Wikimedia commons, CC BY-SAĪnti-Semitism, opportunism, and political intrigue: Olga Tokarczuk's whirlwind tour of the 18th century Ottessa Moshfegh at the Kelly Writers House, Philadelphia, March 2020. Upon learning that she is mysteriously pregnant, Villiam convinces himself that Agata’s baby will be Christ reborn, but the unborn child also becomes the object of Marek’s terrible jealousy. The drought and famine also drive a mute nun, Agata, to Villiam’s doors, whom Marek immediately recognises as his supposedly dead mother. Villiam enlists Marek to entertain him with games, storytelling and the casual humiliation of a servant girl, while Jude and others living below the manor resort to cannibalism. The villagers starve, but Villiam’s household is richly sustained by his hoarded wealth. This is illustrated by the severe drought of the following summer. Life is to be endured by the peasants in the village and enjoyed by the aristocrats in the manor. “God does not reward misery,” Villiam tells him. Once reconciled to a life of virtuous suffering, Marek is now thrust into a life of dissolute luxury. Entertained by Marek’s disabilities, Villiam whimsically proposes that Jude give him Marek as a replacement for his deceased heir. His spy and catspaw in the village, Father Barnabas, preaches to ensure that the villagers remain docile and compliant.Įvents take a dark turn in Lapvona when Marek impulsively murders Villiam’s son Jacob and Jude coldly delivers him to Villiam for judgment. Marek is convinced that suffering is a mark of God’s favour and ecstatically embraces the brutal beatings he regularly receives from Jude.įor these characters, religious faith seems to provide an elaborate way of justifying their existence, as it also does for Villiam, who believes his power and luxury to be a sign of divine favour. Jude’s religiosity manifests as a grim asceticism he has far greater reserves of compassion and sympathy for his flock of lambs than for people. We soon learn that both Marek and his father are devoutly religious, albeit in different and disquieting ways. Born with physical disabilities, Marek exists on the fringes of this isolated community, which is ruled over by its decadent lord Villiam from his distant hilltop manor. Its nominal protagonist is the shepherd boy Marek, who lives near the village of Lapvona with his father, Jude.

Set in a medieval Eastern European fiefdom and narrated from a distant third-person perspective, Lapvona has the tone of a ghoulish fairytale. It features murder, starvation, cannibalism, rape and poisonings, among other horrors. It follows the conflicts and tribulations of a cast of stupid, selfish characters.

This underscores the one element that critics seem to agree on: Lapvona is not exactly an uplifting novel.

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