Jul 23, 2026 · 42 min · 9 segments
Why did we choose this strange, fragmented novel for the summer book club? What do we know about its author, Olga Tokarczuk? And what are some “reading maps” we can use to start finding our way in…
So when I first started reading this book, for the first several pages I was like, "What am I reading?"
There's a first-person narrator, this nameless female traveler who may or may not be Tokarczuk herself, and then there are these essayistic reflections, short story-type segments, travel anecdotes, uh, fictionalized histories.
Uh, and some of those sections actually run on for up to, like, 30 pages, while others are just a few paragraphs.
But wait, before you hurl your book out into the sea, there is mystery and maybe even intrigue.
'Cause part of what drove me on when I too [laughs] was asking, "What am I reading?" Was the puzzle of what exactly connects all of these different stories and, and subjects and threads.
So I was thinking it's a little bit like a scavenger hunt, except you don't always know what you're looking for, and sometimes you see this shiny thing in the distance, and you think, "Could that be what I'm looking for? [laughs] Is that treasure, or is it trash?" And sometimes the brilliant thing about Tokarczuk is she's really good at showing us that the thing that looks like trash is in fact treasure.
So when I first started reading this book, for the first several pages I was like, "What am I reading?"
There's a first-person narrator, this nameless female traveler who may or may not be Tokarczuk herself, and then there are these essayistic reflections, short story-type segments, travel anecdotes, uh, fictionalized histories.
Uh, and some of those sections actually run on for up to, like, 30 pages, while others are just a few paragraphs.
But wait, before you hurl your book out into the sea, there is mystery and maybe even intrigue.
'Cause part of what drove me on when I too [laughs] was asking, "What am I reading?" Was the puzzle of what exactly connects all of these different stories and, and subjects and threads.
So I was thinking it's a little bit like a scavenger hunt, except you don't always know what you're looking for, and sometimes you see this shiny thing in the distance, and you think, "Could that be what I'm looking for? [laughs] Is that treasure, or is it trash?" And sometimes the brilliant thing about Tokarczuk is she's really good at showing us that the thing that looks like trash is in fact treasure.
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