Hello and welcome to How to Win the Lottery Season 9 Eco-Module, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Torkachuk.I'm Joey Lewandowski.
Shreds, we are at the end of the Eco-Module.It's the last one.We have made it through.Is this our most depressing module?Yeah.Probably.
Yeah.More depressing than the first module, which was specifically about being depressed.
Mm hmm.Campus mixed bag.Not really, though.Internet mixed bag.Not really, though.I mean, adaptations.Not really.Graphic content.I would say no.
Yeah.I'm glad that you did mention the first module because I was saying to you, that's the goal from our very, very first book.Do you ever also. The first episode of the show starts with Kristen.Yeah.Name bleeped.
Reading a line that we never returned to that.
Well, you know why?Why?Because I tried to get her to the next one and she just held on to the book until after until like after the time when I was like, OK, well, we just have to release.We have to release the thing now.I'm sorry.
You can't like just do it.
It reminds.So in like I think like the sixth episode of The Sopranos, there's a cold open where they're doing the like The Godfather three, like just when they thought I was out.
only that like it's just a bunch of them just like digging around and the only cold open in the entire run of The Sopranos.There's like 86 episode.They do one cold open.It's like very early in the series.Like, oh, they can do a bunch of these.
Like even if it's just like them, like courting famous like mobster movies, one and done.
Yes.We just had the one cold open.It was a good idea and it would have been good to keep going with it.But unfortunately, you can only rely on one person in this world.And that's Joey.
But this book reminded me of The very, very, very, very first book that we did, Biotest and Moshfeg, Death in Our Hands, starring Vesta Gull, because they're both like kind of about older ladies who maybe society thinks less of, sort of.
And are in a deeply rural area in which the interactions are, especially the interactions with authorities, are somewhat threatening. And there's also like a, well, I guess it's less suggested in this one, more suggested in Death in Her Hands.
There's like a suggestion of pretty extreme violence around every corner, which you don't really get to.But also like, not?Does that make sense?Yeah, you deliver that exactly like the way that girl delivers the line in the Blink Twice trailer.
But also like, not? You're like pop, pop culture has like gotten into your brain.
A little bit, but no, but I mean, I do think that with this book, it feels like there's always violence, but it's always just like, no, this just seems like a sweet old lady.We'll find out till the very end.
You were saying that you'd read this book before.We both read this one before.
And you had forgotten the ending.
Yeah. Which for again like it's kind of a murder mystery.It's also kind of not.But for what is essentially what it becomes like a murder mystery to not remember who the killer is.
Cool.I mean yeah.But there's a value of rereading because it's like oh can you pick up on clues.For sure.But at the same time if you just don't remember the ending.
Yeah.Were you struck in the head by anything in between then and now.
Probably.You have read this book because this book won the Nobel Prize.Well, books don't win Nobel Prizes.People do.Oh, she won the Nobel Prize.
She won the Nobel Prize for the body of her work.OK.This was I'm sure like this was the first that I knew about her because I think this was her first like big international translated splash.
She's been translated into 30 languages since the end of this book.
What do you think is the most obscure of those languages?Can you name 30 languages really quickly?Go.
American English.Oh, Jesus Christ.Right out of the bat.Intentionally, because I can't do 30.OK, you can't name 30 languages quickly with you getting mad at me.Yeah, I'm going to get mad at you no matter what.
So just go English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese. Yeah.Well, I was trying to do it with Chinese.
You could have said Mandarin and Cantonese.
Yeah.I was trying to do it like without like taking a breath.And then I just like froze.
I could probably do 30.But the most obscure in terms of like I'm that there's like some that are like I'm guessing because she's Polish.Right.
So I'm guessing it's probably translated into other languages native to Europe that I don't have a ton of readers, but they're just like like that.She's like, no, she's like a local author.Right.
I'm sure there are many Eastern European languages in which it's been translated.
that it's just like, well, she's like a local woman.We need to represent our people.
And she there's like a headline that's like local woman makes good when she won the Nobel Prize.
Is Czech a language or what language they speak in the Czech Republic?I think Czech.So maybe Czech.
Because Slovakian is a language.So you have.I don't even know if that's true.I'm pretty sure that's true.I knew a Slovakian.
I know a Slovakian girl in college.
This is not a language podcast, even though we talk about language in every episode.And also this book is about language.
This Lockian girl that I knew in college, her name was Olga.
Did she win the Nobel Prize?She didn't, no.That you know of.I don't think she won the Nobel Prize.What's Drive Your Plywood to the Bones of the Dead about?
It is about murders in a small town in Poland.
That may or may not be being committed by animals.
There is something, spoiler, again, all these episodes spoil the book.There's something, I was talking to you when we got together last weekend to go see a movie, that I think that there's something funny about, not funny, but like,
very useful because we're talking about like the astrology stuff and her being like animals did it.And her being an old woman is easy to dismiss.And then she's so easy to dismiss that you're like, Oh, she's actually the murderer.
