Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Svejk During the World War, Book One

It appears that we still believe, as Jaroslav Hašek wrote in his Introduction to Book One, that "Great times demand great people." Once again we "can run into a shabby man in the streets . . . who himself has no idea of the significance he actually has in the history of the great new era." The difference is that nowadays it might be the streets of any city anywhere on this planet, not only Prague, and the new era is not that of nation states rising out of the ashes of the decrepit monarchies after the Great War to End All Wars, but the new age of globalism.

"The Good Soldier Svejk" is a picaresque series of tales about an ordinary man's successful quest to survive, and to enjoy life in the face of the endless absurdities imposed on him by the effects of the complex institutions of modern society that magnify the rational and moral shortcomings of individuals in direct proportion to their positions in the hierarchies they are a part of.

The novel is not about Josef Švejk but about the situations he gets into. He is merely a device through which the reader experiences these situations. The reader lends his own experiences to provide the famously missing "inner life" to Švejk. The reader will  view the World of Švejk through his own experiences and awareness. The novel is a virtual reality and the character of Josef Švejk is the port through which the reader gets there. And, as Chicago author Don DeGrazia wrote, the novel “will forever have everyday people doubled-up with the painful laughter of recognition".