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December 2020 Converge Book Club Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Olga Tokarczuk

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CONTENTS

Hello dear reader, Welcome to the Converge Book Club! I hope that your holiday season has been filled with moments of joy, positive interactions, and moments of quiet that feel thoughtful and energizing. We are almost through a very tough year. As we round out the final days of 2020 our little team is so grateful for you. Thank you for carrying us through an unimaginable year. I loved this book. I first ran into this book in October of 2019 wandering the halls of Strand Bookstore in New York City. While in New York City I was on an exploration kick. Each bookstore, each restaurant, each interaction I asked the staff what their favorite things were, and I followed their guide (I made a rule of it, taking whatever suggestion, wherever I went. It was pure delight). This book, a love of well-made macarons, and a lucky seat to see Hadestown on Broadway are the result of that serendipity. This book is a perfect winter read. It is a bit strange (characters named Dizzy, Oddball and Big Foot). The book points us to the stars – it asks interesting questions about the natural world and the ways in which we define usefulness. The book encourages a more tender, less ‘useful’ imagination. It is a beautiful read. I hope that you will love it as much as we did. In this guide you will find the following: Olga Tokarczuk Quick insights into the author A Brief Book Summary Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead A Bit of Background About the Book + Poetry + Maps Reading Guide Week to week guide for getting through the book Reflection Activities Reading, writing, and activity prompts intermittently dispersed Additional Reading Bonus materials

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ABOUT Olga Tokarczuk Olga Tokarczuk is one of Poland’s most beloved authors, and the laureate of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. In 2015 she received the Brueckepreis and the prestigious annual literary award from Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, as well as Poland’s highest literary honor, the Nike and the Nike Readers’ Prize. She is the author of eight novels, three short story collections and has been translated into a dozen languages. Her novel Flights, translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft, was shortlisted for the 2018 National Book Award for Translated Literature and won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize. Olga Tokarczuk was born in Sulechów in Poland, and lives in Wroclaw. Her parents were teachers and her father also functioned as school librarian. In the library she read pretty much everything she could get hold of and it was here that she developed her literary appetite. After studies in psychology at the University of Warsaw she made her debut as a fiction writer 1993 with “The Journey of the Book-People”. Her real breakthrough came in 1996 with her third novel “Primeval and Other Times”. Olga Tokarczuk is inspired by maps and a perspective from above, which tends to make her microcosmos a mirror of macrocosmos. She constructs her novels in a tension between cultural opposites: nature versus culture, reason versus madness, male versus female, home versus alienation.

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ABOUT THE BOOK In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind . . .

A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive

Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a

provocative exploration of the murky borderland

between sanity and madness, justice and tradition,

autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it

asks. Who is worthy of a voice?

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ABOUT THE TITLE The title of this book is lifted from a William Blake poem called “Proverbs of Hell” featured in a collection called The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is a kind of chorus that works parallel to the life of William Blake.

William Blake:

Poet, painter, engraver, and visionary William Blake worked to bring about a change both in the social order and in the minds of men. Though in his lifetime his work was largely neglected or dismissed, he is now considered one of the leading lights of English poetry, and his work has only grown in popularity. In his Life of William Blake (1863) Alexander Gilchrist warned his readers that Blake “neither wrote nor drew for the many, hardly for work’y-day men at all, rather for children and angels; himself ‘a divine child,’ whose playthings were sun, moon, and stars, the heavens and the earth.” Yet Blake himself believed that his writings were of national importance and that they could be understood by a majority of his peers. Far from being an isolated mystic, Blake lived and worked in the teeming metropolis of London at a time of great social and political change that profoundly influenced his writing. In addition to being considered one of the most visionary of English poets and one of the great progenitors of English Romanticism, his visual artwork is highly regarded around the world.