Yeah.Because she seems like a harmless old lady who is like caught up in kooky.
So she's telling the story and just conveniently leaves out the part where she's like, yeah, this is a little, little like, Oh, here's an interesting thing.
Like, here's what interests me about this book. I can imagine that you reading this book, when you get to the end, probably... You as in me or you as in the listener?You as in you.Or the listener, sure, if they've been paying attention.
When you get to the end of this book, you probably think to yourself, Shreds hates this shit.No, I don't think so.Because it gets a little explainy in a way that it doesn't need to.And also, the trick of her
being in us being in a first person narrative the entire time and her leaving out these things that she's very much aware.It's not like she's an unreliable narrator because she's has dementia.
It's not like she's an unreliable, she's just an unreliable narrator because she's just not telling us those things.So you have to imagine a audience for, for this.Like it, it like makes you think about the format of a book.
Like when there is a first person narrator, who is that first person like speaking to?And there are times in which it is clear that the first person narrator is speaking to an audience.
There is times in which the first person narrator is just that person's consciousness.If it's just consciousness, there's no reason to hide it.
And that's where, when you get into unreliable narratives, you have to start thinking about people being blinded by their own selfishness, blinded by their motivations, demented in some way, psychotic in some way.
There has to be a reason why that part has been cleaved from the narrative, so you don't understand it.When there is an audience, that reason has to be more explicit.And there is no reason here.
She doesn't give us any reason for not including that stuff.
That's true, but also it's set up. Like one hundred and twelve pages.I wrote this down even before again before remembering.She's like, oh, did I not tell you that I build bridges?Yeah.
And then at the end, she's like, oh, did I not tell you that I'm like an Olympic medalist for hammer throwing?Like there's things like that where it's just like she just or there's another thing that's not that like that, but it's
When Boros, Boros, she like sleeps with him and she like lets him in bed and she's like, that's the last thing I'm gonna say about that.It's just like, she's just, she's like actively not telling us everything.
While I think, I think you're right that like, might not be wrong to think that, like, that's kind of a bullshit excuse.Yeah.I think it's just like, oh, no, she's just not telling us that.
Like, she's she's telling us a lot, but we're just like along for her ride.
Well, it's also sort of a mimicking of kind of like cozy mysteries and other sort of genre fiction that is audience focused rather than writer focused. So literary fiction tends to be writer-focused.
It's about what the writer can do with the language and what the writer can do with different conceits.And most literary fiction, most stuff that we think of as being like quote-unquote good, is writing that's for writers.
That's like the writer sort of showing off, showing their various abilities to expound on theme via formal technique.
And then there's writing that's for readers which tends to be plot heavy and tends to give you really satisfying conclusions and That's usually popular and is yeah popular fiction usually falls into this category because it is satisfying and because when we read for entertainment rather than reading to to
uh, excavate some sort of emotional wound or reading to like challenge ourselves intellectually.We need more than the things that like give us a little dopamine spikes.
And Olga Torachuk, who is a writer of literary fiction is sort of running a reversal play on us here.
that it's like very approachable and then it's like oh no I've been like I've been duping you all along.
No no also like but even even in that even in even in when we get to the end and she's like by the way I'm the killer here's how I did everything explains everything that she does even like all of this stuff is a way to shoehorn in
ideas and things that are sort of difficult thematically that you can then like swallow in a much more pop genre-y container.And then the trick is that it doesn't really fit in that container.So, it ends up being literary in that it's like
Subverting the, um, the frame that it's been put in.So it's like she, she like, you know, made a smoothie and then put it inside a can of Coca-Cola and then you drink the Coke and you're just like. this is really good, but what the fuck?
Like I was not expecting that fruit smoothie to be inside that glass of Coca-Cola.
So while you have this murder mystery that is like about people in authority slowly being picked off in this snowy town and you eventually get the full confession and explanation of how all the murders happened and the murders are like,
formally difficult in the way that like they might be in an Agatha Christie story or something or Sherlock Holmes where it's like and then I put the pheromones around his mouth so the bugs when like this is stuff that like Sherlock Holmes would have to right would would you know figure out for us um and so it satisfies in that way but it's like the way that like a reader of genre fiction
would be dissatisfied by reading literary fiction.Like Olga Tokarchuk is denying readers of literary fiction the satisfaction of having their like tension build.
I think there's something like you pick up a book like this with a title, drive your plow over the bones of the dead.And then it has the big old sticker on the front winner of the Nobel prize.Yeah.
And it's like, oh, this is going to be some serious shit.And then it's like kind of a breezy read. And it's a little wacky and silly.Like, I kept picturing.Yeah.
As Janina, but don't call her Janina, call her Mrs. Dugeco, maybe like just like a June Squibb type, just like a kind of like a legible sort of hapless old lady.Right.Is she that old?
