Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead: A Novel Kindle Edition

This book might be categorized as a "mystery," because there are murders which are solved at the end. But what draws the reader in is the twisted mind of the narrator -- a recluse who believes in astrology and loves animals and does good things for strange reasons. In fact, it wasn't until the very end that I realized that it was a mystery.Each chapter begins with a quote from William Blake, and the title is a quote from his "Proverbs of Hell":"In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence. The cut worm forgives the plow. Dip him in the river who loves water. A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star. Eternity is in love with the productions of time."Like Blake, this author is both enigmatic and insightful.Passages that caught my eye:"It is in the feet that all knowledge of Mankind lies hidden; the body sends them a weighty sense of who we really are and how we relate to the earth." p. 10"I believe each of us sees the other Person in our own way, so we should give them the name we consider suitable and fitting. Thus, we are polyonymous." p. 19"I have never believed in any personalized distribution of eternal Light." p. 39"As I gazed at the black-and-white landscape of the Plateau, I realized that sorrow is an important word for defining the world. it lies at the foundations of everything, it is the fifth element, the quintessence." p. 47"Fancy being given a body and not knowing anything about it. There's no instruction manual." p. 83"Sometimes I think that only the sick are truly healthy." p. 84"There's nothing natural about nature anymore...It's too late. The natural processes have gone wrong, and now we must keep it all in control to make sure there's no catastrophe." p. 195"... sometimes it seems to me we're living in a world that we fabricate for ourselves. We decide what's good and what isn't, we draw maps of meanings for ourselves... And then we spend our whole lives struggling with what we have invented for ourselves. The problem is that each of us has our own version of it, so people find it hard to understand each other." p. 224"... my belief that the human psyche evolved n order to defend us against seeing the truth. To prevent us from catching sight of the mechanism. The psyche is our defense system -- it makes sure we'll never understand what's going on around us. Its main task is to filter information, even though the capabilities of our brains are enormous." p. 225"The fact that we don't know hat's going to happen in the future is a terrible mistake in the programming of the world. It should be fixed at the first opportunity." p. 271

Polish author Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead was first published in 2009. It was published in English in 2018, shortly after Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The title is a quote from William Blake, a favorite author of two of the characters in the novel. In between buying this book and reading it, I made the mistake of watching a Polish movie called Spoor, which, unbeknownst to me until the closing credits, is an adaptation of this novel. So before I even started reading the book, I knew the ending and all of the secrets behind its murder mysteries. Nevertheless, I enjoy Tokarczuk’s writing and can certainly recognize that this is a worthwhile work of literature, despite the spoilers. The book is far superior to the movie and does a better job of pacing and parceling out its reveals and surprises. The movie adds one ridiculous plot device at the end (involving a hacker) that thankfully is not present in Tokarczuk’s book.The narrator of the novel is Janina Duszejko, a woman who seems to be in her 60s. She lives in a mountainous region of Southern Poland near the border of the Czech Republic. Her rural village is full of tourists and part-time residents in the summertime, but Duszejko is one of the few who lives there year-round. She lives alone, looks after the vacation homes of absentee landlords, and teaches English courses at the local elementary school. One night, Duszejko (she hates being called by her first name) is awakened by her neighbor Oddball (she assigns personal nicknames to her friends and acquaintances), who informs her that another neighbor, a poacher called Big Foot, is dead in his home. His death seems to have a natural explanation. In the weeks that follow, however, a series of deaths occur in the village that appear to be murders. Duszejko and her friends are not particularly sorry for the victims, who were into some bad activities, but they nonetheless take an interest in the murders and come up with their own theories on the suspicious deaths, with Duszejko’s theory the strangest of all.The most interesting aspect of this novel is the complex character of its narrator. Duszejko has two obsessions. The first is astrology. She believes everything is governed by the stars, and if she knows a person’s date and exact time of birth, she can pretty much predict the course and outcome of their life. Duszejko’s other defining characteristic is her emphatic belief in animal rights. She abhors all violence and cruelty towards animals, whether from abusive pet owners, hunters for sport, or consumers of meat. This conviction clashes with the community in which she lives, where hunting is a way of life. She lives down the road from a fox farm, and all the men in town are hunters. When she expresses her views on animal rights she is scoffed at as merely a crazy old woman.Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is not a conventional murder mystery, in that there isn’t much emphasis placed on finding clues and solving the puzzle. It’s more about the people who live in this town, how they deal with the murders, and what it reveals about their characters. The actual identity of the killer is not difficult to guess, neither in the book nor the film. The killings in this hunting community, however, allow Tokarczuk to examine from a new and interesting perspective the ethics of how people relate to animals and nature. This is not a mystery for mystery genre fans, but the unique narrator and setting, along with Tokarczuk’s talent as a storyteller, make this an intriguing and compelling read for just about everyone else.

We ladies of a certain age often lament our invisibility, but the main character of this delightfully quirky, funny, thought-provoking, and sometimes sad and disturbing novel takes #beseen to a whole new level, using her status as an “old bag” whom no one notices to get away with—well, if you want to know what she gets away with, you’ll need to read the book yourself.Janina Duszeko lives alone in a remote village in Poland, where she takes care of wealthy people’s vacation homes, works part-time as an elementary school English teacher, and tries to cope with her many and sometimes mysterious “Ailments.” A former civil engineer who built bridges all over the world, she believes unquestioningly in the ability of astrology to determine the arc of our lives, is a translator of William Blake, and loves animals so fiercely that she equates hunting and meat-eating with murder. She’s also an astute observer of human nature, including her own, likes randomly capitalizing words, and despises her first name.It’s hard to determine whether Ms. D is insane, brilliant, deluded, morally bankrupt, morally upstanding, or all of the above, which is part of the appeal of this wonderful book that acknowledges that nothing is straightforward and there is no black and white. Tokarczuk never sermonizes; she keeps us entertained and thinking at the same time—making this book a worthwhile (and fun) read.

I disagree with the comparisons to Agatha Christie, but that isn't the point. This is a brilliant, two-fold character study: that of the narrator and that of her environment, which takes on its own insidious life. The crunch of snow, the startled eyes of the Deer, and the circular thoughts of Stars and signs carry this novel through its predictable conclusion and far beyond. A wonderful book by one of the greatest contemporary writers.

Terrific experience

No wonder she won the Nobel Prize, she is an amazing writer and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is a great thriller. I couldn't put it down!

Beautifully written/translated, and so compelling. I loved the descriptions of the seasons and landscapes. I got a bit lost in the astronomy sections, but was suitably intrigued by the main protagonist, and the story, and loved the motley cast of characters....

Highly recommend this book. It is so different, has an unimagenable plot, very well-written.