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Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
By Steph · 4 posts · 45 views
By Steph · 4 posts · 45 views
last updated Feb 28, 2023 01:01PM
What Members Thought
I was extremely disappointed to the point to which I thought I might be missing something. I thought the plot and the underlying context was developed very poorly, making it a terribly lazy book, overall. The comparisons to Orwell and Bradbury are so literal - they burn books and there's a "authoritarian" government (not to mention Orwell's underlying anti-communist agenda throughout 1984) - why does that make this book good? There was hardly anything that challenged me and the prose was quite b
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So haunting, so beautiful, so eerie. I hate that it’s compared to 1984 and Fahrenheit 451; it’s so much subtler and infinitely more interesting. The refusal to draw the obvious parallel between the “disappeared� things and people of “The Memory Police� and the historical disappearings of leftists in Indonesia and Latin America is a huge detriment to readers.
Fuck.
This is a remarkable translation of an original work by a Japanese woman. The book takes place in a dystopia where people lose something from their memory (birds, rose, and other random objects), and The Memory Police come to remove all reminders of said item. It starts as a commentary on authoritarianism and the State, but ends as an exploration of self and memory. It’s a really fascinating read.
The slow and creeping mystery that builds into fear and terror of the incomprehensible violence of loss characterises this book. I honestly was so utterly spellbound by the writing and translation. For me this is a perfect example of dystopian fiction at its very best.
I am pretty heartbroken that my Dad who passed away this month cannot read it. He would have loved it.
So to anyone else that enjoys this book, just know you'd have had two allies in me and my Dad, and not just me. As my life is now ...more
I am pretty heartbroken that my Dad who passed away this month cannot read it. He would have loved it.
So to anyone else that enjoys this book, just know you'd have had two allies in me and my Dad, and not just me. As my life is now ...more
Straightforward and haunting. I loved it.
Aug 27, 2019
Juniper
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