From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…

House of Day, House of Night

Olga Tokarczuk,

Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Translator)

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Jan 29, 2011 Daisy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites-of-all-time, eastern-europe, aroundtheworld2013, poland, mushrooms

Simply put, this is a portrait of a part of Poland that was under German control at one time. The narrator (or is it?) hovers over the area like a gentle fog, curling around corners, into attics and basements and minds and hearts, during the present and the past.

Themes that recur: mushrooms; dreams; hair (wigs, wolves); changing faces; death vs. eternity/permanence; looking down from above (mountains, roofs, heavens); creation/chaos/time. I don't know what it all means but it makes me think and Simply put, this is a portrait of a part of Poland that was under German control at one time. The narrator (or is it?) hovers over the area like a gentle fog, curling around corners, into attics and basements and minds and hearts, during the present and the past.

Themes that recur: mushrooms; dreams; hair (wigs, wolves); changing faces; death vs. eternity/permanence; looking down from above (mountains, roofs, heavens); creation/chaos/time. I don't know what it all means but it makes me think and wonder.

My favorite new character is marvelous, mysterious Marta. I'll have some of her quotes below.

I went to great lengths to find a copy with this photograph on the cover. I just love this moment with a kerchiefed young woman dishing out sauerkraut at the rough window of her kitchen.

Suddenly suffused with this love, Krysia felt like a brand new kettle, filled for the very first time with crystal-clear water.

Sometimes I suspect that whatever Marta has said is completely different from what I have heard.

One evening , as we were clearing the empty teacups and plates from the terrace, Marta said that the most important human duty is to save things that are falling into decay, rather than create new ones.

I told Marta all this while we were tying up the bundles of rhubarb. When we had finished, Marta told me something like this: whenever people say "everything," "always," "never," "every," you should watch out, because they're really only talking about themselves -- in the real world such generalities don't exist.
I shrugged.

You have a large head. You have a small head. I don't know what Marta said.

In the afternoon our skin went red, so Whatshisname ... advised us for the umpteenth time to rub ourselves with sour milk.

There aren't real chapters, there are sections with headings like: "Sorrow, and that feeling that's worse than sorrow" or "Dahlias."

"If death were nothing but bad, people would stop dying immediately."

Marta says dahlias are always more popular with children than adults.

Speaking does harm, sows confusion and weakens things that are obvious. Speaking makes me tremble inside. I don't think I have ever said anything really important in my entire life -- there's a lack of words for the most important things anyway. (I must make a list of missing words -- top of it I'll put a verb that means something in between "I sense" and "I see.")

It's a town full of people who all think of each other by their first names, but address each other as "Sir" and "Madam."

...more

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