I don't know.Oh, yeah.She seems more like maybe like Catherine Keene or Frances McDormand age to me.
OK, so like 60s as opposed to like 90s.Yeah. It's unlikeable, but it's weird.It's like you pick up the thing, judging again.It is weird.The Honorable Judgment are really busy at the moment.
But judging a book instead of a cover by its title, it's just like, oh, this is going to be something.And then it'd be like, well, it's about translation and translating Blake.It's just like, oh, so there's things.
It's actually about this kind of kooky old lady.Because there's also the whole time she's like, and the astrology says this, and the stars say this, and the animals kill them.
And like the the whole time I'm reading it, it's like, well, the animals probably didn't kill it.There's this other thing that the townspeople are like, it's probably just the mafia.It's just like they're all tied to the mob in some way.
Like, it seems like, of course, that's what it was like.There's just this old lady.But it's like, no, it's actually this third thing that like was never really foreshadowed.
But it's also it's also like in like if this were Law and order or something like that, like she would be the number one suspect because she's kind of she's literally there every time that someone is dead and she is the one that like.
But what's also wild about that genre is that we get the whole like mastermind like this is how I did it and also she gets away like she just like living out the rest of her days like at a friend's house.It's just like.That's not supposed to happen.
Yeah, I think we're supposed to want the killer to be caught, but because we're from her perspective, it's like it's good that she got away.
Well, yeah, because all of these, okay, so let's talk about why this fits into the eco criticism.It's a new angle.Yeah.Animals.Sure.
Okay, so this is focused significantly more on animal life than it is on plant life or climate change or anything like that.
Yeah, it's focused on the idea that
I mean, Barney was about animals, but this is about like hunting.
Yeah.Yeah.Sort of about how like all life is sacred and how you, you don't really have a right to take the life of another living thing, whether that living thing be a beetle or a deer or dogs, right.
Which is where we get toward the end when we really see what the motivation for a lot of this is.And she makes a good case and she, and, and, and it's interesting because people, think that people who are compassionate to animals are crazy.
Like this idea that she could.Like this, this compassion, like this over the top, not just like, I love my cat, but like people who are like.
Yeah.But, okay.But so I guess like even saying that it's over the top in that case, like she confronts hunters in the woods and is like, don't do this.
Like she seems like she was willing to die to stop a guy from shooting a deer.
Yeah.Um, and, and it's like, we act as though that's crazy.We have a very difficult time viewing.
Compassion behind be beyond our own bounds of compassion to be to be like not sensible And and I think this book is asking us to reconsider that it's saying We have to be more sensitive to things like animals.Um, I
in some ways treating animals well, speaks to our own humanity.It's interesting to juxtapose that with murdering people.I think that's kind of the point in some way.Like, where do your, when you read it, where do your... Allegiances lie?
Allegiances lie.And when you read, your allegiances don't lie with the humans.Because each of these humans, when they die, you're like, Yeah, they seem like dicks.
But again, we're seeing, I mean, look, I know that you are anti-cop.I know that a lot of you, our listeners are maybe anti-cop too, but we're also seeing these people through the eyes of someone who hates them.
And we, someone who hates them, we find out at the very end for killing her dogs. Like, I think even if they had not killed her dog, she would still, like, not like them.But I don't think she would go to these lanes, right?
She would just be, like, annoyed by them and maybe say something in charge or laugh at them in church or something like that, like she does.But she wouldn't go out of her way, I don't think, to murder.
Maybe I mean, but it's not just like it also it talks about it's about like not corruption Well, maybe like spiritual rot or spiritual corruption in each of these levels like the idea that a priest is like running the hunting committee and is up in front of everybody talking about like the glories of hunting and she's just like but that there's no
Ethics in that thing like you talk you you can get in your high horse about spirituality But if you don't have the ethics to not kill things, right then then where do you get off telling anyone else how to live or there is a police officer who is corrupt to who you know killed her dogs and and the police aren't following their own very specific rules about having to respond to to the community in which they
live, and so when he dies, you're like, well, he is an example of kind of authoritarian rot.
And Bigfoot is, I don't know what Bigfoot is representative of necessarily, but he's like her shitty neighbor that is, you know, punching and hunting, bootlegging.And then there's... Oddball?No, what is the other guy's name?
Endear or something like that?The guy that has the foxes that she sets free. Like, that's like a wealthy.
Oh, right, right.Yeah.I don't write down the I don't write down the bad guy's names.I just wrote down like that.Yeah.Yeah.
He's he's a wealthy man in the community.So it's like talking about how all these different pillars of the community or people that exist.Around her, like they're all corrupted in some way, morally corrupt, spiritually corrupt, and
But they're also like in a town that is seemingly built around hunting.Yeah.Like they're like, we have two big hunting things.Like it's a, it's a time that the town rallies together.Right.It's like Christmas Eve and like St.Hubert's day.
