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Morgan Meis introduced a conversation between Peter Esterhazy and Wayne Koestenbaum (who was fabulous at the Walser event) at PEN World Voices a few weeks ago. He was kind enough to :

Esterházy is trying to make it work. It is a literary approach that comes down directly from that incorrigible drunk, Jaroslav Hasek, the author of The Good Soldier Svejk. Svejk is a rube all the way through and sometimes a scoundrel, but he always chooses life over death. It is there even in his way of talking, a style that Hasek gives his favorite literary creation which is both straightforward and evasive at the same time. It���Ĵ�ý�s a kind of irony, middle European irony, that is neither Socratic nor the blasé irony of Western intellectual boredom. Actually I think it is much better than both of those things. Always it is a language, a style or a manner of comporting oneself that finds a way to skirt through the cracks. Again, life. Here���Ĵ�ý�s Svejk on being locked up in an insane asylum, ���Ĵ�ý�I really don���Ĵ�ý�t know why those loonies get so angry when they���Ĵ�ý�re kept there. You can crawl naked on the floor, howl like a jackal, rage and bite���Ĵ�ý� There���Ĵ�ý�s a freedom there which not even Socialists have dreamed of.���Ĵ�ý�

It’s a nice introduction, mentioning Hasek (whose Svejk, one of my favorites, is in desperate need of a re-translation) and Hrabal.