The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek

Hasek, after all, lets us know right from the start that Svejk was discharged from the military for being proven a certified idiot - how can we not help but be intrigued? Is Svejk an imbecile, or are appearances deceiving? The satirical outlook of the novel, mocking the class values, hollow bombast, and endless bureaucracy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire - within which Svejk inadvertently causes anarchy but somehow perseveres - shows us soon enough that Svejk is no fool. Instead he tells us absurd stories about characters in ridiculous situations, forcing us right away to question his intelligence, as author Jaroslav Hasek no doubt intended. That, in a nutshell, is Svejk: good-humouredly going about his business, oblivious to the gravity of matters at hand.

And the other is Ferdinand Kokoska who collects dog manure. One is a messenger at Prusa's, the chemist's, who once drank a bottle of hair oil there by mistake. Svejk, busy massaging his knees for rheumatism responds: 'Which Ferdinand, Mrs Muller? I know two. 'And so they've killed our Ferdinand,' says Svejk's charwoman, in the famous line that opens the novel, describing the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo, 1914.

The Good Soldier Svejk - a literary character, a legend

The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek