These quiet and mutually edifying interactions-first between a Catholic man and a Jewish man and then between a man and a woman-serve as an ironically peaceful false start.
And, in another turn of imagined reality, Tokarczuk portrays the fictionalized meeting-and subsequent friendship-of real-world poet Elżbieta Drużbacka and Father Chmielowski.
The novel portrays the life of Jacob Frank, as seen through the eyes of those surrounding him, opening first with the story of one Father Chmielowski, a Catholic priest who “knows the world only through books” and has written an encyclopedic volume titled New Athens, “a compendium of knowledge of the sort that could be found in every home.” Father Chmielowski breaks from custom to borrow books from a prominent Jewish businessman named Elisha Shorr, and their interaction hints at an alternate reality that could have unfolded between their Catholic and Jewish communities. In fact, it moves briskly, its tone often leaning toward satire but never sacrificing its humanity, tragic sensibilities, or deep sense of mystery. Though it is an unabashed epic in scope-a book that luxuriates in detail-it is not a slog. Rife with paradoxes, the book is a fictional rendering of factual events centered around a controversial and fascinating figure named Jacob Frank who instigated a largely forgotten religious movement in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th century. The Books of Jacob is a singular, anomalous work, a massive novel overwhelmingly researched and intricately plotted. That her Nobel nomination was rumored to be greatly based on the accomplishments of this book has only magnified the anticipation. Tokarczuk’s English-speaking readers, The Books of Jacob has long hovered on the horizon, promising the full realization of the powerful and idiosyncratic vision we’ve encountered in books such as Flights and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarczuk‘s dark star epic, The Books of Jacob, has been released in English with Jennifer Croft‘s stunning translation.
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