Adventures: 20th Century People's Best Funny Book, Good-Read

<body bgcolor="#FFC1C1" link="#008080" vlink="#008080" alink="#008080" style="font-family: Times New Roman"> <p align="center"><b>Adventures: 20<sup>th</sup> Century People’s Best Funny Book, Good-Read</b></p> <table border="0" cellpadding="12" cellspacing="12" width="82%" bgcolor="#FFC1C1"> <tr> <td width="100%" bgcolor="#FFC1C1" valign="top" align="left"> <p align="center"><img border="0" src="images/NA01597A.gif" alt="Out of Chicago comes the Good Soldier Svejk: the original Forrest Gump! Good Soldier Svejk Adventures: 20th Century People's Best Funny Book, Good-Read. A peek, a la Charlie Chaplin, at the dawn of truly modern times." width="91" height="123"></p> <p align="right"><img border="0" src="images/sy01265_3.gif" align="left" alt="Forrest Gump might be more innocent; but the Good Soldier Svejk came first! Good Soldier Svejk Adventures: 20th Century People's Best Funny Book, Good-Read. A peek, a la Charlie Chaplin, at the dawn of truly modern times. Adventures & Anabasis of Good Soldier Svejk Unmasked! Adventures: Hasek, Slavic Twain, not Kafka, Beats Repression. Adventures: Humorous Central European WWI Forrest Gump Book. Adventures of Austrian Empire Anti-War Working Class Hero. Adventures: pre-Hemingway/Fitzgerald/Faulkner AvantGarde Hit. Adventures: Modern Literature's Satire Fiction Masterpiece. Adventures: Politically Incorrect Anti- Establishment Fun. Adventures: Czech/German/Hungarian/Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian. Adventures: 20th Century People's Best Funny Book, Good-Read. Adventures: Cultural Military Resistance Dadaism Surrealism. Adventures: Revolutionary Modern Times Censorship Authority. Adventures:Imperial Police-State Social Prague Moral Culture. Adventures:Change Ordinary Humans Propaganda Dissent History. Adventures: English- Language Translation BestBook Oppression." width="172" height="364"> </p> <p align="right"> <b><font size="5" color="#FF0000"> This Chicago<br> woman believes you    <br> won't be able to put     <br> the book down, and    <br>  here she tells you<br>  why:      </font></b></p> <p align="left"><a href="file:///D:/Inetpub/wwwroot/svejk/ruth.ram"><img border="0" src="images/AG00010_1.gif" align="right" alt="Ruth Cooper reveals the seecret of why Svejk will become a household name among readers of English as well at last! " width="144" height="150"></a> <p align="left"><br> <br> <br> <br> </p> <p align="left"> </p> <p align="left"> </p> <p align="right"><font size="2">(<font color="#0000FF"><strong>click on the picture above  <br>   </strong></font>to hear the Real Audio file. <br> You need the Real Audio Player 3.0 or newer;  you can download it from here<img border="0" src="images/AG00110_4.gif" align="top" alt="Some writers so capture the soul and spirit of a people that they are identified with them forever after. In England, it was Charles Dickens, in the United States, it was Mark Twain. For the Slavic nations, and to some extent for all Central Europeans, it is the Czech writer, Jaroslav Hasek. Hasek’s most important work was centered around a Czech soldier’s experiences in World War One. It’s actual title is The Fateful Adventures of The Good Soldier Svejk During the World War, but it is known by tens of millions of Central Europeans as simply, The Good Soldier Svejk. This monumental, humorous work is acknowledged as "...one of the greatest masterpieces of satirical writing" by no less a standard and exalted reference than the Encyclopedia Britannica.This new translation and rendition of The Good Soldier Svejk is our attempt to make this Central European masterwork accessible to the modern reader of English. There have been two other attempts and both are, in our opinion, failures in both practice and spirit. The only attempt at a complete English translation has often been criticized, by those who have read the novel in another language, as a clumsy rendition that left The Good Soldier Svejk reading like a hackneyed novel about the British army in the 19th century. We consider this both an injustice to Jaroslav Hasek and a tragedy for those denied the insight and enjoyment of a hilarious and rollicking modern classic." width="23" height="49">)<br>  <a href="http://www.real.com/products/player/downloadrealplayer.html?wp=dl0699&src=990628choice_1&lang=en"><img border="0" src="images/freeplayer_g2.gif" align="right" alt="The book’s central character is a quintessential, working-class citizen-soldier, often abused by the fates and the forces of the Austrian empire. In