Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Ten top satires

Michael Honig is a former surgeon and lives in England. The Senility of Vladimir P. is his first novel. One of his top ten satires, as shared at Publishers Weekly:
The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek

Another satire forged from the experience of mass ranks of men hacking each other to death, Hasek’s opus dates from the world war preceding Heller’s [Catch-22]. While Heller’s main character, Yossarian, struggles to outwit the system that puts him in harm’s way – knowing full well that he can’t – Hasek’s hero, Svejk, responds to the same blind, deaf, dumb brutality of the military machine with displays of incompetence and idiocy so profound that they amount to genius, laying bare the futility of this conflict, of all conflicts.
Read about another entry on the list.

The Good Soldier Svejk is among Tim Pears's top ten 20th-century political novels.

--Marshal Zeringue