The Books of Jacob

by Olga Tokarczuk

It would be hard to say, based on their rags, whether this is a Jewish poverty, or Eastern Orthodox, or Catholic. Poverty is nondenominational and has no national identity.

Asher Rubin thinks that most people are truly idiots, and that it is human stupidity that is ultimately responsible for introducing sadness into the world. It isn’t a sin or a trait with which human beings are born, but a false view of the world, a mistaken evaluation of what is seen by our eyes. Which is why people perceive every thing in isolation, each object separate from the rest. Real wisdom lies in linking everything together—that’s when the true shape of all of it emerges.

The souls consist of streaks: of images, and recollections, memories of acts, fragments of sentences, letters.

And as the desert is the only place on earth where time spins around, loops back then leaps ahead like some fat locust, select pairs of eyes might be able to get a glimpse into the future here.

God might have said to himself: I cannot have a person who is simultaneously free and fully subject to me. I cannot have a creature free from sin who would be at the same time a person. Better sinful humanity than a world without men.

“Seems to me land oughtn’t to be sold or purchased. Just like water and air. Nor do people deal in fire. Those are things given to us by God, not to each of us individually, but to all of us together. Like the sky and the sun. Does the sun belong to anyone? Do the stars?”

Is it not the case that every living being has his own distinct calling that is absolutely particular and can only be realized by him? He is therefore responsible for his task throughout his life, and he must not lose sight of it at any point.