“In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.”– From “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” by William Blake
Activist and Novel prize winner for literature Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive your plow over the bones of the dead tells the simple story of Janina Duszejko, a woman in her sixties, who lives in a remote Polish village in the Silesia region near the Czech border. This is a hostile landscape with an icy wind constantly blowing over the desolate plateau from the Czech Republic. With temperatures easily dropping to twenty degrees below freezing point it is a harsh environment suited to few.
Janina is an eccentric, opinionated animal-lover who enjoys her part-time job as a teacher and helping her friend, Dizzy, translate the works of William Blake. Occasionally she exchanges a word or two with her neighbours, but only if absolutely necessary. She names people she knows based on their appearance, like her neighbours Oddball and Big Foot, and religiously believes in assessing people and situations by means of her meticulously worked out astrological charts.
One night late Oddball knocks on her door bringing the news of their neighbour, Big Foot’s death. Janina describes with utter disgust the details of Big Foot’s appearance. When she and Oddball goes to Bigfoot’s house, she meticulously describes the filth in which he lives, his own appearance as he lies dead on the floor and her absolute disgust in the man, the situation and his occupation as a hunter. There is little shock or sympathy. When she states that death might be a good thing, especially the demise of this despicable animal hunter and downright foul human being, we realise that Janina herself is a bit of an odd duck.
The two come to the conclusion that Big Foot choked on a deer bone – the same deer he so ruthlessly killed and slaughtered. Janina is immediately convinced that the deer has taken its revenge. But this is only the beginning of the animal kingdom’s supposed killing spree and and events are set into motion which lead to three more suspicious deaths. Next up is another hunter, The Commandant, who is found dead next to his car by Dizzy. Innerd, the local fur farmer and apparent smuggler and The President, the leader of the mushroom collectors’ club follow suit.
Although it can be considered a crime novel, the crimes are surprisingly not what captures the reader (or in my case, listener). It’s the intricate, detailed observations of Janina and her interpretation and colouring of her environment and the people inhabiting it which will amuse and intrigue you in equal parts.
Drive your plow over the bones of the dead is a bleak study of rural Poland. It’s beautifully descriptive, but also shows the dark side of living in this environment. Whether Janina’s eccentricities, aches and fixations can be attributed to this, is up to you to decide.
Similarly it underscores society’s tendency to refer to opinionated, outspoken older women as “old bags”, busybodies or just bat shit crazy. Janina’s repeated attempts at being heard by the police and subsequently ignored is a prime example of this. Maybe we should rather ask if it’s not society that turns older women into “old bags” because they are not taken seriously anymore and need to try harder to make their voices heard?
This stereotype is amplified even more when a woman deeply cares about animals. Janina is accused of caring more for animals than humans, and by the local priest, as committing a sin for loving them as much as she does. Of course the disappearance of Janina’s own two dogs is cause for great distress. Through the character of Janina Tokarczuk examines the ethical and moral dilemma surrounding of hunting and it’s hard not to see and fully agree with Janina’s viewpoint and principles.
There’s no doubt that Tokarczuk is an accomplished and skilled writer and this alone is certainly why Drive your plow is such an engaging novel to listen to. But even a Nobel Prize winner’s writing can be ruined by the wrong narrator. Antonia Lloyd-Jones does no such thing. Her voice perfectly conveys the main character’s eccentricities through her thoughts, as well as the dark, twisted humour of the book. Even when she narrates the voices of other male characters like Oddball, it’s comical, but not off-putting. The almost exaggerated speech style highlights the quirkiness of the main character.
Tokarczuk’s phenomenal writing combines the emotional, descriptive and philosophical in a mesmerising story. Even if it unfolds slowly without much fanfare, this audio book version packs a hefty punch which can certainly be partly attributed to Antonia Lloyd-Jones’ enthusiastic and compassionate narration and her deft translation.
Drive your plow over the bones of the dead is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, an independent publisher specialising in contemporary fiction and long-form essays. It is available in print, audio and electronic format. Fitzcarraldo focuses on ambitious, imaginative and innovative writing, both in translation and in the English language.
About the author and translator:
Olga Tokarczuk is the author of nine novels, three short story collections and has been translated into thirty languages. Her novel Flights won the 2018 International Booker Prize, in Jennifer Croft’s translation. In 2019, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Antonia Lloyd-Jones translates from Polish, and is the 2018 winner of the Transatlantyk Award for the most outstanding promoter of Polish literature abroad. She has translated works by several of Poland’s leading contemporary novelists and reportage authors, as well as crime fiction, poetry and children’s books. She is a mentor for the Emerging Translators’ Mentorship Programme, and former co-chair of the UK Translators Association.
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