Yeah.It's like if you went to like Somalia or something, we're just like, you cannot fish anymore.Fuck you.Like, and I will kill you if you fish.Then it's like, well, you're going to destroy everything.
We're all going to, the entire economy of this town is going to collapse if you tell us that we can't fish.
Yeah, so it's interesting there.And so she is a bad guy, but also we root for her because we're in her perspective and also because she is morally clear in a way that these other people are not morally clear.
Well, is she morally?She's murdering.Yeah.I mean, she's kind of like a Dexter, like a serial killer killing serial killers, kind of like she's killing people who killed animals.
She's morally clear.We think she's morally clear until the end. And then it's, I guess, up to your your own beliefs.But.She's also like, I didn't kill them.The animals, they used me.I'm a tool for the animals.Yeah.
And it's like, well, you think she's making excuses to do a little bit.I mean.I'm not pro murder, I'm not pro violence, but It's not like she's killing like innocents like that.Yeah.
I think the killing of her dogs for whatever reason, maybe they just were there.Maybe it was an accident and they were annoying.Maybe they hate her or the dogs.Right.
But still, that seems to cross a line from hunting, which I'm not really for, but just like I know people do it to.Oh, no, you're killing like domestic animals like that's.
You know, even if the guy from The Deluge, Ash, would be like, you should kill those dogs.
Um, there are a handful of other things that are necessary to the, to the plot that are necessary to the theme as well that maybe I don't really fully understand.Um, one of them is astrology.
We had a brief conversation about astrology saying like, I don't really understand what she's talking about, about all these things.
I don't know that you need to understand what she's talking about, or if she even actually knows what she's talking about.
But she seems to put all of her stock in what the stars say.
Right.Which is an almost Richard Powers over story-esque holistic view of the world in which like,
all things organic and inorganic are connected and causal, that the movement of the stars can influence even the slightest thing and that slightest thing can change reality in a very real way.
And so like all of our actions are dictated by all of the forces around us because the entirety of the universe in all its grandness is symbiotic.
But I was saying to you that, I don't know anything about astrology, but there was like one thing that she said And I'm like, I don't know if that's right.
And so again, you're saying, I don't know if she knows, like she's putting so much weight in it.It might not be true.
I think she also realizes she's like, I'm the kind of person who, when you meet a person, when I meet someone new, I want to like get their information so I could do their reading.And like, not everybody's into that.
Like she knows that like, this is not for everybody, but she like, when she's fleeing at the end, she's like, I'm following Venus.I'm following my guiding, like literal guiding light to freedom.And it works. Right.So.
Which is, yeah, that also, I mean, there's like a post hoc ergo proctor hoc about that where it works and so we think it was the thing that she was doing that made it work rather than just.
Like we're meant to, we're meant to be hanging in the balance of that and not know like whether or not she just got away because she got away or she got away because.Right.Like whenever, you know. Good thing happens people who are like, thank God.
It's like that obviously happened because God right did it for me?
Yep So, you know you you can ascribe all the good things that happen to God after the fact if you want to but that doesn't necessarily make Right true, but because it's a work of fiction then why not?
Do you know post hoc ergo proctor hoc was a New York Times Sunday crossword answer Okay.No, I didn't know that.It was all about like logical.I think like there was like the theme was like logical fallacies or something.
It was just like all these different kinds of arguments.And that was one that went all the way across.
It's just like, okay, did you, did you know it?
Well, I mean, I, I, once I had like a couple of letters, I was like, I know it's like post hoc, something ergo, something hot, but I couldn't remember exactly proctor that I got there, but yeah.
Yeah.That's a big one.That's a big one.
I students stopped me in the hallway and asked me what I, it's always in my head.Cause the student just stopped me in the hallway and asked me what it meant earlier this year.
How do you describe it to a high schooler or do you just say what it was?
Yeah, after therefore because of it.It's very easy to like break down.Yeah, I didn't mean to go on that.
No, but I think I mean, the book is also about language.I mean, if we're going to get into language, it is.
Oh, yeah.So that's the other thing that I want to talk about, which is another thing I'm like by no means a William Blake scholar.But like a lot of the books about William Blake, the title of the book comes from William Blake poem.
The William Blake thing that I know best is is the tiger.Right.Which is tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forest of the night.What a mortal hand or I could frame my fearful symmetry.And that poem is about
who made the tiger, was it God or was it the devil?And it starts out with like the grandiose beauty of the tiger and how the tiger is, could only be created by God because of how beautiful it is.
And then it starts talking about like the more intimidating, sinister aspects of it.And then it ends with what immortal hand or I dare frame thy fearful symmetry.So then you get the impression that it's like,
Maybe it wasn't like some a good a good thing that made that made this.