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THE POEM

“Proverbs of Hell” From The Marriage of Heaven and Hell 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. The cut worm forgives the plow. Dip him in the river who loves water. A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star. Eternity is in love with the productions of time. The busy bee has no time for sorrow. The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure. All wholsom food is caught without a net or a trap. Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth. No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings. A dead body, revenges not injuries. The most sublime act is to set another before you. If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. Folly is the cloke of knavery. Shame is Prides cloke. Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion. The pride of the peacock is the glory of God. The lust of the goat is the bounty of God. The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God. The nakedness of woman is the work of God. Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps. The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man. The fox condemns the trap, not himself. Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth. Let man wear the fell of the lion, woman the fleece of the sheep. The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship. The selfish smiling fool, & the sullen frowning fool, shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod. What is now proved was once, only imagin'd. The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbit: watch the roots; the lion, the tyger, the horse, the elephant, watch the fruits. The cistern contains; the fountain overflows. One thought, fills immensity. Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you. Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth. The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow. The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion. Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night. He who has suffer'd you to impose on him knows you. As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers. The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction. Expect poison from the standing water. You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. Listen to the fools reproach! it is a kingly title! The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth. The weak in courage is strong in cunning. The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey. The thankful reciever bears a plentiful harvest. If others had not been foolish, we should be so. The soul of sweet delight, can never be defil'd. When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius, lift up thy head! As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys. To create a little flower is the labour of ages. Damn, braces: Bless relaxes. The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest. Prayers plow not! Praises reap not! Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not! The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands & feet Proportion. As the air to a bird of the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible. The crow wish'd every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white. Exuberance is Beauty. If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning. Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius. Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires. Where man is not nature is barren. Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. Enough! or Too much!

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ABOUT THE POEM (FROM THE POETRY FOUNDATION)

The “Proverbs of Hell” are clearly designed to shock the reader out of his commonplace notion of what is good and what is evil:

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion. The pride of the peacock is the glory of God. The lust of the goat is the bounty of God. The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God. The nakedness of woman is the work of God. It is the oppressive nature of church and state that has created the repulsive prisons and brothels. Sexual energy is not an inherent evil, but the repression of that energy is. The preachers of morality fail to understand that God is in all things, including the sexual nature of men and women.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell contains many of the basic religious ideas developed in the major prophecies. Blake analyzes the development of organized religion as a perversion of ancient visions: “The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & Numerous senses could perceive.” Ancient man created those gods to express his vision of the spiritual properties that he perceived in the physical world. The gods began to take on a life of their own separate from man: “Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of, & enslav’d the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood.” The “system” or organized religion keeps man from perceiving the spiritual in the physical. The gods are seen as separate from man, and an elite race of priests is developed to approach the gods: “Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.” Instead of looking for God on remote altars, Blake warns, man should look within.

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ABOUT POLAND (AND MAPS)

Olga Tokarczuk’s work has a high level of interest in maps and the arbitrary nature of borders. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead begins this work early in the text (on page 5) noting that cell phone calls ping intermittently (with no clear discrimination) to law enforcement satellites in The Czech Republic and Poland. The critique of borders in this text is part of a larger criticism of Tokarczuk’s against the Polish government for their complicity in the rise of Nazi Germany. You can read more about that work here.

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HELPFUL TERMS AND IDEAS

Astrology: type of divination that involves the forecasting of earthly and human events through the observation and interpretation of the fixed stars, the Sun, the Moon, and the planets. Devotees believe that an understanding of the influence of the planets and stars on earthly affairs allows them to both predict and affect the destinies of individuals, groups, and nations. Though often regarded as a science throughout its history, astrology is widely considered today to be diametrically opposed to the findings and theories of modern Western science.

Saint Hubert: Bishop of Maastricht, Netherlands, and disciple of St. Lambert. Hubert

was a married courtier serving Pepin of Heristal, France. He reportedly had a vision of a crucifix between the horns of a stag while hunting. Widowed, he is believed to have entered Stavelot Monastery, Belgium, and was ordained by St. Lambert at Maastricht. He succeeded St. Lambert about 705 as bishop. Hubert erected a shrine for St. Lambert's relics at Liege, France. He was noted for his miracles and for converting hundreds. Hubert died at Tervueren, near Brussels, Belgium, on May 30. He is a patron saint of hunters. Saint Hubert, Tokarczuk tells us in Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, is the patron saint of hunters, despite the fact that his moment of spiritual revelation came when he realized that he should stop hunting.

