Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
A Novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
"A brilliant literary murder mystery." -Chicago Tribune
"Extraordinary. Tokarczuk's novel is funny, vivid, dangerous, and disturbing, and it raises some fierce questions about human behavior. My sincere...
"A brilliant literary murder mystery." -Chicago Tribune
"Extraordinary. Tokarczuk's novel is funny, vivid, dangerous, and disturbing, and it raises some fierce questions about human behavior. My sincere...
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WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE"A brilliant literary murder mystery." -Chicago Tribune
"Extraordinary. Tokarczuk's novel is funny, vivid, dangerous, and disturbing, and it raises some fierce questions about human behavior. My sincere admiration for her brilliant work." -Annie Proulx
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind . . .
A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is worthy of a voice?
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I.Now Pay Attention
Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along
The vale of death.
I am already at an age and additionally in a state where I must always wash my feet thoroughly before bed, in the event of having to be removed by an ambulance in the Night.
Had I examined the Ephemerides that evening to see what was happening in the sky, I wouldn't have gone to bed at all. Meanwhile I had fallen very fast asleep; I had helped myself with an infusion of hops, and I also took two valerian pills. So when I was woken in the middle of the Night by hammering on the door-violent, immoderate and thus ill-omened-I was unable to come round. I sprang up and stood by the bed, unsteadily, because my sleepy, shaky body couldn't make the leap from the innocence of sleep into wakefulness. I felt weak and began to reel, as if about to lose consciousness. Unfortunately this has been happening to me lately, and has to do with my Ailments. I had to sit down and tell myself several times: I'm at home, it's Night, someone's banging on the door; only then did I manage to control my nerves. As I searched for my slippers in the dark, I could hear that whoever had been banging was now walking around the house, muttering. Downstairs, in the cubbyhole for the electrical meters, I keep the pepper spray Dizzy gave me because of the poachers, and that was what now came to mind. In the darkness I managed to seek out the familiar, cold aerosol shape, and thus armed, I switched on the outside light, then looked at the porch through a small side window. There was a crunch of snow, and into my field of vision came my neighbor, whom I call Oddball. He was wrapping himself in the tails of the old sheepskin coat I'd sometimes seen him wearing as he worked outside the house. Below the coat I could see his striped pajamas and heavy hiking boots.
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"Open up," he said.
With undisguised astonishment he cast a glance at my linen suit (I sleep in something the Professor and his wife wanted to throw away last summer, which reminds me of a fashion from the past and the days of my youth-thus I combine the Practical and the Sentimental) and without a by-your-leave he came inside.
"Please get dressed. Big Foot is dead."
For a while I was speechless with shock; without a word I put on my tall snow boots and the first fleece to hand from the coat rack. Outside, in the pool of light falling from the porch lamp, the snow was changing into a slow, sleepy shower. Oddball stood next to me in silence, tall, thin and bony like a figure sketched in a few pencil strokes. Every time he moved, snow fell from him like icing sugar from pastry ribbons.
"What do you mean, dead?" I finally asked, my throat tightening, as I opened the door, but Oddball didn't answer.
He generally doesn't say much. He must have Mercury in a reticent sign, I reckon it's in Capricorn or on the cusp, in square or maybe in opposition to Saturn. It could also be Mercury in retrograde-that produces reserve.
We left the house and were instantly engulfed by the familiar cold, wet air that reminds us every winter that the world was not created for Mankind, and for at least half the year it shows us how very hostile it is to us. The frost brutally assailed our cheeks, and clouds of white steam came streaming from our mouths. The porch light went out automatically and we walked across the crunching snow in total darkness, except for Oddball's headlamp, which pierced the pitch dark in one shifting spot, just in front of him, as I tripped along in the Murk behind him.
"Don't you have a flashlight?" he asked.
Of course I had one, but I wouldn't be able to tell where it was until morning. It's a feature of flashlights that they're only visible in the daytime.
Big Foot's cottage stood slightly out of the way, higher up than the other houses. It was
"Open up," he said.
With undisguised astonishment he cast a glance at my linen suit (I sleep in something the Professor and his wife wanted to throw away last summer, which reminds me of a fashion from the past and the days of my youth-thus I combine the Practical and the Sentimental) and without a by-your-leave he came inside.
"Please get dressed. Big Foot is dead."
For a while I was speechless with shock; without a word I put on my tall snow boots and the first fleece to hand from the coat rack. Outside, in the pool of light falling from the porch lamp, the snow was changing into a slow, sleepy shower. Oddball stood next to me in silence, tall, thin and bony like a figure sketched in a few pencil strokes. Every time he moved, snow fell from him like icing sugar from pastry ribbons.
"What do you mean, dead?" I finally asked, my throat tightening, as I opened the door, but Oddball didn't answer.
He generally doesn't say much. He must have Mercury in a reticent sign, I reckon it's in Capricorn or on the cusp, in square or maybe in opposition to Saturn. It could also be Mercury in retrograde-that produces reserve.