Um, and then like the the Partner poem to that like the counter poem is a poem called the lamb, which is Similar, um But the lamb also like obviously is representative of christ uh, so it's like very
Critical of systems and stuff, but but when I think of when I think so I was thinking of that poem throughout this even though that's one of the poems that does not come up throughout even though it's probably his most famous I so I was thinking of like Blake's relationship with animals and and like they're the like juxtaposition within the spirit of the animal of like the possibility for goodness or the possibility for evil and inside the tiger that the tiger is this beautiful grand thing and
that you look at and you're like stand completely and totally in awe of its beauty and like the poetry of its movements and the like bright contrast of the orange and black colors and it's like beautiful teeth and the absolute symmetry of its body is like a perfect athletic form but then also that it is like a perfect killing machine that can just like
destroy anything that comes into its path.Yeah.That's my, my, my Blake experience is, is that.
Um, and so I was thinking about that throughout the text, but I don't really know that much about Blake's other poems, which is, seems like maybe coming into this or reading up on Blake's other poems.
I mean, I don't know anything about it.I don't think, I don't think it really, I'm sure it enhances it, but like, I don't think it takes away from the enjoyment of the text as it is.
Yeah.I think because it's, because it's been framed and presented to us as this cozy mystery rather than a literary.
I also think that there's something interesting, and I don't know that there is, I don't know that I have anything to say on it, but there's like this meta element to reading a book in translation about people who are translating text.
Yeah, for sure.And like the fact that they're just like, like, I'm sure this is how every translator does it to a certain extent, but they're like, well, let's, let's workshop like what different ways we could do this.
Like, do we keep the meaning or do we keep the rhyme structure?And just like, well, you're, you could be completely changing everything about it.
But if people, I mean, you see that in, in like, uh, you know, biblical texts and stuff like that, where it's like,
It's like, oh shit, like the word that they meant for virgin actually means something else and we have completely botched the last thousand years, 2,000 years of, I mean, I don't know if that specific thing, I don't know what I'm talking about really, but I know that there are those sort of translation issues with the Torah and the Christian Bible and I think less so the Quran because Arabic is, I don't know what I'm talking about.
There's also, and I don't know that it's necessarily language, but her adherence or whatever to naming people what she thinks they should be named.Like, no, this is my name.It's like, well, no, you're Shreds now because I think you're Shreds.
And like, well, that's not my name.It's like, I don't care.I'm calling you Shreds.And it's like, there's something.Yeah.
I mean, also to quote Doug Benson, nominative determinism, right?Also floating around your head.Yeah.There is this idea that you name people and they act out the way in which they
You know, like he's an oddball.We're calling him oddball, just like.
Yeah.And then and then, you know, the course of that guy's actions through the text.Yeah.Someone's named Bigfoot.You get the sense that he was like this sort of loafing Sasquatch of a character that was not very.
Like at the end, when when he finds out that she calls him Bigfoot, he's like, oh, OK.Yeah, yeah.Yeah.That makes sense.Right.Or black coat.But there's also something. Maybe she does this because she hates her name and she's like, I'm not a Geneva.
Don't call me that.That's my name, but don't call me that.Yeah.
So I think everybody feels that way about their name or they did at one point.Maybe like most people are like when they're like 12 or something, they're just like, call me something different.
There's also, I thought there was going to be like, in terms of the eco environmental thing, they're like, she's like, we got a trove of granite under our feet.
Like I thought there was gonna be like some kind of like mining environmental, like, yeah, but no, that's just there.
It's interesting.I think about the eco, when I was reading through, I kept thinking about the eco thing, because this was one of the first books that I thought to put on this list.I thought like the first three that I thought of immediately.
Was overstory, something going to the sun and this.Cool.And these three things together like seem to cover different parts of like a grander thing.And the reason why I chose this was because
The ethics of the way that we treat animals, I think are, has a lot to do with how we treat the planet in general, because we are selfish or something.
Apathetic.I don't know.It's just like I got so much going on.I can't worry about the deer.
Yeah Yeah, but then you would you do worry about the deer you can I tell you about something that happened yesterday, which is insane So I went to see The Shining.
Yep last night at the movie theater basically down the street from my house and when I got home, there was a box an open cardboard box on my On my front step.It was just an empty open empty box and And it was dark.
So I was like, what is going on with this box?So I've kind of flashlight on it and there was nothing inside of it.And I was just like, okay.So I went, I went inside and like recycling was due last night.So I had to put the thing out.
So I asked Jerry, I was like, what is going on with that box out there?And he goes with the bird in it.And I was like, uh, I guess.And he goes, Oh, um,
When I went to bring the recycling out, even though he's not supposed to do that, he knows that he's supposed to, whatever.I'm not going to go into that on this medium.There was a bird in the street that had been hit by a car or something.
And its wings were like going crazy and flapping.And he said it, it looked like its head was going to come off.And he said he didn't want it to get hit by a car.