Usefulness: This book is fundamentally interested in the question: must everything we

do have use? Balance: In the world of William Blake hell encourages revolt, and Heaven order.

Somehow, Blake argues, we each need to find our balance between the two. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is an examination of the balance between the world of revolt (getting what we want) and order (usefulness). In Tokarczuk’s terms, people give themselves the right to determine what is useful, but we also give ourselves the power to decide when we (and others) have taken enough.

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READING PLAN

DATE DAY THE READING PAGE

DECEMBER 28 DECEMBER 29 DECEMBER 30 DECEMBER 31 JANUARY 1 JANUARY 4 JANUARY 5 JANUARY 6 JANUARY 7 JANUARY 8 JANUARY 11 JANUARY 12 ANUARY 13 JANUARY 14 JANUARY 15 JANUARY 18 JANUARY 19

01 02 03 04 05

06 07 08 09 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17

Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI Chapter XVII

FINAL REFLECTION ADDITIONAL MATERIALS

11 12 13 13 14

15 15 16 17 18

18 19 19 20 22

23 23

24 26

o o o o o o

o o o o o o

o o o

o o

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DAY 1

THE READING: Chapter I Pages 1 - 16

LINES WE LOVED:

Dressing the dead man was like a form of caress. I doubt he ever experienced such tenderness in life. We held him up gently by the arms and pulled the clothing onto him. As his weight rested on my chest, after a wave of quite natural disgust that made me feel nauseous, it suddenly occurred to me to hug this body, to pat it on the back, to soothe it by saying: don’t worry, it’ll be alright. But on account of Oddball’s presence I did no such thing. He might have thought I was being perverse. (10 – 11)

REFLECTION ACTIVITY I:

Look up your astrological sign. What is your sign? What does your sign reveal about you? Are you prone to take these signs seriously or more likely to think of astrology as nonsense?

REFLECTION ACTIVITY II: Watch this fun video about how cell phones work and utilize cell towers.

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DAY 2

THE READING: Chapter II Pages 17 - 33

LINES WE LOVE: The prison is not outside, but inside each of us. Perhaps we simply don’t know how to live without it. (32)

1Plato Allegory of The Cave (See Day 7)

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DAY 3

THE READING: Chapter III Pages 35 - 44

LINES WE LOVE: We sang like that for an hour, the same thing over and over, until the words ceased to have any meaning, as if they were pebbles in the sea, tossed eternally by the waves, until they were round and as alike as two grains of sand. (39)

DAY 4

THE READING: Chapter IV Pages 45 - 59

LINES WE LOVE: In a way, people like her, those who wield a pen, can be dangerous. At once a suspicion of fakery springs to mind – that such a Person is not him or herself, but an eye that’s constantly watching, and whatever it sees it changes into sentences: in the process it strips reality of its most essential quality – its inexpressibility. (51) I grew up in a beautiful era, now sadly in the past. In it there was great readiness for change, and a talent for creating revolutionary visions. Nowadays no one still has the courage to think up anything new. All they ever talk about, round the clock, is how things already are, they just keep rolling out the same old ideas. Reality has grown old and gone senile; after all, it is definitely subject to the same laws as every living organism — it ages. Just like the cells of the body, its tiniest components — the senses, succumb to apoptosis. Apoptosis is natural death, brought about by the tiredness and

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exhaustion of matter. In Greek this word means ‘the dropping of petals.’ The world has dropped its petals. (57) In any case, I know the date of my own death, and that lets me feel free. (59)

REFLECTION ACTIVITY III: There is something in the creative zeitgeist that is fundamentally interested in this question: would you be more or less free if you knew the date of your own death? The exchanges noted above are kindred to the 2018 New York Times Bestseller The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin. Would you feel liberated or paralyzed by the knowledge of your death date?

