The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (Polish / Polish), tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

With Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Man Booker International Prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk returns with a subversive, entertaining noir novel. In a remote Polish village, Janina Duszejko, an eccentric woman in her sixties, recounts the events surrounding the disappearance of her two dogs. She is reclusive, preferring the company of animals to people; she’s unconventional, believing in the stars; and she is fond of the poetry of William Blake, from whose work the title of the book is taken. When members of a local hunting club are found murdered, Duszejko becomes involved in the investigation. By no means a conventional crime story, this existential thriller by ‘one of Europe’s major humanist writers’ (Guardian) offers thought-provoking ideas on our perceptions of madness, injustice against marginalized people, animal rights, the hypocrisy of traditional religion, belief in predestination – and caused a genuine political uproar in Tokarczuk’s native Poland. (from Fitzcarraldo's website.)

An Australian edition from Text Publishing was released in October 2018.
A US edition is forthcoming from Riverhead in August 2019

I for one found this rather impressive - I am well aware that it has divided opinion. My review

I found this one great fun to read (and I also enjoyed the movie version). It's nothing when held against Flights, though (admittedly, Flights was close to being my favourite book last year).

That is the problem - Olga T has even said this was a filler book between Flights and The Book of Jakob (due in 2020) and it reads like it.

I agree that it is not her most profound work, but Tokarczuk's fillers are more interesting than most!

Paul wrote: "That is the problem - Olga T has even said this was a filler book between Flights and The Book of Jakob (due in 2020) and it reads like it."

Spoiler alert please Paul - you have just given away the solution to the mystery at the heart of this novel, albeit the full explanation is revealed in a Guardian interview

(view spoiler)["a two-book deal and a handy fashion for detective stories" (hide spoiler)]

I think the subject matter put me off a little as well - I suspect one was supposed to be sympathetic to the narrator but if anything she succeeded in convincing me to feel sympathy with the other characters who had to put up with her ramblings and activism (bit like The Overstory).

I had a completely opposite reaction and liked the narrator a lot. But I also liked The Overstory a lot.

Even if a filler book according to the author, I never thought it read like one!

I enjoyed reading this one, but did not predict that it would be on the list.

Its not translated fiction (as its written by an ex-pat living in Sweden) but Dark Pines by Will Dean which was on the Guardian Not The Booker, has a significant overlap with this book and was I thought much better (both more enjoyable and better written).

There were more descriptions of the drive to and from the forest than of the forest and it is missing Blake's poetry.

Tokarczuk seems seems to be celebrity hot in literary buzz right now. One thread mentioned her as possibility for one of this year's Nobels. But the reason I am posting here is that I think they are doing a poor job of promoting her in the U.S. Her novel isn't due to be publahed in the U.S. till August.

Kenzaburo Oe's Rouse Up, O Young Men of the New Age! made better use of Blake's poetry,

Riverhead seemed to do a reasonable job in promoting Flights - but they are ultimately picking these up after Fitzcarraldo have published the English translations (Flights came out over a year later as well).

I don't quite get the relationship in US as the Fitzcarraldo books seem to be on sale on Amazon as well.

Plow is only on amazon.com as the paper copy though, not Kindle. That often seems to be a difference where a publication in the other country (US/UK) is coming up or not - Kindle edition will be sold if it isn't, but not if it is.

Don't think I've looked at any other Fitzcarraldo titles on there.

I would suggest that anyone who thinks this novel lacks intellectual depth should read Mimi's review. Other reviews generally concentrate on the plot or political aspects. But she brings out its theoretical underpinnings including Derrida and Jung, and relates it to the realm of Ulro in Blake's work.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Also this review of the novel which looks more at the book as a whole:

http://thescores.org.uk/drive-your-pl...

Antonomasia wrote: "I would suggest that anyone who thinks this novel lacks intellectual depth should read Mimi's review."

Yes that's a great review. Still going to stay towards the bottom of my rankings though - not least because of what Mimi also brings out brilliantly in her conclusion:

I found this often read more as ‘fantasy’ manifesto than literature.

and I don't even think it succeeds as manifesto (at least it failed on me).

J wrote: "Also this review of the novel which looks more at the book as a whole:

http://thescores.org.uk/drive-your-pl..."

Oh, this is great. The similarity to Cosmos is has to be important. (a bit embarrassed I haven't read that yet).
And I guess you saw the reports that protestors in Białowieża had placards referring to Janina Duszejko?

Sunita wrote: "Fitzcarraldo's books don't show up at Amazon US as Kindle versions unless they're released that way after a US publisher picks them up. And the print versions are through 3rd parties. Flights took ..."

And there lies the problem. The delay in release has got to cost them in sales. I see it in library availability. I belong to 3 electronic libraries plus Scribd. There isn't a text copy of Flights among them. 2 Audio but no text. If a book is not available for purchase during the initial publicity wave, it is often neglected by a library.

