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| Tokarczuk, Olga. Drive your plow over the bones of the dead. Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Riverhead Books, 2018. |
My relationship with books — even now that I've embraced digital technology — has always been physical. Paper texture, typography, width and weight, marginalia. Walking library aisles, visiting bookshops taking my sweet time looking at each spine until I find the tome that makes my heart skip a beat.
The hunts and hauls have recently diminished as my personal library is filled with enough paperback to last years of reading. And I've grown to be practical and decisive. Nowadays, when I enter a bookshop, I know exactly which title I would want to leave with.
Not on my last trip, though. With the titles I was seeking unavailable, I combed the shelves hoping for a surprise. The result, long story short: Drive your plow over the bones of the dead by Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk.
I was examining this and her other novel, Flights, both of which I couldn't resist; but my budget wouldn't allow such indulgence. So I settled with the one that involves death and astrology. So right up my alley.
How wonderful—to translate from one language to another, and by so doing to bring people closer to one another—what a beautiful idea. (p 229)The publication notes on my copy indicates translation copyright in 2018. Only a year ago. But the novel was originally published (in Polish) in 2009. I am grateful. It's not a case anymore of too little time too much to read for me; but of too little literature with too few of intrigue. We need more translated works.
If you're wondering whether or not I liked Drive your plow... Let me say that the next time I enter a book store, I'll be sure to leave with a copy of Flights in my bag. Olga rocks. Enjoy this passage:
"You know what, 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 meaning 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."
. . . .
I spent ages pondering what the Gray Lady had said. And I think it tallies with one of my Theories—my belief that the human psyche evolved in 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 undrestand what's going on around us. Its main task is to filter information, even though the capabilities of our brains are enormous. For it would be impossible to carry the weight of this knowledge. Because every tiny particle of the world is made of suffering. (pp 224 – 225)