DAY 5

THE READING: Chapter V Pages 61 - 79

LINES WE LOVE: “Dizzy,” I said, “it’s Animals taking revenge on people.” (75)

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DAY 6

THE READING: Chapter VI Pages 81 - 94

LINES WE LOVE: Here Mankind is not governed by the rules of reason, stupid and strict, but by the heart and intuition. The people do not indulge in idle chatter, parading what they know, but create remarkable things by applying their imagination. The state ceases to impose the shackles of daily oppression, but helps people to realize their hopes and dreams. And Man is not just a cog in the system, not just playing a role, but a free Creature. That’s what was passing through my mind, making my bed-rest almost a pleasure. Sometimes I think that only the sick are truly healthy. (84)

DAY 7

THE READING: Chapter VII Pages 95 - 109

LINES WE LOVE: The whole, complex human psyche has evolved to prevent Man from understanding what he is really seeing. To stop the truth from reaching him by wrapping it in illusion, in idle chatter. The world is a prison full of suffering, so constructed that in order to survive one must inflict pain on others. Do you hear me? (106)

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REFLECTION ACTIVITY IV:

Olga Tokarczuk is formally trained as a philosopher. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is a kind of philosophers round table. Nietzsche, St. Augustine, William Blake, and Plato form a kind of concert regarding philosophical framing of the text. The book references prison (literal and metaphoric) with some frequency. The early references to prison may hint at Plato’s Cave Allegory. Watch an explanation of The Cave Allegory here. Read about The Cave Allegory here. Write three thoughts that emerged after learning about The Cave Allegory:

DAY 8

THE READING: Chapter VIII Pages 111 - 132

LINES WE LOVE: Winter mornings are made of steel; they have a metallic taste and sharp edges. On a Wednesday in January, at seven in the morning, it’s plain to see that the world was not made for Man, and definitely not for his comfort or pleasure. (115 – 116)

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DAY 9

THE READING: Chapter IX Pages 132 - 144

LINES WE LOVE: It's clear that the largest things are contained in the smallest. There can be no doubt about it. At this very moment, as I write, there's a planetary configuration on the table, the entire Cosmos if you like: a thermometer, a coin, an aluminum spoon and a porcelain cup. A key, a cell phone, a piece of paper and a pen. And one of my gray hairs, whose atoms preserve the memory of the origins of life, of the cosmic Catastrophe that gave the world its beginning. (143 – 144)

REFLECTION ACTIVITY V: Think of a small thing in your life (a flower or coin or rosary or tie or socks or cap) that contains real meaning for you. An example: I have a rosary I purchased in my late teens that I keep in my suit jackets for good luck. The rosary reminds me of my parents and contains a security bigger than the object. Sketch the item you think of:

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DAY 10

THE READING: Chapter X Pages 145 - 157

LINES WE LOVE: “From nature’s point of view no creatures are useful or not useful. That’s just a foolish distinction applied by people” (155)

DAY 11

THE READING: Chapter XI Pages 159 - 177

LINES WE LOVE: It occurred to me that he was a very good Person, this Boros. And it was a good thing he had his ailments. Being healthy is an insecure state and does not bode well. (167) He called every day. Then less often, every other day or so. He sounded as if he were living in another dimension, in a spirit world in the north of the country, where the trees are thousands of years old, and large Animals move among them at a slowed-down pace, outside time. (176)

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DAY 12

THE READING: Chapter XII Pages 179 - 191

LINES WE LOVE: Toward the end of June the rain began to come down in torrents. That often happens here in summer. Then in the omnipresent damp one can hear the rustle of the grasses growing, the ivy climbing up the walls, and the mushroom spore expanding underground. After the rain, when the Sun breaks through the clouds for a while, everything takes on such depth that one’s eyes are filled with tears. (179)

DAY 13

THE READING: Chapter XIII Pages 193 - 210

LINES WE LOVE: People who spend all day tramping about the forest in search of mushrooms are bound to be deadly boring. (197)

