Pre-war to post-war stream of consciousness narrative set in what is now Czechia. Compare to The Tin Drum, The Notebook (Kristof), & Stones From the River. All of these books are set in central Europe, have protagonists who are short, who are looked down upon, who are odd & have odd goals, & who the book follows from the time before the war into the postwar era. I'd say I Served the King of England is most like the Tin Drum in tone. This is a book that is much about the restaurant & hotel business. The main character spends most of the novel serving the highest stratum of society wherever he happens to find himself. In one place they are small town bourgeoisie, in another place they are captains of industry & statesmen, in another they are Nazi soldiers, & eventually he's serving some animals. A lot is packed into this relatively short book. I mostly heard of this book because of the 2006 adaptation, that did manage to capture a lot of the weirdness of the novel. Well worth the read.