We left the house and were instantly engulfed by the familiar cold, wet air that reminds us every winter that the world was not created for Mankind, and for at least half the year it shows us how very hostile it is to us. The frost brutally assailed our cheeks, and clouds of white steam came streaming from our mouths. The porch light went out automatically and we walked across the crunching snow in total darkness, except for Oddball's headlamp, which pierced the pitch dark in one shifting spot, just in front of him, as I tripped along in the Murk behind him.
"Don't you have a flashlight?" he asked.
Of course I had one, but I wouldn't be able to tell where it was until morning. It's a feature of flashlights that they're only visible in the daytime.
Big Foot's cottage stood slightly out of the way, higher up than the other houses. It was
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Autoren-Porträt von Olga Tokarczuk
Olga Tokarczuk has won the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Man Book International Prize, among many other honors. She is the author of a dozen works of fiction, two collections of essays, and a children’s book; her work has been translated into fifty languages.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Olga Tokarczuk
- 2020, 288 Seiten, Maße: 13,3 x 20 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Übersetzer: Antonia Lloyd-Jones
- Verlag: Riverhead Books
- ISBN-10: 0525541349
- ISBN-13: 9780525541349
- Erscheinungsdatum: 05.08.2021
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Named a best book of 2019 by TIME, NPR, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and BookRiot.PEN America Translation Prize longlist
Warwick Prize for Women in Translation shortlist
A marvelously weird and fablelike mystery. . . . Authors with Tokarczuk s vending machine of phrasing . . . and gimlet eye for human behavior. . . are rarely also masters of pacing and suspense. But even as Tokarczuk sticks landing after landing . . . her asides are never desultory or a liability. They are more like little cuts quick, exacting and purposefully belated in their bleeding. . . . This book is not a mere whodunit: It s a philosophical fairy tale about life and death that s been trying to spill its secrets. Secrets that, if you ve kept your ear to the ground, you knew in your bones all along. New York Times Book Review
While it adopts the straightforward structure of a murder mystery, [the book features] macabre humor and morbid philosophical interludes [that] are distinctive to its author. . . [and an] excellent payoff at the finale. . . . As for Ms. Tokarczuk, there s no doubt: She s a gifted, original writer, and the appearance of her novels in English is a welcome development. The Wall Street Journal
Drive Your Plow is exhilarating in a way that feels fierce and private, almost inarticulable; it s one of the most existentially refreshing novels I ve read in a long time. The New Yorker
A paean to nature. . . a sort of ode to Blake. . . [and] a lament. . . Does Tokarczuk transcend Blake? Arguable perhaps. NPR
A brilliant literary murder mystery. Chicago Tribune
A winding, imaginative, genre-defying story. Part murder mystery, part fairy tale, Drive Your Plow is a thrilling philosophical examination of the ways in which some living creatures are privileged above others. TIME
Shimmering with subversive brilliance . . . . this is not
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your conventional crime story for Tokarczuk is not your conventional writer. Through her extraordinary talent and intellect, and her thinking novels, she ponders and tackles larger ecological and political issues. The stakes are always high; Tokarczuk repeatedly rises to the occasion and raises a call to arms. HuffPost
Sometimes the opening sentence of a first-person narrative can so vividly capture the personality of its speaker that you immediately want to spend all the time you can in their company. That s the case with . . . Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead . . . [a] barbed and subversive tale about what it takes to challenge the complacency of the powers that be. Boston Globe
Bewitching. . .. Serious crosscurrents explore everything from animal rights to predetermination to the way society stigmatizes and marginalizes those it considers mad, strange or simply different . . . Tokarczuk is capable of miracles and ensures that this extraordinary novel soars. Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Sardonic humour and gothic plot-twists add a layer of macabre rustic comedy." The Economist
"One of the funniest books of the year. The Guardian
Written with humor, charm, and a great talent for mystery a sharp, memorable alternative to those dime-a-dozen beach bag potboilers without losing any of the whodunnit appeal. Town & Country
Sometimes the opening sentence of a first-person narrative can so vividly capture the personality of its speaker that you immediately want to spend all the time you can in their company. That s the case with . . . Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead . . . [a] barbed and subversive tale about what it takes to challenge the complacency of the powers that be. Boston Globe
Bewitching. . .. Serious crosscurrents explore everything from animal rights to predetermination to the way society stigmatizes and marginalizes those it considers mad, strange or simply different . . . Tokarczuk is capable of miracles and ensures that this extraordinary novel soars. Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Sardonic humour and gothic plot-twists add a layer of macabre rustic comedy." The Economist
"One of the funniest books of the year. The Guardian
Written with humor, charm, and a great talent for mystery a sharp, memorable alternative to those dime-a-dozen beach bag potboilers without losing any of the whodunnit appeal. Town & Country
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