Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


After reading of Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk in the New Yorker, I devoured her most recent novel. It’s narrated in the first person by an elderly woman named Janina—a name she despises--who lives in a rural Polish settlement accessible by dirt roads. Surrounded by forests and wildlife, it’s a fitting setting for an animal lover like her, who attends to the movements of deer, foxes, and humans as she makes her rounds and plays the role of caretaker to the summer residents. She has an odd assortment of neighbors, to whom she gives darkly humorous nicknames such as Big Foot, Oddball, and the Writer. She herself, it turns out, is given to vehement verbal assaults on the local hunters, the owner of a fox farm, and even the village priest who blesses the hunt—on anyone who kills/murders animals. As the neighbors begin to die in mysterious and unpleasant ways, she tries to convince the authorities that it is the animals taking revenge.

Far from being a typical mystery, this novel is a reflection on the uneasy relations between humans and animals, the motions of the planets and their astrological influences, and the idiosyncratic philosophy of the early 19th century visionary William Blake. Janina and her younger friend Dizzy meet on weekends to translate Blake into Polish, and quotes from his writings are scattered throughout the book; other unusual characters include the entomologist Boros, whom Janina encounters collecting beetles in the woods; her silent elderly neighbor Oddball; and the proprietress of a secondhand clothing shop in the nearby village. This assortment of people forms a bond over books, food (such as the intriguing “mustard soup” that appears near the end of the novel), and their common circumstance of living on the margins of society. Unlike most mysteries, there is no relatable detective at the center of the story--but Dizzy works for the police as an IT specialist, and the group of friends share information and speculation about the unfolding deaths. By turns poetic, disturbing, and thought-provoking, this novel is satisfying fare for the book-lover’s table.




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