BOTM Nov 2019 - Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

[Kelly_Hunsaker_reads]

Please no spoilers before November

[Kelly_Hunsaker_reads]

In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind . . .

A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is worthy of a voice?

[Kelly_Hunsaker_reads]

Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk ([tɔˈkart͡ʂuk]; born 29 January 1962) is a Polish writer, activist, and public intellectual who has been described in Poland as one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful authors of her generation. In 2018, she won the Man Booker International Prize for her novel Flights (translated by Jennifer Croft). In 2019, she was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Tokarczuk is particularly noted for the mythical tone of her writing. She trained as a psychologist at the University of Warsaw and published a collection of poems, several novels, as well as other books with shorter prose works. Flights won the Nike Award, Poland's top literary prize, in 2008. She attended the 2010 Edinburgh Book Festival to discuss her book Primeval and Other Times and other work. With her novel Księgi Jakubowe (The Books of Jacob), Tokarczuk won the Nike Award again in 2015. In the same year, Tokarczuk received the German-Polish International Bridge Prize, a recognition extended to persons especially accomplished in the promotion of peace, democratic development and mutual understanding among the people and nations of Europe.

[Gail]

I enjoyed the tone of this book by Nobel Prize winning author Olga Tokarczuk. Our main character and narrator holds an interesting place as a care taker who ushers summer homes on the Plateau through an extreme winter in rural Poland. She is an independent and eccentric vegetarian astrologer in a land where Catholicism and hunting are the norm. I enjoyed the secondary characters also as a small group of misfits who find each other. However, the murder mystery aspect to it wasn’t anything special and ultimately the plot didn’t seem to hold up to the tone. However, it did make me want to read Flights or other books by her as I found her writing interesting.
Also, it was my first book taking place in Poland at a time when many of the themes of nationalism and conformity are playing out not just in Poland but on the global stage. I found her constantly referencing the Czech Republic as a kind of promised land (where all slopes are south facing) an interesting insight into Europe.

[Clare]

I’m a third of the way through and love the voice of Janina. The first sentence immediately gives you an idea of the kind of woman she is: ‘I am 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.’ That sentence made me want to read on.

Gail, I recommend Flights. I read it last year and was dazzled. Tokarczuk describes it as a ‘constellation novel’. It is a collection of thoughts and stories and the reader is invited to map it for meanings. Her voice in many of the sections of that book is similar to the voice used here.

[Gail]

Thank you Clare...I am looking forward to reading Flights

[Kelly_Hunsaker_reads]

I started listening, and found my mind had wandered off and I had just let it play for an hour while I paid no attention. That rarely happens to me. But your comments have convinced me to try again.

[Kelly_Hunsaker_reads]

I think it is the fairy tale / fantastical nature of the story that isn't workin for me...

[Clare]

I have now finished this book and, while I didn’t love it as much as Flights, I liked it a great deal. Here’s my review:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I liked the crime story but it was really the narrative voice that made it such an enjoyable book, along with the big questions it asks about tradition, the relationship between humans and animals, and which people we pay attention to. I’m looking forward to more Tokarczuk being available in English. This passage perfectly sums up to me the great value in reading world literature:

‘How wonderful - to translate from one language to another, and by doing so to bring people closer to one another - what a beautiful idea.’

[Clare]

Gail, I noticed the references to the land of milk and honey that is the Czech Republic. Tokarczuk/Janina is certainly very critical of aspects of Polish society.

[Kelly_Hunsaker_reads]

Clare wrote: "I have now finished this book and, while I didn’t love it as much as Flights, I liked it a great deal. Here’s my review:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I liked t..."


That is a lovely quote.

[Gail]

Yes Clare, I didn’t know that the Czech Republic had such a “good” reputation in Europe. I also loved the quote.

[Rosemarie]

I was going to request this book from the Toronto Library system, but it has 60 copies and over 350 holds, and the ebook ratio is the same. So it is obviously a very popular book!

[Kelly_Hunsaker_reads]

Rosemarie wrote: "I was going to request this book from the Toronto Library system, but it has 60 copies and over 350 holds, and the ebook ratio is the same. So it is obviously a very popular book!"

Yes, it was the same in my two library systems.