Reviewed by Marianne
from Let's Read
When the name of the person who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2019 was finally announced in 2020, I wanted to read one of her books right away. I had chosen "Primeval and Other Times" which is translated into German in "Ur und andere Zeiten". "Ur" really stands for a time in German, a time long, long ago. It is used as a prefix for great-grandparents etc., e.g. Ur-Ur-Urgroßmutter would be the great-great-great-grandmother. It is also a proposed supercontinent from about 3,000 million years ago.
But the book was sold out in German. I decided to wait a while. Then, our book club decided to put it on the reading list. And here I am, reading it in the English translation.
The book was interesting, something completely different from a lot of other reads. The elements of magic realism make them surreal, even though the setting during and after WWI as well as in and after pre-WWII is realistic enough. The characters were also quite lively, the families were described into every little detail, so you can imagine them and their lives very well. The author tried to describe the situation of both the German and the Russian soldiers and managed that very well, also.
Even though the story takes place in the first half of the 20th century, it seems a lot longer ago at times. The magic realism parts make it almost feel like a fairy-tale. It also helps understanding Polish culture and how it was influenced by the communism. We can live, laugh and die with these ordinary people from an extraordinary time and imagine how their lives might have been without the war.
The story is only about 250 pages long but that doesn’t' make it quick to read. It's not difficult, yet very complex. I would certainly recommend this book.
During our book club discussion, we touched many aspects of the book. I will try to add them in short. If you haven't read it, there might be some spoilers.
We discussed this in our book club in April 2020. To our book club members who were present in the online discussion, should I have left out anything or misquoted something, please, let me know.
From the back cover:

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'."
Olka Tokarczuk received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018 "for her narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life".
Read my other reviews of the Nobel Prize winners for Literature.
Original Post on "Let's Read".
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