The book ends with this "Author's Note":
"All the misogynistic views on the topic of women and their place in the world are paraphrased from texts by the following authors:Augustine of Hippo, Bernard of Cluny, William S. Burroughs, Cato, Joseph Conrad, Charles Darwin, Emile Durkheim, Henry Fielding, Sigmund Freud, H. Rider Haggard, Hesiod, Jack Kerouac, D.H. Lawrence, Cesare Lombroso, W Somerset Maugham, John Milton, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ovid, Plato, Ezra Pound, Jean Racine, Frarnçois de La Rochefoucauld, Jean-Paul Sartre, Arthur Schopenhauer, William Shakespeare, August Strindberg, Jonathan Swift, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Semonides of Amorgos, Tertullian, Thomas Aquinas, Richard Wagner, Frank Wedekind, John Webster, Otto Weininger and William Butler Yeats."
This novel is Tokarczuk's literary game with male supremacy, toying with it, exposing it, but in her usual non-conflictual way, with a deep respect for the opponent, and even sympathy. The main character is a young Polish man, who goes to Germany to be treated for lung problems (tuberculosis), like all the other characters in the novel, to a sanatorium in Görbersdorf, now called Sokołowsko, and located in Poland, the place which inspired Thomas Mann one hundred years ago (in November 2024) to write "The Magic Mountain". Like in Mann's novel, the protagonist meets a set of characters who all represent one or the other ideology of the moment, allowing for lengthy discussions about politics and philosophy.
But of course there is more going on. The book has many layers. It is a "horror story" as its subtitle suggests, and many other things are taking place, things that fall beyond the discussions among the men. Both cosmic events take place, as well as brutal primitive events.
"By a twist of circumstance, as Frau Opitz's body was descending on ropes into the open grave, the exact autumn equinox took place, and the ecliptic was aligned in such a special way that it counterbalanced the vibration of the Earth. Naturally, nobody noticed this - people have more important things on their minds. But we know it." (p. 82)
Every so often, yet sparingly, the "we" appear in the novel, described in the Cast of Characters at the beginning as the "Nameless inhabitants of the walls, floors and ceilings", beings that observe, that blend in with the background, yet are always present. The other aspect that is beyond control is brutal human nature: in the woods (outside civilisation) live the coal burners, who have made female puppets of natural materials that they can use as sex dolls.
The main character, Mieczyslaw Wojnicz, feels uncomfortable in this entire bizarre context. He is the odd one out, the neutral person all the other characters want to talk to, to convince him of their opinions, and yet he is also not what he seems. They mystery will not be revealed here, but he sheds a completely new light on the narrative. He engages with the other men, listens to them, talks to them, yet somehow feels alien to their world.
"The funeral was brief, devoid of unnecessary words, as if it were impossible to say more about this terrible, macabre event that should be forgotten as quickly as possible. And that was what Wojnicz did - he forgot. As they were driving back to the guesthouse, perversely, or mischievously perhaps, he asked Lukas and August if they believed in the immortal soul and what happened to it after death, and thus prompted a veritable pandemonium of ideas, arguments and counterarguments, quotations and references, so by the time the carriage was passing the nursing home at the start of their village, he did not know what his companions were talking about, and his only thought was of lying down in bed." (p. 82)
Women are almost absent in the novel, with a few exceptions. They are not subjects with a voice or a plot.
"'Woman represents a bygone, inferior stage of evolution, so writes Darwin, and he of all people has something to say on the matter. Woman is like .. .' - here he sought the right word - 'an evolutionary laggard. While man has gone on ahead and acquired new capabilities, woman has stayed in her old place and does not develop. That is why a woman is often socially handicapped, incapable of coping on her own, and must always be reliant on a man. She has to make an impression on him - by manipulation, by smiling. The Mona Lisa's smile symbolizes a woman's entire evolutionary strategy for coping with life. Which is to seduce and manipulate.' (p. 94)
The men are having a great time bouncing off abstract ideas and opinions, arguing with broad philosophical and ideological concepts, but Wojnicz is beyond this. He lives in another world, one that is not delineated by clear rules, categorisations, definitions and constraints. Here he remembers playing chess with his father when a kid.
"Little Mieczyslaw Wojnicz understood the rules (of chess) and could foresee a lot, but to tell the truth, the game did not interest him. Making moves according to the rules and aiming to defeat your opponent seemed to him just one of the possible ways to use the pawns. He preferred to daydream, and to see the chessboard as a space where the fates of the unfortunate pawns and other pieces were played out; he cast them as characters weaving complex webs of intrigue, either with or against each other, and linked by all sorts of relationships. He thought it a waste to limit their activity to the checkered board, to leave them to the mercy of a formal game played according to strict rules. So as soon as his father lost interest and went off to see to more important matters, Mieczys would move the chess pieces onto the steppes of the rug and the mountains of the armchair, where they saw to their own business, set off on journeys, and furnished their kitchens, houses and palaces. Finally his father's ashtray became a boat, and the pen holders were rafters' oars, while the space underneath a chair turned into a cathedral where the wedding of the two queens, black and white, was taking place." (p. 162)
Tokarczuk herself is a majestic player with language, with character, props, sub-plots and scenes. She is the one to colour outside the lines, to use her wonderful imagination to create a special carefully constructed edifice, that you can approach from many different angles and be suprised and perplexed by the wealth of ideas and possibilities for interpretation. Wojnich's closest friend Thilo is a fan of the paintings of Herri Met de Bles, a 16th Century Flemish landscape painter, who is known for the many levels of his work.
"How is it that from tiny strokes of a brush dipped in paint an entire world with many depths comes into being? De Bles's painting seemed fathomless - when he magnified it, he saw even more details, minute spots of paint, very light brushstrokes, indistinct patches and mysterious flaws. As he wandered about the clouds, supple, rounded lines emerged from them, resembling figures, faces or wings. But when he moved down towards the vegetation, among the leaves he saw eyes and noses, bits of hands and feet, elusive bodies that existed fleetingly, only when his vision brushed against them for a single, unrepeatable moment. In the aerial castle windows, he spied the corners of chambers, and semi-transparent creatures inside them, each connected with a tragedy, a regret. Maybe Abraham's sacrifice was being performed there too, but in slightly different configurations and with different actors? De Bles's canvas seemed to be full of messages, like a detailed map using a language of simple signs that carry branching meanings, a world that proves infinite once one goes deep inside, where one keeps discovering new things" (p. 259)
You can look at the trees and the details, but you can look at it from a further distance, and you will see something else entirely. This is Tokarczuk at play: inventive, creative, challenging the reader, throwing little hints and pieces of half-formed information, real elements (including pictures of the village and sanatorium) and wild fantasies. She is a true master, writing an entire novel with primarily male characters, yet in truth it's all about women, it's rational in the philosphical discussions, yet in truth it's about the in-between worlds that defy categorisation, that cannot be captured in words even, the world of the senses, a world that is as elusive as the narrator. It's a comedy on the surface, but a deep tragedy at the same time, a horror story. Her language is straightforward, as is her style - indeed Thomas Mann comes to mind - yet its clarity is in stark contrast with the darkness of the novel. The men all have the answers to the problems of the world, the men all believe they are in control, yet they are all ill, weak and brought together in a sanatorium in a desperate and more often than not futile attempt to make them healthy again. You can only appreciate the irony, while outside the sanatorium darkness reigns.
Brilliant!
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