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hanna_resch's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Ein gutes Buch, aber sicher nicht für jeden. Einige Themen sind sehr abstrakt und man muss sich darauf einlassen können. Ich mochte vor allem die Charakterbeschreibungen.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
foldingthepage_kayleigh's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
As soon as I heard the lines “he must have mercury in a reticent sign. I reckon it must be Capricorn in a square or may be in opposition to Saturn. It could also be mercury in retrograde.” I knew I’d be hooked. I think I’ll have to give this one a re-read!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Medical content, and Murder
Minor: Vomit
uranaishi's review
adventurous
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death and Murder
Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Terminal illness, Violence, Grief, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Ableism, Body horror, Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Car accident, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury
adaaa's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Death
graybat's review against another edition
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Murder
Moderate: Death and Gore
Minor: Violence and Vomit
gabedon's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Murder
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, and Blood
wanderonwards's review
DNF'd for medical content. It's a shame, because I was enjoying this quirky book but I can't handle the descriptions of bodily issues at the moment.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness and Death
Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death
aristhecool's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, and Murder
Moderate: Animal cruelty and Alcohol
Minor: Medical content and Grief
rockwithyou's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
This wasn't such a long book but it took me a long while to finish. At times it was really slow, which does fit the book itself. The descriptions of life in this book were really beautiful, I especially liked the way the passing of the year and seasons was a big part of it and how it was talked about.
The main character was sometimes infuriating in the most entertaining way possible and I liked that, I think.
I wasn't thinking I was going to rate this higher than 3 stars, but the way the book ended was so good I changed my mind.
I didn't see the end coming actually, I don't know if it was cause sometimes I was a little bored and hadn't read for weeks so it wasn't on my mind a lot, but the events in the book actually didn't feel all that important next to the main characters thoughts. The ending really did also change the way I felt about the main character. She's right, though. Old women are invisible.
The main character was sometimes infuriating in the most entertaining way possible and I liked that, I think.
I wasn't thinking I was going to rate this higher than 3 stars, but the way the book ended was so good I changed my mind.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Murder
Moderate: Animal cruelty
plantbasedbride's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
"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."
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead begins in a very unassuming way, so unassuming, in fact, that we may imagine we're in for a slow character study of our protagonist, Janina, an older woman who lives alone in a remote Polish village.
And yet, within a few paragraphs, it becomes very clear there's more here than meets the eye.
Janina isn't a people person, but she loves animals, astrology, and the poetry of William Blake.
And when villagers start dropping like flies around her, she won't just sit idly by.
With exquisitely thoughtful prose and characters that jump off the page, Tokarczuk creates a compulsively quotable literary murder mystery with a message that needs to be heard.
On worth:
"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."
On institutions:
"Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion."
On the human condition:
"As I gazed at the black-and-white landscape of the Plateau I realized that sorrow is an important word for defining the world. It lies at the foundations of everything, it is the fifth element, the quintessence."
And most notably, our treatment of non-human animals:
"Its Animals show the truth about a country," I said. "Its attitude toward Animals. If people behave brutally toward Animals, no form of democracy is ever going to help them, in fact nothing will at all."
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is an award-winning work of fiction for a reason, and I recommend it highly.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead begins in a very unassuming way, so unassuming, in fact, that we may imagine we're in for a slow character study of our protagonist, Janina, an older woman who lives alone in a remote Polish village.
And yet, within a few paragraphs, it becomes very clear there's more here than meets the eye.
Janina isn't a people person, but she loves animals, astrology, and the poetry of William Blake.
And when villagers start dropping like flies around her, she won't just sit idly by.
With exquisitely thoughtful prose and characters that jump off the page, Tokarczuk creates a compulsively quotable literary murder mystery with a message that needs to be heard.
On worth:
"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."
On institutions:
"Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion."
On the human condition:
"As I gazed at the black-and-white landscape of the Plateau I realized that sorrow is an important word for defining the world. It lies at the foundations of everything, it is the fifth element, the quintessence."
And most notably, our treatment of non-human animals:
"Its Animals show the truth about a country," I said. "Its attitude toward Animals. If people behave brutally toward Animals, no form of democracy is ever going to help them, in fact nothing will at all."
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is an award-winning work of fiction for a reason, and I recommend it highly.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Death