I think this is an indictment on this year's longlist, to be honest. 'Plow...' is no 'Flights', yet it has every chance of taking out the prize this year :(

Agreed! (although as a betting man I would think not, as the judges won't want to pick the same author twice for a lesser novel .... I hope)

Paul wrote: "Agreed! (although as a betting man I would think not, as the judges won't want to pick the same author twice for a lesser novel .... I hope)"

For the first time, I think I'm reading another potential winner...

...let's hope Uribe Uribe doesn't blow it for me ;)

It didn’t even win the EBRD prize

No, but the book which did is not in contention.

The Devil's Dance was eligible for MBI 2018 I think

Amazon has the publication date as 3rd March 2018, which would have made it eligible for MBI 2018. I have no idea whether it was submitted or not, but I thought it was better than some books on the 2018 list.
Amazon also has 'frequently bought together' with Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead.

Tilted Axis haven't had much luck with the MBI given their founder was the first winner.

Tokyo Ueno Station would have made a far better novel this year about the effects of East Asian economic development than the one that was picked

Paul wrote: "Tilted Axis haven't had much luck with the MBI given their founder was the first winner.

Tokyo Ueno Station would have made a far better novel this year about the effects of East Asian economic de..."

This should have been chosen...

...along with several others, and let's chuck out half the longlist while we're at it :)

I think it's a bit unfair to compare Drive Your Plow to Flights. They are both entirely different texts in almost every way. Comparing them, especially in terms of 'which is best,' seems reductive. Nobody seems to be pitting any of Tommy Wieringa's or Juan Gabriel Vásquez's previous novels to their current long-listed counterpart. I'm beginning to get tired of opening up these threads and seeing little to no conversations about the actual text itself; it's always about that prize or this publisher or that other book that wasn't picked etc.

I do think it is not unreasonable to comment that for several of the author's the list doesn't seem to be close to their best book, as a way to judge novels on a 'best of year' list, particularly when people haven't yet read all 13. And to an extent saying 'this is no Flights' is another way of saying 'don't be fooled by the author's name, this just isn't particularly good'.

The problem I have with this one is that Janina views are expressed so simplistically and one-sidedly that I couldn't help but find myself sympathising with the opposition - it's a manifesto not a novel.

Incidentally, Shape of the Ruins is my favourite Vásquez.

I think the book is more ambiguous than that. It is very much possible to see Janina in the tradition of nefarious unreliable narrators.

She can be seen as relating to an 'anti-human' strand of environmentalism which others oppose and against which there is more pushback recently. Some of that very recent responses to the 'ecofascism' references in the Christchuch shooter's manifesto, others published before that. Although Janina demonises white men who are in powerful positions - whereas these critiques are generally aimed at those who are seeing the less powerful as the human problem.

I haven't time to write more detail now, and the articles I'm bouncing this off might not be sufficiently related to post.

eg
https://newsocialist.org.uk/against-t...
https://www.patreon.com/posts/25552145
(the same Richard Seymour who wrote that Corbyn book)

probably rather abstruse (and far to the left) politically for some posters but may be of interest to some

J wrote: "I'm beginning to get tired of opening up these threads and seeing little to no conversations about the actual text itself; it's always about that prize or this publisher or that other book that wasn't picked etc. ."

I think what’s partly behind this is that some participants here are in the shadow jury and approach it from a slightly different angle than a “normal reader,” so in that respect I understand the nature of the discussion. But I agree and think it’s better for me to step back from the discussion here as I find it to decrease my motivation to tackle the longlist and I would rather approach it with a cleaner slate. I’ll crawl back if I find the list as bad as many find it. :)

I would really like to have more substantive conversation about the detail of this book - but I was concerned that the stuff I wanted to talk about (like the above) would be too obscure to interest most posters.

Tommi (referring to your review, and IIRC you have background in ecocriticism) do you think ecofeminism basically covers the philosophical underpinnings of it?

I had been thinking anyway about the similarities between Plow and Faculty of Dreams - two protagonists who were young in the 1960s, take their causes too far and are considered unhinged to one degree or another by those around them, but valued by some countercultures. Framing Plow as part specifically pf a school of feminism - ecofeminism - only emphasises that.

Looked at from this POV it's almost surprising that two such similar books are on the longlist. However, they are quite different as reading experiences, because one knows Valerie's fate from the start (not just because she is famous but because the book begins with her death) - and Plow is more conventional both in writing and structure, compared with the prose-poem and play-like scenes of Faculty of Dreams, moving back and forth across time).

Another thing that IMO often happens on here is that people put most of their ideas about a book into their review, and those ideas are often not brought into group discussion threads. (The group threads being about e.g. comparing books with other books, or discussion of press reviews.)

