Name: Doug Belshaw's review of The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk
Item: The Empusium
Rating: 4
Author: Doug Belshaw

Olga Tokarczuk

In September 1913, Mieczysław Wojnicz, a student suffering from tuberculosis, arrives at Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen, a health resort in what is now western Poland. Every day, its residents gather in the dining room to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur, to obsess over money and status, and to discuss the great issues of the day: Will there be war? Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women inherently inferior?

Meanwhile, disturbing things are beginning to happen in the guesthouse and its surroundings. As stories of shocking events in the nearby highlands reach the men, a sense of dread builds. Someone – or something – seems to be watching them and attempting to infiltrate their world. Little does Mieczysław realize, as he attempts to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target.

A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Olga Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, blending horror story, comedy, folklore and feminist parable with brilliant storytelling.

A Health Resort Horror Story

The Empusium

taylor miles hopkins

"Blurred, out of focus, flickering, now like this, now like that, depending on one's point of view.”

“Our entire culture has grown out of a feeling of inferiority, out of all those unfulfilled ambitions. And yet it is the other way around: That which is weak in us gives us strength. This constant effort to compensate for weakness governs our entire lives.”

"Only very small or very large things are immortal," it said cautiously. "Atoms are immortal and galaxies are immortal. That's the whole mystery…”

Or else: "How is it that people who look at the same thing see something different?”

He preferred to belong to this world, which did not yet know him and in whose eyes he still had time to define himself. 

Where one might change and become unrecognizable, and yet still remain one's real self inside. Clearly there was both an outer and an inner existence. The internal" one was dressed in the external" one, and from then on was perceived by the world in that form. But why might the "internal" feel so uncomfortable inside the "external"?

Doug Belshaw

The start and end of this novel are both fantastic. There's a bit too much conversation that seems to go nowhere - or, rather, makes the same point repeatedly. But I enjoyed this, as it transports you to a different world, one of naturally magic realism.

Dora Tominic

Disclaimer: this is not a review.

Thank you Olga, again.

. Slandered em with direct quotes as I like to say. If you’re thinking of picking up this book, I think I would have actually liked this book A LOT more if I had read the epilogue (for the historical context, and the misogynistic context) first, so just FYI there, it’s not gonna be spoilers if you do that and I would have had a lot more tolerance for the dialogue between these dudes if I knew the source material for it and what a frigging skewer/lambaste it was the entire time.

Apiecalypse Jen

That epilogue alone was a massacre. Slandered em with direct quotes as I like to say. If you’re thinking of picking up this book, I think I would have actually liked this book A LOT more if I had read the epilogue (for the historical context, and the misogynistic context) first, so just FYI there, it’s not gonna be spoilers if you do that and I would have had a lot more tolerance for the dialogue between these dudes if I knew the source material for it and what a frigging skewer/lambaste it was the entire time.

Olga was really messing around with a lot of cool stuff in this one. The author’s note at the end makes a lot of sense. Reading the Eugenides Triangle earlier this year probably affected my reading of this too much. Thought it would be spookier but hey that’s Tokarczuk for you! Loved how it wasn’t just Drive Your Plow but it wasn’t not Drive Your Plow either.

Doug Belshaw &
The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk

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Doug Belshaw &The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk

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Doug Belshaw &
The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk