The Empusium

 

The Empusium / Olga Tokarczuk
trans. from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
New York : Riverhead Books, c2024.
300 p.

Here is Tokarczuk's response to Mann's The Magic Mountain. It takes elements of his book and transforms it into a feminist horror story, of sorts. 

Mieczysław Wojnicz is a young man going to Gorbersdorf, a sanitorium/resort in the Silesian mountains. It's supposed to be a healthy atmosphere, perfect for quick healing of the tubercular. But it's so popular that there is no room in the main building, rather, Mieczysław finds himself in a guesthouse along with two old men and another young resident, Thilo, whom he befriends. They have a gruff local as their landlord, alongside a skulking servant - the only woman in the mix was the landlord's wife but she dies very shortly after Mieczysław  arrives, a situation which haunts him. 

There are many other haunting elements within this story: strange scratchings from the attic, hallucinatory mushrooms growing all around, an intermittent narrative shift to voices that can see all and drift through floors and walls, and the local legends of women who fled their homes years ago and now live mad in the woods devouring young men in season. Also the Tuntschi - reclining female figures built from twigs and leaves and moss in the woods, for the pleasures of itinerant (male) workers. 

Along with the feelings of dread, we have feelings of boredom and lack of focus among the residents; the atmosphere makes it hard for them to concentrate or really grasp the passing of time. We hear their daily routines, their meals, their petty politics and griping, as well as some of the internal struggles that Mieczysław is having. Why won't he undress for his doctor? And why does every discussion or argument between guesthouse residents end up denigrating women? Tokarczuk takes words and arguments directly from many of the "great minds" of literature, who she lists in the end, to cobble together these statements about women never being enough. 

But this fixation on dualism is upended both in discussions between Mieczysław & his doctor ("the vision of the world as black and white is a false and destructive vision") and by Mieczysław's nature itself. The ending is a breath of fresh air, the healing kind that Mieczysław  went to Gorbersdorf to find in the first place.

Like some of her other works, this one is a bit fragmentary and requires the reader to be comfortable with not knowing exactly what's going on at all times. But although it can feel slow in parts, it's worth the journey. 

The House With the Stained-Glass Window

The House with the Stained Glass Window / Zanna Sloniowska
trans. from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
London: MacLehose Press, 2019, c2015
240 p.

This beautiful cover was one reason that this book has been on my TBR for a while. Also, the fact that it's about Lviv, and the interplay of history in that changeable city. 

It's also the story of three women, grandmother, mother and daughter, living in an apartment with a large stained glass window in the stairwell, which plays a part in the story. They are a Polish family, who have lived in Lviv since it was Lvov, and even Lemberg. But Marianna, the mother in this trinity, is drawn to the Ukrainian cause. 

Marianna is a beautiful opera singer, well known and adored by many, but she becomes part of the demonstrations against Soviet governance in the late 1980s. And as she's speaking at one in 1988, she's shot dead. 

This event shakes the family of women, and the unnamed daughter takes over the story. She recollects her mother, the interactions in their household, and the mysterious life her mother had outside the family circle. She meets a Polish man who has come to look at the stained glass window; it's a notable one that he's trying to save. It turns out that this melancholy man is one of Marianna's former lovers, and somehow he and the daughter fall into an affair despite his being so much older than her. 

The story relates a lot of history, takes us on a tour of Lviv in all its incarnations, and has some intriguing elements. However, I found the choice of narrator underwhelming. The daughter is boring, frankly -- her mother, grandmother (and even the frail great grandmother) are women who have all done something, who have opinions and backstories, so this contemporary story of the daughter in an affair with her mother's former lover just feels a little banal. 

I had great hopes for this novel, and it wasn't bad. There are many elements that I enjoyed, like the history, the setting, the stories of the past. But it didn't seem to go anywhere in the end, I was disappointed in the limp conclusion that felt like the story just stopped, rather than tied up. I liked it for many reasons, but found it didn't quite reach the heights I'd hoped for. 
 

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead / Olga Tokarczuk
trans. from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
NY: Riverhead, c2019.
274 p.

Now for a quirky new novel that is also a bit of a mystery. Janina Duszejko is a former English teacher and caretaker of the summer homes in her small hamlet near the Czech border. She is fascinated by astrology and supports animals in the face of the local hunters.

As the book opens, one of her few neighbours (who she's nicknamed Big Foot) has been found dead, apparently having choked to death on a deer bone. Then other strange deaths of local men, all hunters, begin occurring, and Janina is convinced that animals are rising up against their killers.

She is a marvellous character. Strong willed, set in her beliefs, she also teaches children English a day a week, and helps a former student in his efforts to translate William Blake into Polish. Blake is a big influence on this book's aesthetic, too -- there are quotes from Blake as the chapter titles (and the very book title itself) and his otherworldly ethos reflects a part of Janina's outlook too. Although she is, at the same time, very down to earth indeed. 

