Her actions ask questions both of the male world which surrounds her and of our deeper human intentions: what does it mean to be human and what does it mean to be animal, and can we separate the two? Why is the killing of animals sport and that of humans murder?Ī thought-provoking, wry and otherworldly murder mystery, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is a tale about the cosmos, poetry, and the limitations and possibilities of activism. She has been watching the animals with whom the community shares their isolated, rural home, and she believes they are acting strangely…Įngaged in fierce resistance against the injustices around her, Janina refuses to be a prisoner of society and gender. Men from the local hunting club are dying in mysterious circumstances and Janina Duszejko – an eccentric older local woman, environmentalist, amateur astronomer and enthusiastic translator of William Blake – has her suspicions.

The first is that the book, first published in Polish in 2009 and newly translated by Antonia Lloyd. Whom do we deem sane? it asks.The story begins in the depths of winter in a small community on a remote Polish mountainside. Two things stand out about Olga Tokarczuk's novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. Who is worthy of a voice?Ī 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. Ī 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. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. Content uploaded by Joanna Trzeciak Huss. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. revisedJTHReview2019Olga Tokarczuk Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the De.

Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. 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. A plow (also spelled 'plough') is a farm tool with one or more heavy blades that breaks the soil and cuts a furrow (small ditch) for sowing seeds. My sincere admiration for her brilliant work.' -Annie Proulx With Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Man Booker International Prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk returns with a subversive, entertaining noir novel. Tokarczuk's novel is funny, vivid, dangerous, and disturbing, and it raises some fierce questions about human behavior. 1 day ago &0183 &32 The Ottomeyer Mammut is the largest plow ever made. 'A brilliant literary murder mystery.' - Chicago Tribune