Fantasy Book Critic: Book review: The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Olga Tokarczuk is the author of nine novels, three short story collections and has been translated into more than fifty languages. Her novel Flights won the 2018 International Booker Prize, in Jennifer Croft’s translation. She is the recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Publisher: Riverhead Books (September 24, 2024) Length: 320 pages Formats: audiobook, ebook, hardback, paperback Translator: Antonia Lloyd-Jones

The Empusium is a strange, slow, and fascinating book. It’s part gothic horror, part social critique, and part... well, something that doesn’t really fit into any category. Call it Weirdlit, if you need to. Anyway, if you’re looking for fast-paced thrills and gruesome horrors, this isn’t it. But if you enjoy well-written and unsettling books with elegant and plastic prose* you’re in for a treat.

Tokarczuk follows Mieczysław Wojnicz, a soft-spoken, sickly man who heads to a remote spa to treat his tuberculosis. He’s surrounded by a group of other men who, between their coughing fits, like to sit around and deliver wildly outdated (and hilariously awful) opinions about women. These aren’t Tokarczuk’s inventions, by the way-they’re actual quotes from old philosophers. But don’t worry-the book knows exactly how absurd they sound and uses them to great effect.

Amid all this, there’s a creeping sense of something supernatural. Strange presences haunt the spa, hiding in the walls and floorboards, and this adds an unsettling vibe without ever taking over the story. The real horror is in the ways people treat each other, in the oppressive masculinity of the men or Mieczysław’s own struggle to live authentically in a world that doesn’t make space for him.

Speaking of Mieczysław, his journey is unexpected but well-timed and perfectly captured. I appreciated the slow process that allowed him to peel back the layers of who he is and find his true self. As mentioned, it was surprising, quite moving, and ultimately uplifting.

Yes, the pacing is slow, and yes, the philosophical ramblings won’t be everyone’s cuppa. But stick with it. The writing is beautiful; the characters are complex, and the ending? Worth the wait.

I like my books smart, spooky, and a little bit weird, and The Empusium is precisely this. Well worth a read.