Eco-egalitarian Thriller Noir: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2009)
Photograph by Helena Carvalho
By Helena Carvalho
Someone pounds at the door and Janina is forced to wake up. It is her neighbor, Oddball. “Please get dressed. Big Foot is dead.” It is the first death in the book but it is not the last. The deaths have something in common—the men who are killed pose a threat to animals and there are signs of animals near the place of the murder. Janina becomes strongly convinced that the animals must have done it. Sounds like a very unique thriller. Except that the book is not really a thriller. In her Nobel speech, Olga Tokarczuk passionately argues against the artificial division of books into genres:
“The division into genres is the result of the commercialization of literature as a whole and an effect of treating it as a product for sale with the whole philosophy of branding and targeting and other, similar inventions of contemporary capitalism.”
—Olga Tokarczuk, Nobel Lecture.
Faithful to her beliefs, the book does not fit any traditional genre. It is a character-led story with elements of a thriller but also has a sweet childish naivete more commonly found in children’s stories or fables.
The first impression of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is of candor and tenderness. The book is a first-person narrative focusing on Janina, a frail older lady who lives in an inhospitable landscape somewhere in rural Poland.The first sentence of the book sets the tone: “Janina must wash her feet thoroughly before going to bed in case an ambulance comes over during the night.” It seems silly to write something so mundane and personal as a first sentence. It is one of those things you don’t say out loud but just do. However, once it is written and then read something miraculous happens: the main character becomes human, real to the reader.
There is something very special about a main character who is elder and female. Janina suffers from an undefined ailment and is deeply spiritual. She spends her day drawing astrology charts, examining the Ephemerides and capitalizing words in her mind. For there are differences between the night and the Night, between creatures and the Creatures. Her thoughts are philosophical treatises about the origin of humankind, the intrinsic worth of humanity in comparison to that of other Creatures. It is no wonder that her other hobby consists of translating the poetry of William Blake—poems of the corruption of natural innocence by experience.
The book interweaves Janina’s thoughts with her day to day actions, the way she cooks, her sleep cycles, her walks across the hills to fulfill her duties as the caretaker of the wealthy summer homes of the Warsaw part-time residents. The main arc of the story is the series of murders and how Janina is increasingly convinced that the animals must have done it as revenge for the abuses they have been subject to. The disbelief of those around her does not seem to bother her and she persists, trying to explain her theory to the authorities, while enduring long and boring bureaucratic procedures.
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Janina’s tenderness and compassion for fellow animals is moving but in a childish way. “What world is this? Somebody’s body is made into shoes, into meatballs, sausages, a bedside rug, someone’s bones are boiled to make broth…” Notice how there is no difference between animals and humans, they are both somebody. You don’t have to agree with this ecological egalitarianism (and I don’t) to respect passion and conviction. The character embodies Tokarczuk's sensitivity towards animals and nature:
“As a child, I listened to these fairy tales with flushed cheeks and tears in my eyes, because I believed deeply that objects have their own problems and emotions, as well as a sort of social life, entirely comparable to our human one. The plates in the dresser could talk to each other, and the spoons, knives and forks in the drawer formed a sort of a family. Similarly, animals were mysterious, wise, self-aware creatures with whom we had always been connected by a spiritual bond and a deep-seated similarity.”
—Olga Tokarczuk, Nobel Lecture.
Photograph by Helena Carvalho
This book was first published more than ten years ago but remains as relevant as if it was written yesterday. Green and animal rights’ political parties are on the rise. A rising amount of people in the developed world are starting to adopt vegetarian or vegan diets. Some do so out of concern for the environment while others are uncomfortable with the thought of killing animals for food. Janina embodies the latter. All mighty Man enjoys unjust superiority over all other animals and creatures of the natural world, is free to kill and let live as desired. Man is God, for man kills. And animals are sweet beings with deep, powerless eyes falling prey to their unfair faith. Animals have no cunning, no malice or guile. Such flaws are a unique property of Man, for Man has the monopoly on rationality.
The way other characters treat Janina along with her mental ramblings and ailments portray a fragile mind. Her tenderness may be sweet but it is not realistic. My family raises animals for meat. Death, hunting, and killing animals are not shocking to me. These have always been part of life. I remember being very young, maybe two or three years old, and helping my grandmother kill a chicken, pluck all the feathers, and then slowly boil the bird in a stew. It was not cold and it was never cruel. Animals and creatures are to be treated with respect, but killed nevertheless. We all die and predation is part of the natural cycle.
Photograph by Helena Carvalho
As cities began to grow, more people were raised away from nature, instead having sporadic contacts with the countryside and close relations with pets. It is easy to develop an idealized view of what nature is in reality. It is brutal. I grew up on a farm and yet I refuse to watch animal documentaries that include predation while I am eating. This to say you don’t have to go far to witness the sad reality of a white bear ambushing and killing a seal. The tenderness of the main character is naïve and reflects a marked trend in contemporary society—the strange and forced compassion towards animals, when we are animals ourselves. Perhaps that is where the true superiority complex lies, in the thought that humans are above other animals and not subject to the same rules of survival.
Tokarczuk presents a very accomplished book, with all the elements of a good thriller and several little (and big) twists. True to her word, she uses the narrative only as a structural base to explore other topics and genres, through the thoughts and musings of the main character. A work worthy of a Nobel, with impeccable prose and true originality. I have taken care not to spoil the main revelations of the book and strongly recommend a thorough read. I may read again soon.
Helena Carvalho decided to become a professional reader since the day she realized the ratio between writers and readers is quickly slipping and is unlikely to recover its former glory. She is currently based in Lisbon, Portugal, but has also lived in the United Kingdom and Sweden. She works at an energy company during the day to support her passion for acquiring more titles than what she can read in a lifetime.