both civilian and military life, Švejk lives by his wits. His chief ploy is to appear witless to those in authority. In fact, he is fond of pointing out that he has been certified to be an imbecile by an official military medical commission. Consequently, he reasons, he cannot be held responsible for his sometimes questionable actions because he’s a certified nitwit!Yet, Svejk is not a coward, nor is he indolent. He is drafted back into the army as cannon fodder to die for an Emperor he despises. His method of subverting the Austrian Empire is to carry out his orders to an absurd conclusion. His is an inspired resistance. He holds the foreign authorities, and their Czech fellow travelers, accountable for their ridiculous platitudes and pseudo-patriotic blather." width="88" height="32"></a> </font></p> <p align="left">  </td> </tr> </table> <div align="center"><center> <table border="0" cellpadding="12" cellspacing="12" width="80%"> <tr> <th colspan="5" bgcolor="#FFFF00"> <p style="background-color: rgb(255,255,0)"><font face="Times New Roman" size="6"><font color="#0000FF">The book is so compelling</font> in the <a href="#original" style="color: rgb(255,0,0)"><font color="#FF00FF">original</font></a> </font><br> <font face="Times New Roman" size="5">that some</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="6"> <font color="#FF0000">readers<br> of even the previous translation</font></font> <font face="Times New Roman" size="5">(that has doomed it in the English speaking world)</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="6"><br> <font color="#FF0000">rave about it:</font></font></th> </tr> <tr> <th width="496" colspan="5"><br> </th> </tr> <tr> <td width="99"> <p align="center"><img src="images/svejk55l.gif" alt="I dutifully report, sir! Like many great artists, Jaroslav Hasek was a happy confluence of genius, talent, time and place. His talent and genius are widely acknowledged by scholars worldwide. They point to his ground-breaking contribution in transforming and modernizing the novel and making it relevant for our time. And, in the non-English-speaking world, his work has long been loved by legions of regular folks. At any rate, you will soon be able to judge his talent and genius for yourself. "He was one of that generation which fully fought with the problems of the modern world. He was one of the artists at the start of the century who so splendidly cast light on the question of a live, valid, meaningful art worthy of the time. He was a curious, not easily understood person, too mobile and opaque for portrayal. As a creator, (he was) seemingly careless, natural, (and) spontaneous, ... but, in reality (he was) sharply discerning and refined in his specific type of non-literariness ... (he) was working farsightedly in the field of language and style, with something that was to become the shape of (the) speech of the century."" width="55" height="55"></td> <td width="62"></td> <td width="331" colspan="3"> <div align="center"><center> <table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="6" width="84%" style="border-left: thin solid #008080; border-right: thick inset #008080; border-top: thin solid #008080; border-bottom: thick inset #008080" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" height="1%"> <tr> <td width="200%" style="border-left: thin none rgb(0,128,128); border-right: medium none rgb(0,128,128); border-top: thin none rgb(0,128,128); border-bottom: medium none rgb(0,128,128)" valign="top" height="1%" align="left"><b>boxer@mindless.com from Stockholm, Sweden ,<br> November 25, 1997 <br> </b><br> The "Catch 22" of World War I.</td> </tr> </table> </center></div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="259" colspan="3"> <div align="right"> <table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="6" width="100%" style="border-left: thin solid rgb(0,128,128); border-right: thick outset rgb(0,128,128); border-top: thin solid rgb(0,128,128); border-bottom: thick outset rgb(0,128,128)" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" height="1%"> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-left: thin none rgb(0,128,128); border-top: thin none rgb(0,128,128)" align="left"><b>dninja@swbell.net from Austin, TX , August 29, 1997 </b><br> All I can say is that this book will take you away. It will keep you laughing well into the night (which is how I tried to read it) Holding back the laughter so you don't wake anybody up. Although maybe you should, they probably could use it. And while they're at it, get something to drink, because there's plenty of it in this book! Actually a very cleverly disguised but all too true observation of politics and personalities, this book will get you knowing exactly what the author is telling you. But knowing, and not thinking, because you follow Svejk...and if he thought about something, he probably wouldn't have made it through the way. I recommend this book to anyone who seeks the light-hearted or the witty, and everyone in between. As long as you like to roar with laughter.