A thing in motion

This is a quote from the book Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft.

Quote by Olga Tokarczuk, “Standing there on the embankment, staring into the current, I realized that—in spite of all the risks involved—a thing in motion will always be better than a thing at rest; that change will always be a nobler thing than permanence; that that which is static will degenerate and decay, turn to ash, while that which is in motion is able to last for all eternity.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Flights – Summary

Here is the book summary:

From the incomparably original Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, Flights interweaves reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. Chopin’s heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time. Where are you from? Where are you coming in from? Where are you going? we call to the traveler. Enchanting, unsettling, and wholly original, Flights is a master storyteller’s answer.

Copyright © 2007 by Olga Tokarczuk.

Translated by: Jennifer Croft

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

The world in your head

Excerpt from Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

This is an excerpt from the book Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft.

The first trip I ever took was across the fields, on foot. It took them a long time to notice I was gone, which meant I was able to make it quite some distance. I covered the whole park and even — going down dirt roads, through the corn and the damp meadows teeming with cowslip flowers, sectioned into squares by ditches — reached the river. Though of course the river was ubiquitous in that valley, soaking up under the ground cover and lapping at the fields.

Clambering up onto the embankment, I could see and undulating ribbon, a road that kept flowing outside of the frame, outside of the world, IF you were lucky, you might catch sight of a boat there, one of those great flat boats gliding over the river in either direction, oblivious to the shores, to the trees, to the people who stand on the embankment, unreliable landmarks, perhaps, not worth remarking, just an audience to the boats own motion, so full of grace. I dreamed of working on a boat like that when I grew up—or even better, of becoming one of those boats.

It wasn’t a big river, only the Oder, but I, too, was little then. It had its place in the hierarchy of rivers, which I later checked on the maps—a minor one, but present, nonetheless, a kind of country viscountess at the court of the Amazon queen. But it was more than enough for me. It seemed enormous. It flowed as it liked, essentially unimpeded, prone to flooding, unpredictable.

Occasionally along the banks it would catch on some underwater obstacle, and eddies would develop. But the river flowed on, parading, concerned only with its hidden aims beyond the horizon, somewhere far off the the north. Your eyes couldn’t keep focused on the water, which pulled your gaze along up past the horizon, so that you’d lose your balance.

To me, of course, the river paid no attention, caring only for itself, those changing, roving waters into which—as I later learned—you can never step twice.

Every year it charged a steep price to bear the weight of those boats—because every year someone drowned in the river, whether a child taking a dip on a hot summer’s day or some drunk who somehow wound up on the bridge and, in spite of the railing, still fell into the water. The search for the drowned always took place with great pomp and circumstance, with everyone in the vicinity waiting with bated breath. THey’d bring in divers and army boats. According to adults’ accounts we overheard, the recovered bodies were swollen and pale—the water had rinsed all the life out of them, blurring their facial features to such an extent that their loved ones would have a hard time identifying their corpses.

Standing there on the embankment, staring into the current, I realized that—in spite of all the risks involved—a thing in motion will always be better than a thing at rest; that change will always be a nobler thing than permanence; that that which is static will degenerate and decay, turn to ash, while that which is in motion is able to last for all eternity. From then on, the river was like a needle inserted into my formerly safe and stable surroundings, the landscape composed of the park, the greenhouses with their vegetables that grew in sad little rows, and the sidewalk with its concrete slabs where we would go to play hopscotch. This needle went all the way through, marking a vertical third dimension; so pierced, the landscape of my childhood world turned out to be nothing more than a toy made of rubber from which all the air was escaping, with a hiss.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Flights – Summary

Here is the book summary:

From the incomparably original Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, Flights interweaves reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. Chopin’s heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time. Where are you from? Where are you coming in from? Where are you going? we call to the traveler. Enchanting, unsettling, and wholly original, Flights is a master storyteller’s answer.

Copyright © 2007 by Olga Tokarczuk.

Translated by: Jennifer Croft

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

I would go into the forest…

This is a quote from the book Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

Quote by Olga Tokarczuk, “I would go into the forest – I could wander around it endlessly. Here things were quieter the forest was like a vast, deep, welcoming refuge in which one could hide. It lulled my mind.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

One of Poland’s most imaginative and lyrical writers, Olga Tokarczuk presents us with a detective story with a twist in Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. After her two dogs go missing and members of the local hunting club are found murdered, teacher and animal rights activist Janina Duszejko becomes involved in the ensuing investigation. Part magic realism, part detective story, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is suspenseful and entertaining reimagining of the genre interwoven with poignant and insightful commentaries on our perceptions of madness, marginalised people and animal rights.

Copyright © 2009 by Olga Tokarczuk.

Translated by: Antonia Lloyd-Jones

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

A special degree of familiarity

Excerpt from Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

Photo by Adam Chang on Unsplash

This is an excerpt from the book Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

‘What are you going to call her?’ I asked, as the first sips of tea warmed me from the inside, and the tangle of emotions caught in my throat began to melt a little.

Oddball shrugged.

‘I don’t know, maybe Fly, or Tray.’

I didn’t say anything, but I didn’t like it. Those names didn’t suit this Dog, considering her personal history. Something else would have to be thought up for her instead.

What a lack of imagination it is to have official first names and surnames. No one ever remembers them, they’re so divorced from the Person, and so banal that they don’t remind us of them at all. What’s more, each generation has its own trends, and suddenly everyone’s called Magdalena, Patryk, or – God forbid – Janina. That’s why I try my best never to use first names and surnames, but prefer epithets that come to mind of their own accord the first time I see a Person. I’m sure this is the right way to use language, rather than tossing about words stripped of all meaning. Oddball’s surname, for instance, is Świerszczyński – that’s what it says on his front door, with the letter ‘Ś’ in front of it. Is there really a first name that starts with the letter Ś? He has always introduced himself as ‘Świerszczyński’, but he can’t expect us to twist our tongues trying to pronounce it. I believe each of us sees the other Person in our own way, so we should give them the name we consider suitable and fitting. Thus we are polyonymous. We have as many names as the number of people with whom we interact. My name for Świerszczyński is Oddball, and I think it reflects his Attributes well.

But now, as I gazed at the Dog, the first thing that occurred to me was a human name, Marysia. Maybe because of the orphan in the classic children’s story – she was so emaciated.

‘She wouldn’t be called Marysia, would she?’ I asked.

‘Possibly,’ he replied. ‘Yes, I think that’s right. Her name’s Marysia.’

The naming of Big Foot occurred in a similar way. It was quite straightforward – it suggested itself to me when I saw his footprints in the snow. To begin with, Oddball had called him ‘Shaggy’, but then he borrowed ‘Big Foot’ from me. All it means is that I chose the right name for him.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t choose a suitable name for myself. I regard the one that’s written on my identity card as scandalously wrong and unfair – Janina. I think my real name is Emilia, or Joanna. Sometimes I think it’s something like Irmtrud too. Or Bellona. Or Medea.

Meanwhile Oddball avoids calling me by my name like the plague. That means something too. Somehow he always finds a way to address me as ‘you’.

‘Will you wait with me until they get here?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ I readily agreed, and realized I’d never have the courage to call him ‘Oddball’ to his face. When you’re such close neighbours, you don’t need names to address each other. Whenever I see him weeding his small garden as I’m passing by, I don’t need his name to speak to him. It’s a special degree of familiarity.

The name of the book comes from William Blake’s prose work called The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in a section called the Proverbs of Hell, you can read it here.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

One of Poland’s most imaginative and lyrical writers, Olga Tokarczuk presents us with a detective story with a twist in DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD. After her two dogs go missing and members of the local hunting club are found murdered, teacher and animal rights activist Janina Duszejko becomes involved in the ensuing investigation. Part magic realism, part detective story, DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD is suspenseful and entertaining reimagining of the genre interwoven with poignant and insightful commentaries on our perceptions of madness, marginalised people and animal rights.

Copyright © 2009 by Olga Tokarczuk.

Translated by: Antonia Lloyd-Jones

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

%d bloggers like this: