Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

Olga Tokarczuk is among Poland’s most famous and critically acclaimed contemporary authors. She has received multiple national and international literary awards, including the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. Her most well-known novels and their translation dates into English are House of Day, House of Night (2003), Primeval and Other Times (2010), Flights (2018), and The Books of Jacob (2021).

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead was published in Poland in 2009 but didn’t become available in English translation until a decade later. In this country, the novel was named to multiple Best Book of the Year lists, including Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Time, and NPR. It was adapted to film as Spoor (2017), which won an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film. The book’s title derives from William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell” contained in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The novel is categorized as Dark Humor and Literary Satire Fiction, though it is also generally described as a literary murder mystery. This study guide and its page citations are based on the Riverhead Books Kindle edition published in August 2019.

The story is set in a remote village in the Table Mountains of southwestern Poland, just across the border from the Czech Republic. The timeframe is contemporary and spans a period of roughly one year, from winter to winter. Events are told in first-person narration by a 60-something woman named Janina Duszejko.

The plot kicks off with the death of Janina’s neighbor, whom she has nicknamed Big Foot. He is a despicable character who poaches wild game and treats his pet dog neglectfully. As a vegetarian, Janina is opposed to exploiting animals in any way. She holds a particular grudge against the local sport hunters and suspects they may have shot her two dogs, which she regarded as her children. Shortly after Big Foot’s death, other hunters die or disappear. These include the village police commandant, a rich man named Innerd, the president of a local club, and the parish priest. Janina eventually reveals that she killed these men to avenge the deaths of victimized animals everywhere. Though Janina’s views might be dismissed as eccentric, her reverence for all life raises some controversial questions about the superiority of humans and their right to exploit other species. Specifically, the novel explores the themes of the value of all life, how everything in the cosmos is connected, and the role of outsiders who challenge the status quo. 

Plot Summary

Janina Duszejko is considered odd for several reasons. She is a confirmed vegetarian, an atheist, a student of astrology, and a former English teacher who is fond of the poetry of William Blake. She collaborates with her former student and friend, Dizzy, on a Polish translation of the English poet’s works. Until two years earlier, Janina shared her somewhat insular life with two dogs whom she called her little girls, but both have since disappeared. Late one winter night, Janina’s neighbor, Oddball, comes to her house to tell her that another neighbor, Big Foot, is lying dead in his home. The two inspect the scene and prepare Big Foot’s body for burial. They discover that he choked on a bone while eating deer meat that he poached illegally. Among Big Foot’s possessions, Janina finds a disturbing photograph but does not reveal its content to the reader at this time.

Janina is convinced that the local wildlife killed Big Foot as an act of revenge. Furthermore, she is convinced that his astrology chart confirms her theory. Because it is known that Janina has attacked hunters in the past and was on bad terms with Big Foot, the police put her under scrutiny but can’t prove any connection to his death. Soon after, Dizzy discovers the police commandant, also a hunter, dead in his car. Janina is now doubly convinced that the wildlife is seeking revenge and that this can be proven from looking at the commandant’s astrology chart. She shares her views with Oddball and Dizzy, but they distance themselves from her theory.

The police question Janina as a witness to what they now believe was the commandant’s murder. They already think she is a crank because of her constant complaints about illegal hunting and poaching. One officer rebukes Janina for seeming to care more about the animals than her fellow humans. Janina replies that she values them equally. Later, Janina harasses the police force with a series of letters demanding that they investigate the astrology chart of the latest murder victim too because it will show that wildlife caused his demise.

Soon after the commandant’s murder, a wealthy businessman named Innerd disappears. All the foxes caged at his fur farm have been mysteriously released. The villagers believe that Innerd ran away because he was bribing the commandant to keep his illegal activities a secret and might be implicated in the murder.

Shortly afterward, a newcomer arrives in the village. Boros is an entomologist researching an endangered species of beetle. He wants to protect the beetle habitat from a local logging operation. Janina offers Boros a place to stay at her house, which he accepts. The two briefly become romantic partners before he leaves on another research project.

Meanwhile, as spring returns, Innerd’s body is discovered in the forest, ensnared in an animal trap. This latest murder is followed in the summer by another when the local mushroom pickers’ club president is found dead and covered in beetles. Everyone in the village has grown paranoid that a killer is stalking them.

Things settle down until the beginning of November when a new church to the patron saint of hunters is dedicated. The local priest, Father Rustle, himself a hunter, delivers a sermon praising hunters as “partners of the Lord God in the work of creation” (240). Janina is present at the service and objects to Father Rustle’s words, loudly criticizing him and the parishioners for their hypocrisy and lack of compassion.

By the following evening, the chapel burns down, killing Father Rustle. Dizzy and Oddball finally confront Janina, accusing her of murdering the five men. She admits to killing the commandant, Innerd, the president, and Father Rustle but maintains that Big Foot choked to death. The disturbing photograph she found in his home depicted a group of hunters standing near a pile of killed game that included her two dogs. Janina decided to take revenge for her little girls and all the wildlife subjected to senseless slaughter by sport hunters. The following day, the police appear at Janina’s house to arrest her. However, she has already escaped across the border to the Czech Republic. Boros then spirits her away to an entomological research station in the depths of a national forest where she can work on her astrology charts and live her life in peace.