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Jan. 9th, 2018 01:52 pm
Old city, classic novel
I am rereading the classic The good soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek. It made me think about travel to Prague. I have been there however I didn't really liked Prague. To me it was nothing special. Or of course it’s a special city with old architecture, old art, lots of history, still somehow it wasn’t for me. Anyway I opened facebook to find my photos from Prague. Sidenote it’s must be a proof of the success of Mark Zuckerberg that I open their site to find old photos. And most of the photos I had there are of the river, Vltava (or Moldau the rivers German name and the name used in my translation of The good soldier Svejk).
It’s funny, reading a book often gives me “yearning” for visit the city it take place in. I have other examples. Maybe I should give Prague a second chance. Speaking of traveling to cities. One lesson from my life is that you should not love a country, you’ll just get disappointed, but loving a city is okey.
Anyway I remember that the soldier Svejk was big in Prague. For example lots of souvenirs for sale was based on Joseph Ladas illustrations of the book. And sure the book is an ironic masterpiece. Like all those pages when Svejk get sent to the front and he has all that bad luck. First he had the bad luck of getting thrown off the train since he was accused of pulling the emergency break. Then he had the bad luck of missing the next train, because he happened to drink beer at the time. Then he has to walk to the front and by prue bad luck he walk all night in the wrong direction. Comedy gold. For fun, we can imagine those things happen in the 21-century military: “My orders were to bomb a middle eastern town back to the pre-industrialize age, but I had so bad luck I drank Budweiser instead. You know Budweis is the German name of a Czech town, Czech there the soldier Svejk was from.“
Ok, that said. Then you think what really is happening in the novel. It’s a world war going on and I do not think I am too dramatic if I think that any minute Svejk could met the wrong person, the wrong officer, and get put in front a firing squad for deserting.
Alcohol have a big part in the novel. Let's for example write about Josef Lada’s illustrations, they teach us that Svejk liked to drink beer and smoke that bizarre pipe.
And here’s a clip from a movie adaption I found on youtube. It’s not texted and my Czech is, well, it’s non existence. But they seems to be drunk. Then I checked wikipedia to see if Haskel perhaps died of anything related to smoking or drinking. I know the writer died young, it wouldn’t be that far stretched. Instead I leaned there’s an asteroid named after Svejk and that a train on the rute Prague-Bratislava-Budapest is named after the writer. You have to like that.
It’s funny, reading a book often gives me “yearning” for visit the city it take place in. I have other examples. Maybe I should give Prague a second chance. Speaking of traveling to cities. One lesson from my life is that you should not love a country, you’ll just get disappointed, but loving a city is okey.
Anyway I remember that the soldier Svejk was big in Prague. For example lots of souvenirs for sale was based on Joseph Ladas illustrations of the book. And sure the book is an ironic masterpiece. Like all those pages when Svejk get sent to the front and he has all that bad luck. First he had the bad luck of getting thrown off the train since he was accused of pulling the emergency break. Then he had the bad luck of missing the next train, because he happened to drink beer at the time. Then he has to walk to the front and by prue bad luck he walk all night in the wrong direction. Comedy gold. For fun, we can imagine those things happen in the 21-century military: “My orders were to bomb a middle eastern town back to the pre-industrialize age, but I had so bad luck I drank Budweiser instead. You know Budweis is the German name of a Czech town, Czech there the soldier Svejk was from.“
Ok, that said. Then you think what really is happening in the novel. It’s a world war going on and I do not think I am too dramatic if I think that any minute Svejk could met the wrong person, the wrong officer, and get put in front a firing squad for deserting.
Alcohol have a big part in the novel. Let's for example write about Josef Lada’s illustrations, they teach us that Svejk liked to drink beer and smoke that bizarre pipe.
And here’s a clip from a movie adaption I found on youtube. It’s not texted and my Czech is, well, it’s non existence. But they seems to be drunk. Then I checked wikipedia to see if Haskel perhaps died of anything related to smoking or drinking. I know the writer died young, it wouldn’t be that far stretched. Instead I leaned there’s an asteroid named after Svejk and that a train on the rute Prague-Bratislava-Budapest is named after the writer. You have to like that.