So he went into my backyard and he got a pooper scooper and he scooped up the bird and he put the bird in a box.He brought the bird. and just left it in the box on my stoop.Uh-huh.And I was like, why?Uh-huh.
Like, I get, like, not wanting it to, but, like.Just move to the side of the road or something.Yeah, just, like, take the pooper scooper and, like, I would have launched it into my neighbor's yard.You have a combative relationship with your neighbor.
Yes, I do.But he, like, he was like, I didn't want it to get hit by a car.So I was like, so you just left it to die in the thing?And he was like, Yeah, I guess so.He couldn't really justify it.But then I was just like, guess what, Jerry?
I took him outside and I showed him the thing.I was like, there's no bird in there. So like one of three things happened.A bird flew away.Flew away.Got away somehow.Even though even though even though Jerry said its head was like coming off.
Got eaten by like a wolf or a fox or something.Yeah.Not a wolf but a fox.
Probably more likely the weird deaf cat that lives in my neighborhood.Or like another bird like a bigger like a hawk type bird.Sure.And got it out of the box.But there was an it was a completely empty box and he was baffled by it.
And I was just like yeah this is crazy. Or option for there was no bird or option for he he does.He's got like a little he's a little demented.I always feel weird saying that, because like, that's what you say for someone who has dementia.
You say they're demented, but like it feels fucked up.Yeah, right.Sure.Like you shouldn't say that you should admit that they would say you say he has dementia.
There is a part in this where the narrator, the main character, don't call her Gina, is in one of the letters that she writes to the police is also like. classic serial killer shit.The killer is writing.
Yeah, police.Yeah.Mr. Policeman, I gave you all the clues, but she's just like, it was the animals.
We should read that book.The snowman.Yeah.OK.
Yeah, it's good.You own Nezbo.
It's supposed to be really good because the movie they just ran out of money.They didn't shoot 30 percent.That's why the movie stinks.
Because that guy's other movies are also really good.So we can read the snowman.
Well, when we get to the pop. Okay.We'll do a poplet now.
Even though you and I have mapped out like the next like eight months and we're nowhere, actually probably the next like 10 months, there's no pop.
But anyway, in one of the letters to the police, she details all of the court cases that have been levied against animals.Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
And there was an episode of Lecture Hall, a podcast that I love that you know about, you don't think you listen to, but Dylan and Brophy host.And one of their topics was this, not from his book, but just like,
the time that like a bunch of rats to try and like all the animals like wind up winning because there's like we can't.What are we supposed to?What are we doing here?Yeah.But I'm just like, it's cool.
Can you reasonably expect a rat to not?
Well, I mean, if you can reasonably expect people to like bring a rat to court, I think anything goes.Yeah. What do you think it was?So like after that, like she's brought in for questioning basically, right?
And then she has like an episode and she like, is she like faking it?Cause like, there's a part of the book where like, she like, it seems like she might die.
Cause she like, she goes through a thing, she deteriorates and then she's like mentally whatever.She has this outburst in church.Maybe that's clear sanity.Maybe she's just angry.And because of that, she then gets fired from her English job.
there's like a part of this book where it's like she has been so level-headed like again all the time she's killing people we just don't know it but it seems like she's all level-headed and she's just like I don't know I just felt like it just it's like she gets sick in the middle of this book yeah I never I didn't think she was faking it she was just she got sick didn't occur to me and then it's it's a little blurry because the narrator is the one who was sick and so it's hard to tell the story of being sick okay I suppose
There's another thing here that's weird, which is which I'd like to get your take on if there is a take on it it's a little It seems like a difficult thing or something that you might just say like, oh There is an almost random capitalization.
I was wondering if that was like something to do with a translation.
But like an animal or a tool or whatever, right?
I mean, I think that it's a, it's a way to bring attention to a word or meaning to a word, but yeah.
Like how in screenplays sometimes a word will be in all caps.It's like, Oh, interesting.
I don't know.I mean, it's never like something that like, doesn't make sense.Like there's always like a, Oh, that makes sense to be capitalized.
I think the word animals usually capitalized.I mean, it's, it's bringing importance to a thing, but it's not something that is a reverent because I think like sometimes like policemen will be capitalized as well or something like that.
It's not something, it's not something to like importance maybe, but not reverence.
Do you have a take on that?
Other than that, it is again, drawing our attention to language and not only just to language, but to, well, I guess it is still language, but like to, to like the formal, like the super hyper formal aspects of grammar in the way that like words are transcribed on a page, whether it be those be like diacritical marks or, or, uh, capitalization or.
Like I was wondering, cause you know, like in like Spanish, there's like the two and the instead, like there's the formal and there's the casual and the formal.
It's like, I wonder, I thought it might just be like that, like in Polish, maybe there is like animal, then there's animal.And like, this is a way to differentiate between, I mean, I don't know.
