It tells the story of an elderly woman living on a hill in a small village in Poland, near the Czech border. She looks after the empty holiday houses of some townspeople. When people get murdered in her environment, she comes with the amazing story that the victims were killed by the deer in the woods, as a vengeance against their hunting habits. She keeps being rejected by the police who - obviously - do not believe her theory.
Tokarczuk is a great writer. The story-line is original by itself, but Janina's - the old lady - narrative is even more fun. She recounts her story with opinions on each and every thing she sees, commenting on the fly, using her belief in astrology as a guiding rod and the poetry of William Blake as its mirror. She has energy despite her many Ailments.
Here's just a little taste of her tone of voice, by itself already a strong achievement.
Under the surface of the crime story, is the story of human existence, its hesitance between free will and determinism, between the boundaries of humans and animals. Who is responsible for which act? And who defends whom? It's a story about loneliness and society and about the individual's right to be different, to think differently. And it is so much fun to read. In her small village on the border, Tokarczuk managed to create a universe with its own human dysfunctionality.
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