Primeval and Other Times [Paperback]

Olga Tokarczuk (Author), Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2010

Tokarczuk's third novel, Primeval and Other Times was awarded the Passport Prize in 1996 and the Koscielski Prize in 1997, which established the author as one of the leading voices in Polish letters. It is set in the mythical village of Primeval in the very heart of Poland, which is populated by eccentric, archetypal characters. The village, a microcosm of Europe, is guarded by four archangels, from whose perspective the novel chronicles the lives of Primeval's inhabitants over the course of the feral 20th century. In prose that is forceful and direct, the narrative follows Poland's tortured political history from 1914 to the contemporary era and the episodic brutality that is visited on ordinary village life. Yet Primeval and Other Times is a novel of universal dimension that does not dwell on the parochial. A stylized fable as well as epic allegory about the inexorable grind of time, the clash between modernity (the masculine) and nature (the feminine), it has been translated into most European languages. Tokarczuk has said of the novel: "I always wanted to write a book such as this. One that creates and describes a world. It is the story of a world that, like all things living, is born, develops, and then dies." Kitchens, bedrooms, childhood memories, dreams and insomnia, reminiscences, and amnesia - these are part of the existential and acoustic spaces from which the voices of Tokarczuk's tale come, her "boxes in boxes."

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Tokarczuk won Poland’s Koscielski Foundation Prize with this vision of the twentieth-century in an imaginary Eastern European village consisting of four guardian angels and a range of human characters—a world apart that yet mirrors reality beyond its boundaries. Tokarczuk first describes Primeval, noting place-name derivations and remarking, It is God’s business to create, and people’s business to name. Section headings denote changes in location, time, and point of view. Focal shifts build an engrossing, multifaceted mosaic, including individuals like Cornspike, an unlikely subject for revelation, who lives in the wild; steals food; turns to whoring; suffers solitary stillbirth in an abandoned, tumbledown house; and then is blessed with a surprising epiphany when she sees the force that pervades everything and the contours of other worlds and other times. In Primeval, shape-shifting elements of nature coexist seamlessly with a character taming snakes into peaceful domesticity by the hearth, Nazi concentration camps, and God grieving his unrequited love for man within a mystical labyrinth of eight spheres or worlds. It’s well worth the long visit. --Whitney Scott

Review

"... the hard passage of an imaginary village through a century of conflict, distant coups and decay. Overlooking all is a vain selfish God who has become thoroughly bored with mankind and who must play second fiddle in Ms Tokarczuk's pantheistic world." -- The Economist

" ... an epic novel drawing on magic realism creating a world permeated with ancient myths but firmly rooted in the present." -- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Twisted Spoon Press (April 15, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8086264351
• ISBN-13: 978-8086264356
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #662,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Polish magical realism, June 23, 2011

By 

S. Smith-Peter (Staten Island, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Primeval and Other Times (Paperback)

This is an extraordinary book and should be widely read. It is the story of a Polish village, Primeval, over the course of the 20th century. The writing is electrifying and is able to convincingly portray the state of mind of Polish peasants, Nazi and Russian soldiers, and Communists, as well as an icon, the secret world of the mushroom spawn, a ghost, a mystical game of chance, and a vain and flighty God.

The stories of human couples are intertwined with the natural and spiritual world in a series of short chapters that form a mosaic of human and non-human experience. The writing is so powerful that the reader is not so much reading as being. The plot is less important than the place, which is numinous. This reader did feel that she was indeed in the presence of something primeval.