</td> </tr> </table> </div> </td> <td width="5%"></td> <td width="233"> <div align="right"> <table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="6" style="border-left: thin solid rgb(0,128,128); border-right: thick outset rgb(0,128,128); border-top: thin solid rgb(0,128,128); border-bottom: thick outset rgb(0,128,128)" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" width="100%"> <tr> <td style="border-left: thin none rgb(0,128,128); border-top: thin none rgb(0,128,128)" align="left" valign="top"><b>jophn.l.purchase@ac.com from New York , October 27, 1998:<br> </b>....If there is such a thing as a humorous war story, this is it. The blundering idiot (or genius?) Svejk takes us on a thrilling, unpredictable and round-about journey through Bohemia during WW1. The unassuming and inadvertently witty Svejk will certainly make you laugh throughout this book. It's a shame that the author didn't live long enough to continue Svejk's journey into the Second World War!<br> </td> </tr> </table> <p align="center"><img src="images/svejk55r.gif" alt="And just what is it we have been denied? A host of literary critics acknowledge that Jaroslav Hasek was one of the earliest writers of what we have come to know as modern literature. He experimented with verbal collage, Dadaism and the surreal. Hasek was writing modern fiction before exalted post-World-War-One writers like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner, to name just a few. A literary analyst has pointed out that Hasek is one of the few writers of all time to combine political with misanthropic satire. In fact, The Good Soldier Svejk, he says, is the only example of this genre in the 20th century." width="55" height="55"> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="496" colspan="5" height="1%" align="left">  <div align="center"><center> <table border="0" cellpadding="12" cellspacing="12" width="100%" style="background-color: rgb(164,164,255)" align="left" bgcolor="#9999FF"> <tr> <td width="100%" valign="top" height="1%" bgcolor="#9999FF"><font face="Times New Roman" size="6"><a name="original"></a> Just imagine what will <strong><u>YOU</u></strong> be saying about the book after reading <u><a href="BookOneChapter1.html"><img border="0" src="images/our%20version.gif" alt="World War One, amplified by modern weapons and techniques, quickly escalated to become a massive human meatgrinder. It has been eclipsed in many memories by World War Two, the most horrendous conflict of all time. However, if you set that debacle aside, World War One would easily dwarf any other in human history. Fifteen million people died, one million of them Austrian soldiers. Jaroslav Hasek participated in this conflict and examined it in The Good Soldier Svejk. Hasek knew that a momentous, fundamental change in human history was occurring. For Central and Eastern Europe, it was the end of the old order. It was the demise of a social structure that had evolved from prehistoric times and affected every human life. Tribal and clan chieftains had evolved into Dukes, Counts and Lords, and then into Monarchs and Emperors. These despots caused and lost World War One and suddenly vanished. The decrepit empires were replaced by democratic republics, except in Russia where the bolsheviks instituted their own fatally flawed dictatorship and empire. However, as most historians agree, enough perverse elements and limbic memory of the old order remained in Central Europe to foment and fuel the biggest meatgrinder of them all, World War Two." width="168" height="28"></a></u>, </font><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">(translated by a native Czech speaker and a top level professional translator)</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="6"> that will take you as close to reading the Czech original this side of eternity, as humanly possible.