The cover image, and title of this novel are obstruse and beguiling. The title, The Empusium: A health resort horror story, is shared with a sketch of a skeleton in early 20th century women’s clothing.

The novel is set in a sanitorium for tuberculosis in western Poland in 1913. The main characters are a motley collection of men who have two things in common: their lungs are infested with Koch’s bacillus, and they like to espouse their condescending opinions on many things, but are united in their misogynistic view of women. Their monologues are taken straight from the mouths of eminent men (Ovid, Aquinas, Wagner, Yeats, for example) and are often delivered wryly. ‘There are no women in the history of literature,’ one character tells us. I can easily imagine Tokarczuk’s smirk as she penned that line, being a Nobel Prize laureate.

Miecsyslaw is our hero. Through his eyes we witness many uncanny moments – dead wives, beastly woodland creatures, hallucinogenic visions. We learn, as he does, the story behind what or who is murdering one of the patients every November. This mystery is only one of many that Wojnicz needs to unravel.

There’s huge potential to be intimated by this novel’s scope and sophistication. I decided early on that I wouldn’t worry about the metaphors or gestures I might be missing. While I didn’t grasp all its subtleties and layers, I understood plenty. Even if you aren’t up to the entire intellectual workout the novel offers, it’s worth reading even if only to witness Tokarczuk’s genius at work.

Reviewed by Louise Falconer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Olga Tokarczuk is the winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature and the Man Booker International Prize, for her novel Flights. She has received many other honours, including her country Poland’s highest literary award, the Nike, for both Flights and The Books of Jacob. Her novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead was also highly praised.

She is the author of more than a dozen works of fiction, a children’s book and two collections of essays. Her work has been translated into more than fifty languages. Widely regarded as one of the most important writers of her generation, she lives in Poland.