Word: ek
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...JAROSLAV HAŠEK 752 pages. Thomas Y. Crowell...
...mindless brutalities of bureaucracy with sheer simplicity and obdurate truth. In the endless flux of empires, ideologies and wars, he is the irreducible survivor. Such a one was Voltaire's Candide, Cervantes' Sancho Panza, Joseph Heller's Yossarian-and Jaroslav HaŠek's Good Soldier Švejk...
...untidy and crapulous, Švejk is a natural disaster as a soldier. He drinks anything that is not nailed down, eats anything that is not moving, and flummoxes disciplinarians and exhorters by admitting everything instantly-always at great length and with illustrations. Hašek's Švejk was a Czech and like most Czechs was a reluctant subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, especially after World War I broke out. When Svejk is drafted despite his rheumatic legs, he borrows a wheelchair, crutches and an old army cap, gets himself wheeled through the streets of Prague...
...vejk revisited seems a timely project, especially since it introduces the book's creator, who uncannily resembles his own hero. Jaroslav Hašek's father died of drink in 1896 when the boy was 13. Hasek became a dropout, vagabond, drunk and professed anarchist. He was constantly in trouble and often in jail. Like Švejk, too, he was less political than impudent...
...accompanying police questionnaire, he gave as his reason for being in Prague, "to investigate the activities of the Austrian general staff." The police at once surrounded the hotel. They discovered that the Russian name spelled backward came out in Czech as "Kiss my arse." Blandly Hašek explained that he just wanted to see if the Austrian police were on their toes-and got off with five days in jail...