“Woman, Frog, and Devil”
by Olga Tokarczuk
translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
from the June 3, 2024 issue of The New Yorker
In September, Riverhead Books will be publishing Olga Tokarczuk’s The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story. Currently slated to be 320 pages, this will be much more digestible than the one that came a few years ago, the nearly 1000-page The Books of Jacob, which I managed to read and admire without loving. I still have Flights and Drive the Plow Over the Bones of the Dead to read, but I’m also excited for what we’re getting this fall.
This week’s story is an excerpt from The Empusium, and I have not yet decided whether to read it or just wait for the book itself to come out.
What about you? Are you planning to read The Empusium? Or will this excerpt help you make your decision if you’re on the fence? Or are you giving it all a pass for some reason (which I hope you’ll explain if you can).
Maybe the first few lines of the excerpt will help you (and me) decide?
January Wojnicz, a retired civil servant and a landowner, was a splendid man, as they said in Lwów, handsome and dignified. As a man of fifty-plus, he had dark hair with hardy any gray and thick stubble; he shaved with great tenacity, leaving only his magnificent mustache, which he cared for and curled with the use of pomade, the base ingredient of which was tallow. As a result, his son, Mieczys?aw, forever associated the smell of rancid fat with his father; it was his second, aromatic skin.
I kept reading and the second paragraph keeps the energy building as it describes this interesting January. I suppose I will end up reading this excerpt after all.
Please feel free to share your thoughts below!
Here is the blurb for the novel itself:
The Nobelist’s latest masterwork, set in a sanitarium on the eve of World War I, probes the horrors that lie beneath our most hallowed ideas
September 1913. A young Pole suffering from tuberculosis arrives at Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen in the village of Görbersdorf, a health resort in the Silesian mountains. Every evening the residents gather to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur and debate the great issues of the day: Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women born inferior? War or peace? Meanwhile, disturbing things are happening in the guesthouse and the surrounding hills. Someone—or something—seems to be watching, attempting to infiltrate this cloistered world. Little does the newcomer realize, as he tries to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target.
A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Olga Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, with signature boldness, inventiveness, humor, and bravura.
I read this not knowing much about the writer and quickly realized it was the beginning of a novel. That said, it’s very good writing. The theme-sensitive young artist vs. pragmatic, domineering (but not abusive) father–is not new but she writes with an elevated mastery and has some real power in using descriptive language. The scene where the boy must eat duck’s blood soup under his father and uncle’s watchful eye is viscerally impacting.
Tokarczuk is a brilliant writer. Her book “Drive your plow over the bodies of the dead” is a must read if you like her style in this excerpt of her latest.
I didn’t read the review until after I read the story, so didn’t know it was an excerpt. I can see how it might be the first chapter (?). But it seemed “complete” as a story, in the sense that it gave a psychological portrait of the boy, and consequences of his oppressive/suppressive, manipulative upbringing.
I was intrigued by the title of _Drive the Plow Over the Bones of the Dead_, and a review I read of it, so that has sort of been on my list. I liked the style of “Woman, Frog, and Devil”. My desire to read more international authors is another motivation. But my list grows faster than I can read!
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Does anyone have the Polish original?
I recently finished _Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead_ , the only book I’ve read by Olga Tokarczuk, inspired by my liking the writing style of “Woman, Frog, and Devil”. There seem to be very few of her books translated into English.
The first person narrator is a senior woman (I imagine in her 70s), with periodic “ailments”. She lives in a small village in Poland, very near the Czech border, where during the winter she tends the summer homes of seasonal residents in their absence. She is a dedicated astrologer, considered eccentric, or even a kook, by many other residents. She has several good friends, although she spends most of her time alone.
The narrator tells us the story of her life during the years when a series of unexplained murders occurs in her town. Although there are a few intense moments, the narrative largely proceeds in a leisurely manner, as we get to know the narrator, her views on life, her friends, and the town.
The narrator expounds in detail her astrological interpretations of people and events, including the murders. and her passionate opposition to cruelty to animals, including hunting. The police always disregard her insistence that evidence shows it is animals that committed the murders in retaliation for being mIstreated.
For me, the reading experience was mixed. The story and characters were interesting, and the book is full of great “quotable quotes” and words of wisdom from the author, as the narrator. Chapters begin with great epigraphs by William Blake, who is also discussed in the story…
But the narrative dragged at times, and annoyed me with so many details of astrological chart readings. I personally regard astrology as an elaborate fantasy science. So ho-hum to “Pluto in conjunction with Leo…” or whatever. I don’t know whether the author herself believes in astrology, but she must know a lot about it to have written this book!
The outcome of the story in the final chapters, however, entirely redeemed any weaknesses for me. I had no one to assure me the book is well worth reading. You have me for that.
In the other hand, I wouldn’t have guessed the author was awarded the Nobel from reading this book alone.
Don’t read a synopsis: best to avoid knowing the outcome before reading! But if it’s too late for that, I recommend reading it anyway. At worst, it’s not very long.