I suppose that could be the case.I don't know enough about Polish.
Do you want to read Eczema or do you have other things to say?
Uh, let's, let's let her, uh, prompt some more thoughts.
We have an email address lottery at cage club dot me.If you want to write in about this book or any book.
I didn't talk with Egg about this book at all, except for that.She switched halfway through from the audio book.
I know she was struggling with the audio book.Cause everybody had accents or whoever was reading had a big accent.
Meg's reaction to Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Again Lottery at CagedClub.me.I liked this book, the egg wrote, but I found the ending to be kind of unsatisfying.
I wanted the animals to actually have been taking revenge, but I'm glad that Mrs. Dujeko was able to get away with it.The story itself reminded me of Death in Her Hands, which we mentioned before.
So she came to that conclusion completely independent of you and I. But I think that it's just because it's a book with an old woman as an unreliable narrator.
This would also be like a nice button to the end of like, this is the end of the podcast here.Just like we started with an old lady, we ended with an old lady.
Oh, well, I'm with an old lady.All right.What does that mean?I don't know.
I thought that the horoscope stuff was kind of funny, but I'm curious whether people who are more familiar with them would see this as a quote, legit, or if it was just a red herring or distraction from the fact that the murders were done by Ms.
By claiming the horoscopes as quote proof, it did increase the likelihood that she would be disregarded.I did like all the little hints that everyone was underestimating her, especially when it tied together at the end.
I felt bad for her every time that she was saying that no one paid attention to crazy old ladies, but I loved how at the end she used it to her advantage. And I'd like to have had more story about Oddball and his son, who's a member of the police.
But I also understand why we didn't get that story.I'm curious why Oddball distressed the police authority and why his son became one.I'm not really, are you?
No, but I, I understand the instinct to be curious.
I like that.There's like, there's not much, there's, there's, it's like, this is a lean.It's lean.
Yeah.And, and, and like, it's funny cause you look at her other books, some of them like book of Jacob, it's 900 pages or something or 1200 pages.
Yeah.Which I want to read, but like, who's got time for that when it's not for the podcast?
Fucking history of the novel right now.That's incredibly long.
I also wish that I had more of a historical background about Poland and the Czech Republic, and really Poland in general.
I feel like there were more subtle nuances that went over my head, such as the commandant goes, quote, the commandant joined the force to avoid going to the glassworks like the rest.
I think, yeah, I think that's a thing that you're in danger of.
Not in danger, but like that that's like something you have to take with reading literature and translation Yeah, if you want to read literature and translation and don't want to dedicate an entire year to reading one book Then you you kind of have to just accept up front that there's just gonna be some shit that you don't get That doesn't bother me.
I Mean me neither but it would you know, it would add depth to the story if you were familiar with what she's talking about like there are definitely some people in Poland who are like
Oh, the glassworks.Like, that's my life.
I found the note in the author's note to be particularly chilling.The fact that Father Russell's sermon was a compilation of real Hunt chaplain sermons.It felt like it grounded the horror of the book in reality.
Yeah, I found that too.I don't even normally read that stuff, but I read that and I thought that as well.Like, oh, she just like...
Well there's also something like when she's like, well they call the thing in the woods the pulpit, and he's on a pulpit and he's spouting about the same stuff.There's definitely parallels there that are weird.
All in all, Egg Rights, I like this book, but I feel like I would have liked it better if I was familiar with the actual history, much like Foxcatcher.
That's a that's that is a deep cut that So Foxcatcher is a movie that Meg and I went to see together.I did not like that movie Well, you're with Meg Meg hated that movie.
I thought that movie was excellent and she was shocked by the ending because she had no background in what the movie was about at all, didn't know anything about it.At the end, when she was like, that movie stunk.
I felt like I was waiting around for the entire movie for something to happen.And then the thing that happens, like,
If you know that that thing is going to happen when you watch the beginning, yeah, then you have the tension of that death is shot throughout.
But because she was completely ignorant about going about that, going into it, um, it like ruined her, her film experience.
But it also doesn't make sense because Meg is a person that when I just have a casual conversation with her about a television show, if I'm like, Oh yeah, this person's a guest star and she will be like, spoilers!What are you doing?
Why would you ruin that for me?And it's just like, like you can't like mention a song that's in a show.She'll get mad because everything is a spoiler.So if we had gone to that moment and be like, by the way, he gets shot at the end.
like she would have been so angry at me.So there's no there's no winning.
This is a fight that has been going on between me and you organically come upon.
Yeah.This is a fight that has been going on between me and Meg for five years or however long it's been since Foxcatcher came out.So we're not going to. We're not going to solve this problem right here.
Anyway, I think Foxcatcher is an excellent movie.I wish Bennett Miller would do another movie.What the fuck?That guy's been absent since Foxcatcher, and he is an excellent director.
I think he made a Christmas Carol movie that didn't come out or something like that.
