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

Apr 15, 2022 Paul rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nobel-winners, tokarczuk

4.5 stars
A novel from Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk. The title is from Blake:
“In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.”
This novel is an amalgam of a number of things centered on an unreliable narrator, a woman in her 60s in poor health, Janina Duszejko. Variously it is a murder mystery/whodunit, an animal rights tract, an homage to Blake, pro-vegetarian, a feminist comedy with a gothic edge, an astrological handbook and e 4.5 stars
A novel from Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk. The title is from Blake:
“In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.”
This novel is an amalgam of a number of things centered on an unreliable narrator, a woman in her 60s in poor health, Janina Duszejko. Variously it is a murder mystery/whodunit, an animal rights tract, an homage to Blake, pro-vegetarian, a feminist comedy with a gothic edge, an astrological handbook and even an existentialist fable. Each chapter is also headed by a Blake quotation.
Janina lives in a remote Polish village and does some odd jobs. She has some equally unusual friends: someone who assists her to translate Blake, an entomologist, a shopkeeper call GoodNews and someone living nearby who did odd jobs and was inevitably called Oddball. Janina’s reflections are sometimes amusing. This one is about age:
“already at an age and additionally in a state where I must always wash my feet thoroughly before bed, in the event of having to be removed by an ambulance in the Night”
Sometimes they are tremendously sad. There is a thread of passion for the wellbeing of animals running through it:
“Sorrow, I felt great sorrow, an endless sense of mourning for every dead Animal. One period of grief is followed by another, so I am in constant mourning.”
And
“What sort of a world is this? Someone’s body is made into shoes, into meatballs, sausages, a bedside rug, someone’s bones are boiled to make broth … Shoes, sofas, a shoulder bag made from someone’s belly, keeping warm with someone else’s fur, eating someone’s body, cutting it into bits and frying it in oil … Can it really be true? Is this nightmare really happening? This mass killing, cruel, impassive, automatic, without any pangs of conscience, without the slightest pause for thought, though plenty of thought is applied to ingenious philosophies and theologies. What sort of a world is this, where killing and pain are the norm? What on earth is wrong with us?”
Those who are murdered and are prominent citizens and hunters. But this is not a traditional murder mystery:
“Spring is just a short interlude, after which the mighty armies of death advance; they’re already besieging the city walls. We live in a state of siege. If one takes a close look at each fragment of a moment, one might choke with terror. Within our bodies disintegration inexorably advances; soon we shall fall sick and die. Our loved ones will leave us, the memory of them will dissolve in the tumult; nothing will remain. Just a few clothes in the wardrobe and someone in a photograph, no longer recognized. The most precious memories will dissipate. Everything will sink into darkness and vanish”
Not surprisingly Tokarczuk has come in for some criticism for her stances, but I must admit that I enjoyed this, the metaphors are a delight and the whole is wonderfully eccentric and life enhancing (despite the death and mayhem).
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Feb 16, 2023 Lauren rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nobel-prize, nobel23, translated-works, polish-lit-history, own, women-in-translation

"The world is a prison full of suffering, so constructed that in order to survive one must inflict pain on others." (pg 106)

First Tokarczuk. I have gathered that her other books are different in style, so I am curious to check others out.

What worked well for me:
- the mystery genre scaffolding of the story
- the elderly protagonist
- philosophical monologues on nature, translation, poetry, relationships

What didn't jibe:
- all the astrology - largely glossed over these sections, and didn't miss any o ...more

28 likes · Like · see review

Jun 19, 2020 Juliana rated it liked it

Shelves: witmonth

My review: https://theblankgarden.com/2020/12/02... ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jul 29, 2024 Becky rated it liked it · review of another edition

Quite an interesting and unusual book, I found myself moving so slowly through it at times but I do blame my attention span. The protagonist is a memorable character who carries the book with her explanations of her outlook on the world.

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