Battle Book Club: 'Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead' by Olga Tokarczuk
Emma Gilland introduces our next book club discussion, which takes place next Tuesday evening, online via Zoom.
With the next Battle Book Club just around the corner, the novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk, is a great opportunity to reflect on some of the fundamental philosophical questions re-entering political discussion. With the rise of AI and questions over religious revival, we are increasingly asking what we believe in and what makes us human.
Throughout the novel, the protagonist, Janina Duszejko, questions being governed by ‘reason’ and ‘power’ and instead relies on astrology to answer life’s questions. She is acting against the beliefs of the institutionalised authorities, which she believes have allowed for human oppression. She expresses that we should be governed by heart and intuition and allowed to be free creatures, rejecting the local authority. Often belittled and dismissed by those in her community as the ‘mad old woman’, she highlights the lack of respect for alternative belief systems, and the loss of intergenerational respect for elders in sites of institutionalised power. Has our increased reliance on ‘expertise’, law and governance lost us the freedom to build on the wisdom of older generations and community ties?
Increasingly, younger generations are seen as returning to religion and spirituality as an escape from the intensely rational and liberal culture of today. Some are flocking back to the Christian church for a clearer sense of stability, purpose and belonging, while others continue to reject institutionalised religion, but are more spiritual than their parents. But what gives power to some belief systems over others and does this suggest we give too much space to scientific discovery and reason?
Janina justifies her belief through the ‘empirical and scientific’ study of astrology to hold a mirror to the ‘blind belief’ in the scientific and rational ‘dogma’ of Western civilisation. She pokes fun at the state of society today and the younger generations who believe all statistical analysis, without questioning or using their critical thinking. By aligning astrology with scientific inquiry, she questions the foundation of our systems of knowledge and the hierarchy of belief we have developed.
She shows that belief is often shaped by how ideas are framed and displayed by those in authority, and that belief manifests itself in every section of society, not just religion. The central assertion throughout the novel – that ‘while I adore Astrology, I have no respect for socio-biology at all’ – serves to show the different ways in which people make sense of fate and the uncertainty of human existence.
Janina sees humanity as aligned with nature rather than above it, reflected in the murders throughout the novel, which are caused by the ‘animals taking revenge on people’. She questions the idea of humanity as violent and destructive, especially to the natural world, and she herself becomes more comfortable and freer when aligned with nature. However, while feeling ‘empathy’ for the natural world, and embedding herself within it, she remains ‘deeply moved by all this human hustle and bustle’, especially within community spaces in the village. She highlights that the value of humanity and of nature are not mutually exclusive, but by respecting nature and animals more you come to value the humanity of others further.
There seems to be a fundamental paradox throughout the novel, as while Janina rejects the socio-biological system, she is very much attuned with and reliant upon the ‘natural order’. Thrusting the reader into the question of what makes us human and how far our humanity is defined by biological composition and the natural world.
What of our humanity is innate, what is embedded and what is a choice? Can we ever really be free if we are always governed by one system of belief or another? The novel blends a deep question over the nature of humanity with the power of institutionalised beliefs and brings together many questions central to our understanding of society and its structures.
Join us to discuss Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead at our next Battle Book Club on Tuesday 20 January, 6:30pm-8:00pm, online via Zoom. Tickets are free, please sign up via our Eventbrite here.
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