</font></td> </tr> </table> </center></div> <p align="center"> </p> <p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="496" colspan="5"> <div align="center"><center> <table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="6" width="100%" style="border-left: thin solid rgb(0,128,128); border-right: thick outset rgb(0,128,128); border-top: thin solid rgb(0,128,128); border-bottom: thick outset rgb(0,128,128)" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" height="1%"> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-left: thin none rgb(0,128,128); border-top: thin none rgb(0,128,128)" align="left" height="1%" valign="top"><b>Dan Sumption (dan@gulch.demon.co.uk) from London, UK , July 12, 1998<br> </b>As someone who often has trouble with books not written in the last 30 years, I was a little daunted at the idea of reading a book written at the time of the First World War. I needn't have been - the humour, satire and sarcasm are of a kind that seem <a href="why%20dont%20you%20knowV3.html#modern" style="color: rgb(0,0,255)"><font color="#FF00FF">extremely modern</font></a> . The book is a sheer joy to read, very easy going, and will have you splitting your sides with laughter. The only minus is that Hasek died before completing his novel, but this still doesn't stop it from being, without a doubt, one of the best books I have ever read.</td> </tr> </table> </center></div> </td> </tr> </table> </center></div> <p style="background-color: rgb(0,0,0); color: rgb(255,0,0); border-top: medium none" align="center"> <a href="indexV3.html" target="_top"><img border="0" src="images/buttons/home.gif" alt="By the turn of the century Prague had become a boomtown. Large numbers of people had come to the city from the countryside to participate in the industrial revolution. The rise of a large working class spawned a cultural revolution. The empires of Central Europe ignored these intrinsic changes and became more and more decrepit and anachronistic. As the system decayed, it became absurd and irrelevant to ordinary people. When forced to respond to dissent, the imperial powers did so, more often than not, with hollow propaganda and repression. The Austrian Empire attempted to conduct the First World War as if it were still a vibrant, viable entity. It expected its subjects to fight, die and foot the bill for what everyday people saw as nothing more than a quarrel among greedy and egotistic rulers. In the empires’ Slavic possessions, resentment reigned. And, with good reason." width="54" height="21"></a> <a href="3V3.html" target="_top"><img border="0" src="images/buttons/It's%20a%20Masterpiece.gif" alt="Hasek’s most important work was centered around a Czech soldier’s experiences in World War One. It’s actual title is The Fateful Adventures of The Good Soldier Svejk during the World War, but it is known by tens of millions of Central Europeans as simply, The Good Soldier Svejk. This monumental, humorous work is acknowledged as "...one of the greatest masterpieces of satirical writing" by no less a standard and exalted reference than the Encyclopedia Britannica." width="150" height="21"></a> <a href="4V3.html" target="_top"><img border="0" src="images/buttons/Why%20you%20don't%20know%20it.gif" alt="This new translation and rendition of The Good Soldier Svejk is our attempt to make this Central European masterwork accessible to the modern reader of English. There have been two other attempts and both are, in our opinion, failures in both practice and spirit. The only attempt at a complete English translation has often been criticized, by those who have read the novel in another language, as a clumsy rendition that left The Good Soldier Svejk reading like a hackneyed novel about the British army in the 19th century. We consider this both an injustice to Jaroslav Hasek and a tragedy for those denied the insight and enjoyment of a hilarious and rollicking modern classic." width="180" height="21"></a> <a href="10V3.html" target="_top"><img border="0" src="images/buttons/Buy%20Svejk,%20Book%20One.gif" alt="Literary critics agree that Jaroslav Hasek wrote the grandaddy of anti-war novels. According to one critic, only the first two-thirds of The Red Badge of Courage precedes it. The Good Soldier Svejk even predated that quintessential First World War novel, All Quiet on the Western Front. More familiar to today’s readers, perhaps, is Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, set in World War Two. Hasek’s biting satire and humor is its direct ancestor also, as well as that of many others. It might be hard to imagine, but "anti-war" was not "in" before The Good Soldier Svejk. And, it should be noted that Hasek’s Svejk preceded Joseph Heller’s Yosarrian by almost 50 years." width="195" height="21"></a> </p> </body>