Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

By Olga Tokarczuk

Fiction/Mystery 

Hardback

274 pages

Library 

Book Club

This will be a spoilery post, becuase I read this for book club, and I'm trying to make note of things to discuss. Because we all know I'm eager to pick up another book, and I want to be sure to have intelligent things to day at our book club meeting. Although last time I actually made it to one, I was literally the only person there for a few, and only 3 people total showed up. I didn't even finish that book, because I didn't like it. This one was interesting, if a little difficult to get into. 

I fully admit that part of my issue getting into it is probably becuase it's written for grown ups and I'm still in the middle of my YA love affair. 

But also, it wasn't what I expected. I expected amateur crime drama mystery hijinks, and this was a strange wandering through woods, and philosophy, morality, and aging. With some murder. It also wasn't as funny as I was hoping for. 

Summary: She watches a neighbor choke on a bone from a poached deer. Finds a photo in his house which confirms that her dogs had been shot by hunters. Kills the other people in the photo: a police commissioner, mafia boss, and a priest. Occasionally haunted by dead mother and grandmother and dogs. Confesses to friends after burning down the church. They help her escape the police. She hides in a forest research station. 

That being said, there were some amazing moments. I loved the top line on this page. 

I maybe too deeply felt the middle paragraph of this page. The attempt to being an amazing, engaging teacher, the crushing of the system. 

I really enjoyed this passage. 

Anyway, it was sometime in the last third of the book that I began to wonder if the protagonist was actually the murderer. It didn't seem fully likely, but possible. She was a strange lady who didn't use anyone's actual name. She was emphatic about the idea that the animals - the deer - had done the murdering. 

Then she gives a deer hoof to the departing neighbor?

After being so focused on the deer prints?

And after the first death she was so weird about the plastic bag she hung in the tree to freeze. I kept expecting something more from that; however, I had not expected it to be a murder weapon. 

Questions for the discussion: 

And why did her friends help her?

What is actually wrong with her? (Physically)

How do you think she dies? 

author info

Overall opinion: I'm glad I read it. I wouldn't re-read it.