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DAY 14

THE READING: Chapter XIV Pages 211 - 226

LINES WE LOVE: But it also crossed my mind that in spite of all, in spite of our fragility and ignorance, we have an incredible advantage over the stars – it is for us that time works, giving us a major opportunity to transform the suffering, aching world into a happy and peaceful one. It’s the stars that are imprisoned in their own power, and they cannot really help us. They merely design the nets, and on cosmic looms they weave the warp thread that we must complete with our own weft. (212) “You know what, sometimes it seems to me we’re living in a world that we fabricate for ourselves. We decide what’s good and what isn’t, we draw maps of meaning for ourselves . . . And then we spend our whole lives struggling with what we have invented for ourselves. The problem is that each of us has our own version of it, so people find it hard to understand each other.” (224) I spent ages pondering what the Gray Lady had said. And I think it tallies with one of my Theories – my belief that the human psyche evolved in order to defend itself against seeing the truth. To prevent us from catching sight of the mechanism. The psyche is our defense system - it makes sure we'll never understand what's going on around us. Its main task is to filter information, even though the capabilities of our brains are enormous. For it would be impossible for us to carry the weight of this knowledge. Because every tiny particle of the world is made of suffering. (225)

REFLECTION ACTIVITY VI: This chapter is where Olga Tokarczuk’s philosophical vision becomes abundantly clear. Tokarczuk presents human intellect as fragile, contingent on the mental prisons we build, preventing us from possibility. But there is hope: every one of us has experienced something that has made us feel larger than life.

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Write about a moment in your life that your reality was made bigger. For example: I mentioned seeing Hadestown on Broadway. That experience changed my life. The experience revealed a possible, more inclusive world to me.

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DAY 15

THE READING: Chapter XV Pages 227 - 251

LINES WE LOVE: Perhaps that’s the whole point of prayer – to think to yourself in peace, to want nothing, to ask for nothing, but simply to sort out your own mind. That should be enough. (223) But why should we have to be useful and for what reason? Who divided the world into useless and useful, and by what right? Does a thistle have no right to life, or a Mouse that eats the grain in a warehouse? What about Bees and Drones, weeds and roses? Whose intellect can have had the audacity to judge who is better, and who worse? A large tree, crooked and full of holes, survives for centuries without being cut down, because nothing could possibly be made out of it. This example should raise the spirits of people like us. Everyone knows the profit to be reaped from the useful, but nobody knows the benefit to be gained from the useless. (248)

REFLECTION ACTIVITY VII: In Chapter XV Olga Tokarczuk reveals, in explicit terms, a vision of uselessness. The benefits of what might be termed useless behavior. Think of an activity that feels ‘useless’ but brings you great delight. Write or sketch that activity below. Try to do the activity once today.

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DAY 16

THE READING: Chapter XVI Pages 253 - 265

LINES WE LOVE: It’s perfectly simple – if other people are happy, we’re happy too. The simplest equation in the world. (259)

DAY 17

THE READING: Chapter XVII Pages 267 - 274

LINES WE LOVE:

A medieval monk and Astrologer – in the days before Saint Augustine forbade the reading of the future from the stars – foresaw his own death in the Horoscope. He was to die from the blow of a stone that would fall on his head. From then on he always wore a metal cap beneath his monk’s hood. Until one Good Friday, he took it off along with the hood, more for fear of drawing attention to himself in church than for love of God. Just then a tiny pebble fell on his bare head, giving him a superficial scratch. But the monk was sure the prediction had come true, so he put all his affairs in order, and a month later he died. (274)

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FINAL REFLECTION

YOUR PERSONAL RATING:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

SUMMARY: Briefly describe your experience with this book.

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YOUR FAVORITE QUOTES/LINES:

TAKEAWAYS (What are your keeping with you?):

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

AUTHOR WEBSITE:

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2018/tokarczuk/facts/

INTERVIEWS/ARTICLES WE LOVE:

Olga Tokarczuk profile at The New Yorker Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead review The New York Times Olga Tokarczuk interview at The Guardian

BOOKS WE LOVE:

The Books of Jacob Flights Primeval and Other Times

PLAYLIST: Our Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Playlist