Švejk is too much slanted by the expectations of “just funny” and by (absolutely awesome, but too nice) illustrations by Josef Lada. When listening to the audio version of the book, I was shocked how actually horrific story it is. I have mentioned elsewhere in this thread a Czech literary historian (M. C. Putna) who called “The Good Solider Švejk” as “Kafka’s ‘Trial’ by other means”. I think he is quite correct.

As a child, I understood Svejk as pure comedy and didn't get any of the darkness.