There is a mystery here: there are murders, and Janina and her small band of friends are watching what's happening. Her neighbour in the small hamlet is also the police detective's son, which she learns to her surprise. So there is that element of straightforward mystery. But there is so much more, as well -- this is Tokarczuk writing, after all. 

The philosophical elements embodied by Blake also include the bigger ideas of who we really are, self-determination, animal rights, humanity's place in the world, our responsibility to one another and to other living things in our world. Plus some wry humour, some political commentary, and a bunch of great characterization. 

After reading Flights, I have to admit that this much smaller book was not at all what I was expecting. But it was a quick read, with an actual plot! I enjoyed it and found that Janina's plight really engaged me, and that her seemingly odd behaviour made sense to her -- and gained her some loyal friends. 

If you are looking for a literary novel that engages with many ideas and also has a strong female lead, plus a puzzling plot to untangle, this is sure to meet that need. Recommended!

Marzi

Marzi: a memoir / Marzena Sowa; illus. Sylvain Savoia
trans. from the French by Anjali B. Singh
NY: Vertigo Comics, 2011, c2008.
240 p.

I picked this one up by chance when it was recommended to me by a coworker. I loved it! I've been reading a string of novels about the USSR and the Soviet lifestyle -- this one carries on from early and mid-Soviet life in Russia to late communism in Poland. 

Marzi is a small girl during this time; born in 1979 she's recalling her childhood in communist Poland as things are starting to crumble and people are getting sick of the constraints and rules and lack of everything they need. 

The book is organized in a series of interconnected short stories, I'd say. They are brief flashes at moments in this child's life, from the mundane to the terrifying, like when her father doesn't come home from work and she's imagining the worst. It's a straightforward narrative, in a confessional tone, nothing overly literary or experimental about it. Even the illustrations are consistent, always in a six block panel per page, with grey, brown, black dominating, with hits of red/orange and brighter colour here and there. It feels like normal life although joy isn't always in evidence, even in the colour scheme. I am quite taken by the way that Marzi is drawn with huge eyes while everyone else is portrayed in a more realistic style. It's a great image for a child who is always watching everything and telling us about it now. 

There are delightful memories; sledding with her father, visiting her grandmother's village, taking a trip to Krakow with her grandmother, playing silly games with the other children in her apartment block -- and darker ones where we are suddenly introduced to the history of Poland's uprising, albeit from a child's viewpoint. 

I found that it worked well. It was engaging, with the narrator acting in a believably child-like way, bringing her naive perspective to all the things around her that she didn't understand. It feels thorough, and it is fascinating to see how her memories and the only lifestyle she knew are portrayed, looking back.

This makes a great final Soviet era read for this month, showing yet another facet of life under Russia's control. Recommended for fans of memoir or graphic novel style stories. 

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

Flights / Olga Tokarczuk; translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft.
New York: Riverhead, c2017.
308 p.

What a read! This Man Booker International winner was a journey. It's very long, very dense; it's made up of stories that eventually interlock in thematic ways. Stories stop and start up again later; characters face the same concerns in different stories. It's ingenious, demanding, and very rewarding to persevere through it. 

Taking as a central theme the idea of movement, of not settling, committing, planting oneself somewhere, but of always being on the go, in between, in transit -- Tokarczuk creates meditations on how this looks in actuality. In chapters that suddenly stop and then pick up 80 pages later, say, she investigates what this shows about a person's life.

Or she writes a short unconnected, sometimes wryly funny, piece about plastic bags migrating throughout Europe. Or the incidentals of travel itself, the trains, the routes, the languages. Since I am monolingually English, to my chagrin, and am reading this book in translation, I know that the writer and most other people speak more than one language. She reflects on this in a passage I liked so much I copied it into my commonplace book:

“There are countries out there where people speak English. But not like us - we have our own languages hidden in our carry-on luggage, in our cosmetics bags, only ever using English when we travel, and then only in foreign countries, to foreign people. It's hard to imagine, but English is the real language! Oftentimes their only language. They don't have anything to fall back on or to turn to in moments of doubt. How lost they must feel in the world, where all instructions, all the lyrics of all the stupidest possible songs, all the menus, all the excruciating pamphlets and brochures - even the buttons in the lift! - are in their private language. They may be understood by anyone at any moment, whenever they open their mouths. They must have to write things down in special codes. Wherever they are, people have unlimited access to them - they are accessible to everyone and everything! I heard there are plans in the works to get them some little language of their own, one of those dead ones no one else is using anyway, just so that for once they can have something just for them.”

This takes commitment to finish, though -- I found I couldn't read it alongside four or five other titles as is my usual habit. I had to concentrate on this one so I didn't lose the connecting threads amongst all the brief, fragmented sections. The style is really European, reminding me a bit of Sebald, or even in some places faintly of Saramago. It would have most likely have not made my radar if not for the Man Booker International Prize and resultant availability, but I am so glad it did. This was one of the best reads of the year for me. Definitely pick it up if you are interested in translated works that are thoughtful, philosophical, and challenging in a manageable way.