Quote:
Originally Posted by nycaleksey
My favorite book is "Brave Soldier Svejk" - i re-read it almost every other year since 11 or 12.
It's one of the best satirical books of all times in my opinion. I always read it in my native Russian which is closer to original Czech language than English, so not sure about the quality of English translation, but nevertheless I highly recommend this book to anyone. There is no good EBook version of it yet, but it's out of copyright so there's plenty of texts available online along with Josef Lada's illustrations (best illustrations for the book) and it's easy to make an EBook version.
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For some reason, it's usually translated into English as "Good Soldier Sveik" (or Svejk, or...) rather than as "Brave..." And I agree that it's a masterpiece of satirical writing.
Back when it was originally written, the author succeeded in convincing the Powers That Were in the Austro-Hungarian Empire that it was
really a book by a loyal citizen about the unfortunate misadventures of a loyal-but-dumb Czech soldier. Which is particularly piquant when you realize that by doing so he succeeded in pulling off
in real life the same bit of mis-direction that Svejk used repeatedly in many of his fictional scams!
It's hysterically funny, well-written, and very
very highly recommended!
Xenophon