Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead in 100BestWIT

Oct 04, 2018 Antonomasia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: paper, nobel, 2018, women-in-translation, central-eastern-europe, 2019, booker-international, crime, poland, decade-2000s

Drive Your Plow has been described as one of Olga Tokarczuk's lighter novels, written between the experimental Flights and The Books of Jacob (as she said in this interview) - but this literary crime story, narrated by an eccentric animal-lover in her 60s, is still full of ideas.

Some things were easy to say about the book.

It has gorgeous descriptions of nature.

In this it's similar to the writing of Andrzej Stasiuk, another major contemporary Polish author who, like Olga Tokarczuk, left Warsaw ...more

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Aug 28, 2019 Rachel rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mystery-thriller, literary-fiction, in-translation, reviewed-for-bookbrowse, 2019, women-in-translation

A subversive feminist noir mystery set in a remote Polish village, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead both dazzles and defies categorization. Olga Tokarczuk’s seventh novel (her fourth to be translated into English) follows Janina Duszejko, an elderly woman living as a recluse on the outskirts of a Polish town close to the Czech border, who spends her days reading horoscopes and translating the poetry of William Blake. But it’s a far cry from an idyllic life for Janina, whose beloved dog ...more

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Sep 04, 2019 Alan (The Lone Librarian) Teder rated it really liked it

Shelves: crime-fiction, women-in-translation, 2019-reading-challenge, 100-best-women-in-translation, mystery-fiction, made-into-a-play, made-into-a-film, translated-from-polish

March 31, 2023 Update I recently learned that this book has been adapted for theatre by the Complicité Theatre Company directed by Simon McBurney and is currently on stage (March-April 2023) at The Barbican, London, UK. See further information at https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/...

A photo from the 2023 theatrical adaptation of 'Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.' Image sourced from the Weatherglass Books substack.

May 26, 2021 Update
Criterion Channel announces the online streaming p ...more

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Oct 03, 2018 Tommi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mbi-2019

[Reread for work, 1 November 2020.]

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Oct 07, 2019 Sentimental Surrealist rated it really liked it

I have to admit it. By the time the big reveal happened, I had lost all interest in this book's central mystery - that is to say, the several murders that shock a small Polish town, all of which involve animals. If your monocle just fell out - "did he call Olga Tokarczuk... boring???" - pop it back in. I was so pulled into the world Tokarczuk created, the social dynamics of the village and the strange voice of the astrology-obsessed animal lover Janina, what with her speculations about Blake and ...more

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Apr 14, 2019 Agnese rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook, mystery-thriller, translation, fiction, wit

‘Its Animals show the truth about a country,’ I said. ‘Its attitude towards Animals. If people behave brutally towards Animals, no form of democracy is ever going help them, in fact nothing will at all.’

Flights by Olga Tokarzcuk (translated by Jennifer Croft) was one of the highlights of the 2018 Man Booker International prize longlist and, in my opinion, a worthy winner of the prize, so I was eager to get to Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jon

‘Its Animals show the truth about a country,’ I said. ‘Its attitude towards Animals. If people behave brutally towards Animals, no form of democracy is ever going help them, in fact nothing will at all.’

Flights by Olga Tokarzcuk (translated by Jennifer Croft) was one of the highlights of the 2018 Man Booker International prize longlist and, in my opinion, a worthy winner of the prize, so I was eager to get to Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) even though this book is very different and more lighthearted than Flights, which consists essays, short stories and erudite personal musings on the topic of travel and mobility.

In essence, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is a subversive mystery thriller with a fascinating focus on ageism, ecological activism and the relationship between humans and nature. Set in a rather isolated part of the Polish countryside that is surrounded by a deep forest, which is home to a variety of forest animals, the novel follows the ageing teacher, animal rights activist and astrology enthusiast, Janina Duszejko, who lives alone in the woods and takes care of other people's summer houses during the off-season. Following a series of mysterious murders, Janina becomes involved in the investigation and is convinced that the strange deaths are a sign that the forest animals are finally taking revenge against the members of the local hunting association.

It's interesting to see the world through Janina's unique perspective, who is a keen observer of the local community and has assigned a specific nickname (Oddball, Big Foot, Good News, etc.) for her neighbours and local residents, instead of calling them by their actual names. She also largely bases her judgments of other people on astrological alignments, so astrology becomes a recurring theme in the book, which might get on the nerves of some readers, who don't believe or aren't particularly interested in the mathematics and interpretations of astrological charts.

My Venus is damaged, or in exile, that’s what you say of a Planet that can’t be found in the sign where it should be. What’s more, Pluto is in a negative aspect to Venus, and in my case Pluto rules the Ascendant. The result of this situation is that I have, as I see it, Lazy Venus syndrome. That’s what I call this Conformity. In this case we’re dealing with a Person whom fortune has gifted generously, but who has entirely failed to use their potential.

One of the most notable themes of the book is how older women are perceived in society and often discriminated because of their age. Janina is constantly perceived as a "mad woman" or "old crone" because of her hermit lifestyle, her quirky sense of style and her constant passionate complaints against the mistreatment of animals. It's almost as if Janina has a kind of "superpower" of being invisible in this patriarchal community that automatically dismisses the opinions of older women. Every animal death affects her much more than the death of a fellow human, and we see her continuously rage against the nonsensical cruelty of humans against animals, and the corrupt local beaurocrats and law enforcement authorities that turn a blind eye against the actions of the hunting community.

The book is also notable for its strong sense of place. Tokarczuk manages to vividly describes the landscape and biodiversity of the region, as well as the assortment of local people. The novel is also a very unflinching and uncompromising critique of hunting that is often justified on the grounds of cultural tradition and conservative Christian dogma, and advocates for a radical change in the way humans view and treat the animal world.

While I was less impressed with this book than Tokarczuk's award-winning novel Flights, I foundDrive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead to be an enjoyable eco-thriller with a fascinating, feminist main character and a clear message in support of animal rights. ...more

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Sep 25, 2019 Ella rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010s-release, mystery-suspense-thriller-crime-etc, fiction, humor-satire-absurdist-comedia, 2018-read, translation, women-write, poland, women-in-translation, natl-book-awards-all-incl

Lazy Venus Syndrome, Testosterone Autism -- diagnoses given by the narrator of this hilarious novel. It's a picaresque novel about an old lady -- interesting & certainly not the normal picaresque main character. She narrates the whole novel and she is a psycho but hilarious and actually right about certain things (faith/God/the value of prayer/the evils of hunting & hunters pretending their whole purpose is to adore wildlife.) She's also right about the Czech republic & the inefficiencies of gov ...more

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Apr 05, 2019 Emma rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2019

VERDICT: A quirky crime fiction!
By now, you know that this year, the Man Booker International 2019 longlist offered an interesting mix of books set between genres. Today, I’m presenting Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, which turns out to be crime fiction, even though it first appears as literary fiction.

My full review is here: https://wordsandpeace.com/2019/04/11/... ...more

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