The Books of Jacob

1.

1752, Rohatyn

It's early morning, near the close of October. The vicar forane is standing on the porch of the presbytery, waiting for his carriage. He's used to getting up at dawn, but today he feels just half awake and has no idea how he even ended up here, alone in an ocean of fog. He can't remember rising, or getting dressed, or whether he's had breakfast. He stares perplexed at the sturdy boots sticking out from underneath his cassock, at the tattered front of his faded woolen overcoat, at the gloves he's holding in his hands. He slips on the left one; it's warm and fits him perfectly, as though hand and glove have known each other many years. He breathes a sigh of relief. He feels for the bag slung over his shoulder, mechanically runs his fingers over the hard edges of the rectangle it contains, thickened like scars under the skin, and he remembers, slowly, what's inside-that heavy, friendly form. A good thing, the thing that's brought him here-those words, those signs, each with a profound connection to his life. Indeed, now he knows what's there, and this awareness slowly starts to warm him up, and as his body comes back, he starts to be able to see through the fog. Behind him, the dark aperture of the doors, one side shut. The cold must have already set in, perhaps even a light frost already, spoiling the plums in the orchard. Above the doors, there is a rough inscription, which he sees without looking, already knowing what it says-he commissioned it, after all. Those two craftsmen from Podhajce took an entire week to carve the letters into the wood. He had, of course, requested they be done ornately:

HERE TODAY AND GONE TOMORROW.

NO USE TO MILK IS YOUR SORROW

Somehow, in the second line, they wrote the very first letter backward, like a mirror image. Aggravated by this for the umpteenth time, the priest spins his head around, and the sight is enough to make him fully awake. That backward  . . . How could they be so negligent? You

Olga Tokarczuk; Translated by Jennifer Croft

Praise for The Books of Jacob:

Sophisticated and ribald and brimming with folk wit. . . The comedy in this novel blends, as it does in life, with genuine tragedy. Dwight Garner, The New York Times

Monumental . . . could help the Swedish Academy restore its rather tattered reputation as an arbiter of serious literature. Tokarczuk is as comfortable rendering the world of the Jewish peasantry as that of the Polish royal court. . . . Incalculably rich in learning and driven by a faith in the numinous properties of knowledge.   Wall Street Journal

It s just as awe-inspiring as the Nobel judges claimed. . . . Miraculously entertaining and consistently fascinating. Despite his best efforts, Frank never mastered alchemy, but Tokarczuk certainly has. . . . Haunting and irresistible. The Washington Post

Yes, there s a miracle in these pages. It s not about the Virgin Mary or the false Messiah Jacob Frank, however, but the way Tokarczuk can make a period so distant from us in every way feel so completely alive. Los Angeles Times
 
Tokarczuk aims high, spinning a layered, majestic, polyphonic novel based on a real-life figure. . . . A golden age of historical fiction is upon us: Tokarczuk links arms with Hilary Mantel and Colson Whitehead, connecting our own perilous moment with the past. Oprah Daily
 
A colossal work - an epic, a fable, a history, sometimes a satire, always a magnum opus. NPR

Funny, tragic, comprehensive, and at times hilariously graphic both earthy and ethereal. Boston Globe

You can practically smell the damp earth, the household fires, the dry paper of Nobel laureate Tokarczuk s epic set across the villages of 18th-century Poland. Everything about The Books of Jacob, including Tokarczuk s generous, comfortable style, is vast but meticulously detailed.   Vulture
 
Olga Tokarczuk is one of our greatest living fiction writers,