejk

If I had to explain The Good Soldier Svejk in one sentence, I couldn't do it. It's dark comedy (in fact, a comic strip at one point).  It's political, and it's tragic.  It's historical fiction that spotlights a slice of military relations during the first World War.  If irony and comedy and horror combined, The Good Soldier Svejk would surely be the offspring.

Even the main character, Josef Svejk (last name pronounced "Shvayk") cannot be pinned by a single representation. At times, he appears as a hopeless idiot while at other times, he proves himself to be completely intelligent and adept.  From what I've read, this book is as confused and unfinished as its writer, Jaroslav Hasek, who went from being a scholar to a bum to an anarchist to a writer to a soldier to a communist and back to an anarchist and writer.

How, then, can such a book make it on the list of the best 100 novels of all time?  O ho, my friends, only a person who has not read it would ask such a question!  It's popular because it's powerful.  The Good Soldier Svejk was almost unknown during the writer's lifetime (he died before finishing it).  Unsurprisingly, many did not take kindly to the fact that Jaroslav Hasek was quick to poke fun at the horrors for which they had all so recently endured.  Furthermore, the imbecilic character of Svejk did little to promote the esteem of the Czech countrymen, but even worse was his representation of the Austrio-Hungarian military. 

It would be like if someone wrote a funny story about the incompetent U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and made the common soldier look like he was one step away from institutionalization.  We can laugh now, but I wonder if die-hard Czech patriots aren't still cursing the name of Jaroslav Hasek!

Jaroslav Hasek took a blight on his country's history and he exploited it for all its possibilities.  He wasn't afraid of controversy, and because of it, he lived much of his lifetime in drunkenness, shame, and poverty.  Ah, well.  Such is the sacrifice for good literature, right friends?

What I Loved...
was the comedy.  Svejk possesses a bumbling curiosity and proudly declares himself a half-wit.  The fact that he is in the army at all is apt to induce humor.  He is a likable dude, and his storytelling skills are exemplary.  But there are times when he is amazingly clever.  The police become desperate to trap Svejk into committing treason.  Since Svejk is a dog trader in civilian life, they try to make friends with him and buy his dogs.

      The St. Bernard was a mixture of mongrel poodle and a common street cur; the fox-terrier had the ears of a dachshund and was the size of a butcher's dog, with bandy legs as though it had suffered from rickets.  The head of the Leonberger recalled the hairy muzzle of a stable pinscher.  It had a stubbed tail, was the height of a dachshund and had bare hindquarters like the famous naked American dogs.
     Later detective Kalous came to buy a dog and returned with a wildly staring monster which was reminiscent of a spotted hyena with the mane of a collie...

And then, things just seem to work themselves out for Svejk:

     And that was the end of the famous detective Bretschneider.  When he had seven monsters of this kind in his flat, he shut himself up with them in the back room and starved them so long that they finally gobbled him up.

Svejk and his cronies are hilarious. There is so much humor worthy of showing you here that all I can say is that you have to read the book.  Sadly, another aspect of the book that I can only talk about and not fully portray are the pictures!  Didn't I mention that The Good Soldier Svejk was turned into a comic strip?  Due to Czech copyright laws, I can't show any of the pictures here even if I critique them, so all I can do is repeat:  you have to get the book.

And I think we all know how much I love history!  I gobbled up every page that profiled the trials of the Austrio-Hungarian military during World War I...and I sometimes got a good chuckle out of it, which is rare for historical fiction.  Like when the soldiers are given a motivational speech, Svejk makes his assessment:

     "Won't it be marvelous when, like the chaplain said, the day draws to its close, the sun with its golden beams sets behind the mountains, and on the battlefields are heard, as he told us, the last breath of the dying, the death-rattle of the fallen horses, the groans of the wounded and wailing of the population, as their cottages burn over their heads."

I don't know how to react to that.  Should I laugh or cry?  I think it depends on whether or not you see the glass as half-empty or half-full.

What I Hated...
was the drunken rambling.  My copy of The Good Soldier Svejk is 800 pages long.  I'm estimating that a good 15% of it is nonsense--and that is a conservative figure.  While entertaining, there are times when the writer's vices (Hasek was an alcoholic) show itself clearly on these pages.  Frankly, we could trim this book back by quite a bit and not lose a shred of significance.  Here is just one example of a character who is clearly as drunk as the writer:

     "It doesn't burn," he said despondently, when he had used up a whole box of matches.  "You're blowing it."
     But at that moment he lost the thread again and started to laugh: "This is a lark.  We're alone in the tram, aren't we, my dear colleague?"  He began to rummage in his pockets.
     "I've lost my ticket," he shouted.  "Stop, I must find my ticket!"
     He waved his hand resignedly:  "All right, let's go on..."
     He then began to wander:  "In the vast majority of cases...Yes, all right...In all cases...You're quite wrong...Second floor?...That's just an excuse...It's not my concern, but yours, my dear madam...Bill, please...I had a black coffee!"

And it goes on like this for six pages.  From what I can discern, there are no purposes for these moments except that the writer was wasted off his butt, thought he was hilarious, and wanted to fill pages.

But the worst part about this book is that it is unfinished.  Jaroslav Hasek was an interesting character who lived hard.  He possessed an inherent hatred for authority and alternated between being respectable and being repugnant.  He was a lawless drunk who, for much of his life, was forced to live under the radar and among the homeless.  He didn't necessarily take care of his health.  So, it happens that the writer dies and The Good Soldier Svejk ends abruptly before Svejk's battalion even makes it to the battlefront.  What would we have seen there, I wonder.  What piece of history will never be shown because the writer did not live long enough?

What's Next?

Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White.  I know next to nothing about this book except that it supposedly started the whole genre of mystery fiction.  Just think, Sherlock Holmes may have never existed had it not been for this book.  Let's get a preview and check out the trailer: