House Of Day, House Of Night by Olga Tokarczuk

 

An unnamed woman and her partner, named only by R., move into a small Polish village far into the country and right on the border with Czechoslovakia.  They know no one and the book tells their story through the stories of those they meet and get to know.  One theme running through the entire book is that of a local saint, who was crucified by her own father for refusing to leave the nunnery and marry a man he wished to get in his debt.  Before he killed her, the woman was given a long golden beard by God in order to make her look like Jesus and thus save her from the marriage.

Much of what the couple learn about the villagers and their culture and history come from an old woman, Marta, who lives next door.  She treats their illnesses, brings them mushrooms and other plants to cook, and tells them stories.  The couple start to feel responsible for Marta's well-being.

The reader also learns the stories of other characters.  Paschalis is a monk who wishes he were a woman.  He is beautiful and ends up living in a nunnery where he writes the story of the local saint, who is named Kummernis.  There is the man who dies with one leg on the Polish side of the border and the other leg on the Czechoslovakian side and whose body border sentries move back and forth, hoping to get their own relaxation and put the work of reporting a death on the guards from the other country.  There is an alcoholic who drinks himself to death, after a lifetime of believing that he shares his body with that of a bird.

Olga Tokarczuk is a Polish author who has won both the Nobel Prize in Literature and the International Booker.  Her books tend to focus on lives in the country and how the isolation molds their characters.  Some are mysteries, some are biographical and some are shaped by classic books that were written in the past.  Her writing is dense but well-researched and the reader is drawn along by the desire to learn more about the individuals she is portraying.  I liked this book more than the other two I've read by her and was fascinated by the story of Saint Kummernis.  This book is recommended for literary and multicultural readers.