Hasek's serialized (and never completed) satire tells of a "wise fool" of a Czech Everyman caught up in the beginnings of WWI. This severe abridgment loses much of the original's humor and gutter charm. David Horovitch is a fine voice actor, narrating with an innocent good cheer that befits Švejk. Horovitch gives the characters such a wide range of voices and British accents, varied by region, education, and class, the production could serve to train aspiring actors. But much of the significance of the accents will be lost on an American audience. Their utter Britishness, in this most East European of novels, and even their wide variety, is sometimes distracting. A noble, if not fully successful, attempt to capture a difficult classic. W.M. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
