Readings
Reviews | Recommendations | Reflections
The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story
By Olga Tokarczuk
I am constantly ensorcelled by Olga Tokarczuk’s novels!
In The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story the narrative line of Mieczysław Wojnicz, a young engineering student diagnosed with tuberculosis and who possesses a secret “anomaly” that becomes important near the end, follows his time in a Silesian health spa filled with strange rituals and unusual behavior among its residents and staff.
As Wojnicz becomes acquainted with fellow patients, he is drawn into philosophical debates and unsettling occurrences that challenge his perceptions of reality. One of the main topics is the overwhelming misogyny of the residents and the clinic’s owner. It begins as being slightly unnerving and uncomfortable but soon becomes so blatant as to be farcical. In the meantime, it becomes clear as we move forward that Wojnicz is somehow gender fluid or intersex, and he feels that he is marginalized on both sides of their gynophobic philippics.
The novel feels a little like a parody of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, sharing elements such as the sanatorium setting and pre-World War I backdrop. I also felt the tone harks to The New Sufferings of Young W. by Ulrich Plenzdorf, itself a parody of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. Delicious layers.
I have read a few novels by Olga Tokarczuk, including The Books of Jacob, Flights, and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.
Each one is a triumph, in my view, and I look forward to reading more.
The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story
By Olga Tokarczuk
I am constantly ensorcelled by Olga Tokarczuk’s novels!
In The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story the narrative line of Mieczysław Wojnicz, a young engineering student diagnosed with tuberculosis and who possesses a secret “anomaly” that becomes important near the end, follows his time in a Silesian health spa filled with strange rituals and unusual behavior among its residents and staff.
As Wojnicz becomes acquainted with fellow patients, he is drawn into philosophical debates and unsettling occurrences that challenge his perceptions of reality. One of the main topics is the overwhelming misogyny of the residents and the clinic’s owner. It begins as being slightly unnerving and uncomfortable but soon becomes so blatant as to be farcical. In the meantime, it becomes clear as we move forward that Wojnicz is somehow gender fluid or intersex, and he feels that he is marginalized on both sides of their gynophobic philippics.
The novel feels a little like a parody of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, sharing elements such as the sanatorium setting and pre-World War I backdrop. I also felt the tone harks to The New Sufferings of Young W. by Ulrich Plenzdorf, itself a parody of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. Delicious layers.
I have read a few novels by Olga Tokarczuk, including The Books of Jacob, Flights, and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.
Each one is a triumph, in my view, and I look forward to reading more.
The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story
By Olga Tokarczuk
I am constantly ensorcelled by Olga Tokarczuk’s novels!
In The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story the narrative line of Mieczysław Wojnicz, a young engineering student diagnosed with tuberculosis and who possesses a secret “anomaly” that becomes important near the end, follows his time in a Silesian health spa filled with strange rituals and unusual behavior among its residents and staff.
As Wojnicz becomes acquainted with fellow patients, he is drawn into philosophical debates and unsettling occurrences that challenge his perceptions of reality. One of the main topics is the overwhelming misogyny of the residents and the clinic’s owner. It begins as being slightly unnerving and uncomfortable but soon becomes so blatant as to be farcical. In the meantime, it becomes clear as we move forward that Wojnicz is somehow gender fluid or intersex, and he feels that he is marginalized on both sides of their gynophobic philippics.
The novel feels a little like a parody of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, sharing elements such as the sanatorium setting and pre-World War I backdrop. I also felt the tone harks to The New Sufferings of Young W. by Ulrich Plenzdorf, itself a parody of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. Delicious layers.
I have read a few novels by Olga Tokarczuk, including The Books of Jacob, Flights, and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.
Each one is a triumph, in my view, and I look forward to reading more.
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