Sometimes people keep those ideas out of the thread because they don't want to overemphasise clashes of opinion (I do that sometimes, anyway) but also because it might seem like repetition to write out, or to have others read, very similar content again.

Environmental concern in the UK tends to be the preserve of the soft left. I don't think there is a significant ecofeminism culture, but perhaps if the hunting fraternity were as strong as they are in Poland there might be.
Something I suggested in my review and have not said here is that portraying someone passionately concerned about the environment as a crank undermines the case those who are both passionate and rational are making (see Paul's comment about finding himself sympathising with the opposition). This knocked a star off my rating of the book. Some of the depth I missed should make me put it back, but I am not going to.

I’m sorry but statements like it’s “not a novel” is frankly ridiculous. By any tenuous definition of ‘the novel,’ Drive Your Plow fulfils those criteria and then some; more so, one could easily argue, than Flights. The book doesn’t pretend to be a work of non-fiction so why get caught up over the ‘one sidedness’ of it? The fact that this book was used by Polish environmental activists and protestors, years later, speaks to the book's ability to illuminate a reality that is both complex, genuine as well as urgent. Not to mention that the supposed ‘opposition’ in this novel includes fascist, loathsome, ageist, corrupt men—such as the Father Rustle—who abuse their power and exploit individuals. The fact you have found sympathy for them—and their patriarchal values—is genuinely odd…

Calling this book ‘simplistic’ is weak criticism. This book is so much more than just the message of ‘killing animals is bad, vegans are good.’ [Antonomasia has already pointed out the various ecofeminist, moral, and theological themes.] I would recommend a closer second evaluation, perhaps once the MBI is over. I don’t even like this book that much but I am alarmed by the sweeping dismissals.

As I understand it, a significant issue around this book for some posters who are practising Christians is the attitude of the narrator / the narrative? to the Church.

It was one of the reasons I took quite a while to work out how to write a review without feeling like I was having a go at people - and mentioning pro-environmental strains of Christianity in my review was how I got round it.

I don’t think so Anto, certainly not in my case as this is aimed firmly at the right wing catholic, pro hunting Polish church, which is a long way from my Christian beliefs.

I just do not think it’s a very good book and I first read it pre publication six months or more back and have revisited it twice since, most recently at the EBRD awards and before that when I was (mistakenly it turned out) told it was submitted for another prize.

Ah, it might have saved a bit of time in the autumn if I'd clarified that then. (Though the research was interesting, and it seemed fitting to be posting the review after Rowan Williams had mentioned his support for Extinction Rebellion.) As it turned out, the review sounded too pro-Christian for an old friend who very much isn't, and with whom I'd talked about the book.

At that time I had also interpreted an objection in an old post to the book's "animals over people" stance as being related to Christianity, although it wasn't actually clear from the wording that it was.

I guess every one has beliefs (sounds like your friend has strong ones for instance) which can influence what we think of a book, consciously or sub-consciously.

I think however my issues with this book were partly similar to some you express very coherently in the middle of your very detailed review of Ghost Wall and which I know many others share;

but mainly I think they were unduly influenced by seeing this as a “two-book deal” filler between her two constellation novels (which I suspect may have been made tongue in cheek in her Guardian interview but at the time seemed to give me an easy way to justify my disappointment in the book)

But I know many others like this - I discussed it at length six months back with other subscribers on this forum- and it does seem one of the strongest on the longlist - albeit I prefer the sound of the other Fitzcarraldo. As usual scribe to the blue covers and not the essays I have not read that yet.

I have now bought the essay on the long list, although I haven't read more than the first few pages. It seems promising.

The eco-fascist essay is interesting and links with one of 2018s most overlooked books in award terms, Melissa Harrison’s All Among the Barley.

Although I did make the mistake of looking at the author of the essay’s twitter feed which was scary stuff: typical “I am not anti Semitic, I just hate Israel” stuff.

GY don’t forget the white covers can be fiction too apparently - don’t judge a book by the colour of its cover!

Fitzcarraldo’s essays that I have tried have been if anything even stronger than their excellent fiction (as the Nobel Committee would concur).

I was careful in my wording! I don’t want to start all that again. I just don’t subscribe to the essays hence why I have not read it.

Didn't see anything at all to do with Israel in the feed of the writer of the first piece. (don't think it's a good idea to get into this topic, just wanted to be fair towards her.)

Which have been your favourite Fitzcarraldo non-fiction books?

Alejandro Zambra's 'Not to Read'.
https://tonysreadinglist.wordpress.co...

Least favourite, Jean-Philippe Toussaint's 'Football'.
https://tonysreadinglist.wordpress.co...

(To be fair, I think I've only read three!)

This Little Art by Kate Briggs (a review of which caused quite some controversy) and The Years of course.

(Richard Seymour’s Twitter feed)