The Bad Bohemian

<p>Jaroslav Hašek was the author of <b><i>The Good Soldier Švejk</i></b>, a twentieth-century masterpiece, and one of the funniest novels ever written. He was also, to quote Sir Cecil Parrott, a ''truant, rebel, vagabond, anarchist, play-actor, practical joker, bohemian (and Bohemian), alcoholic, traitor to the Czech legion, Bolshevik and bigamist.'': in short a <b><i>Bad Bohemian</i></b>.<br><br>Hašek''s bottle-strewn life, as Sir Cecil makes clear, was the raw material of his fiction; this remarkable biography, the only one in the English language, makes for riotous reading. <br><br>Sir Cecil Parrott as well as being the British Ambassador to Czechoslovakia in the 1960s was also the translator of <b><i>The Good Soldier Švejk</i></b> (his translation is definitive) and leading authority on Jaroslav Hašek.<br><br>''Sir Cecil coolly untangles Hašek from the coils of rumour, and manages, while performing this delicate scholarly operation, to transmit the raucous glitter of the beer-gardens and night-dives and cafés-chantants which were Hasek''s element. The result is a triumph, and - like all first-rate scholarship - enormously enjoyable.'' <i>Sunday Times</i></p>