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"Several people have asked why our edition
of Švejk does not contain the famous illustrations by Josef
Lada. It is said that the book and the pictures are virtually
inseparable. (We find that Americans do not
respond to Lada's pictures as enthusiastically as one would
hope.) "After a long consideration we decided not
to use Lada’s illustrations. For
one, Hašek had never seen and therefore had neither
authorized them. And two, they significantly differ from the
one picture which Hašek did see and which adorned
the cover of the serial booklets, the format of Švejk’s
originally published
edition.
"The main reason
however was that Švejk
is a very complex character,
but Lada’s illustrations
shift the character of Josef Švejk onto a plane of a clown or
even a buffoon. (That certainly did not bother the communist
rulers who, if Hašek were still alive, would have sent him
and his Švejk to the uranium mines for reeducation.).
"Hašek's
book is a masterpiece of satire, not comedy. We
decided that Jaroslav Hašek would address readers of English
alone, using only his text (albeit merely in our
as-faithful-as-possible translation.)" |