I think so.Are you Googling it?Mm-hmm.
Well, not on Google, but otherwise.He executive produced Skyladder, the art of Kaiguo Chang.He directed Foxcatcher, directed Moneyball.He directed Capote.He directed The Cruise, which I don't know.
You also got special things from where the wild things are and then upcoming a Christmas Carol with no cast Yeah, your Christmas Carol has been upcoming for five years six years Bennett Miller is a great director and he's been out of our side for a long time.
Yeah, I don't like Foxcatcher independent of the ending I'm just like I don't like this movie, but
Another thing that we did not really talk about in terms of like only maybe noteworthy, I don't know if there's anything to say, but because it's environmental, we had a little bit of an over story.
But another thing that's new ish to this module is seasonal change, like snow melting and then snow coming again.Like we go through different like she's part of her duties or part of her narrative.
Her story here is that she is caretaker to a bunch of neighbors who like are there in the summer, but not in the winter.
And so it adds to the isolation and to the remoteness.But there's also something about like the literally drive your power over the bones of that is just like the bones of the dead are the trees and stuff that have fallen.
But also, I guess, in this case, animals and whatever.But it's like you're there's so much history underneath the thing, but just the plowing of the snow and the whatever.
But there was something to me that I was just like, oh, there's anything to say there.But no, I think we've not had a lot of in this module I mean, obviously the deluge takes over, takes over like 20 years and time progresses there.
But like here, like the literal, like it's winter, it's no longer winter, it's winter again.Felt.Yeah.Somewhat of note.
Yeah.Uh, you're going to see that in the very next book that we read as well.
Well, the book, the next book we read or the next book we record.We also have not released the episode of what the next module is. Shreds started reading the wrong book.Fuck you.Hey, man, you're like, we're doing this book next.I'm like, no.
Why are you airing our dirty laundry?I just want people to be like, in the next episode, you're dirty.
The next episode be like.There's nothing about the seasons in here.He lied to me.I'm never listening to this again.We lose twenty nine thousand nine hundred ninety five of our thirty thousand listeners.All we have left is the egg.
and Rundy and then three other people we don't know.I don't even know Rundy.
Clancy.Clancy is still with us I think.
Clancy, send us an email if you hear this.That guy who wrote in who found us about live vlog?
Yeah, write in.Guys, we need you.
We need you.30,000 strong.Just read, like, whatever you're reading now.
Tell, uh, let's wrap up the module.What's the... Oh, depressing as hell.Do you have anything to say?Just depressing as hell?
It's... I mean, that's the takeaway.I think also, like, Most of the books were dark, but or downers in some way or other.But I think having the deluge so close to the end.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.We maybe might could have switched the deluge in the over story and it would have been a little bit better.
Maybe.But also there is something I don't know if I said this in the episode, I just thought the last episode.
There's something nice about because we talked about like structuring of modules, like a baseball line of like having your second, your second.Yeah.
But there's also something nicely parallel about having like the big maybe best, maybe most important, also just longest books, second and penultimate.Right.Like it's just like you like fold it over, just like the big ones.
Yeah.It's very similar to curating a track list for a playlist or something like that, too.It's like you you Start off hot, get to raise the temperature a little bit.
We start and we started.We end really strong.We started with a book that you were not super crazy about because it started and the two optimistically.
I don't even remember what was the first book that we did.
It was the one about the chef in the mountains.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.That's right.
That book was called Pam.
Pam Chang's book.Pam Chang.
Land of Milk and Honey. Yeah Into the overstory something under the Sun barn a fever dream square wave deluge.
No, I know Square wave the glacier compound compound eyes Deluge traffic plow strong module strong module depressing module, but second strongest module Graphic novel was good.
I don't know that necessarily counts, but there's some really good stuff in there.
I think the internet was still our strongest though, probably.
The internet was a lot of fun.Adaptable had some really good stuff in it.Yeah.Very few modules I don't like.Yeah.Maybe the weakest overall is Campus.Some stuff there I love.
Well, you were brought down by Guile's Good Boy.
Well, we went from Guile's to Enzo, which is maybe my least favorite book to my favorite book, right?So like back to back.That's fun. The first one was diverse, but also we got our own meaning there.
So and had no like real theme.
It's hard to do that one.
This is I think I mentioned on a recent episode, this our 87th book.I think it's our hundred and ninth episode.
Ah, we should have done some Ed McBain's 87th precinct books for this episode.I keep reading talking.
Next week, we'll have our state module number four drawing.So stay tuned for that.
Oh, hell yeah.Um, yeah, I, I am going to say that, um, today's crime is reproducing.
art plagiarizing like a painting in a realistic way and then passing it off to a museum as though it's an original work of art that you sell for thousands of dollars like a Picasso or something like that.
Hey there somewhere on the black water A goat is sitting on a horse hungry A girl is sitting on a perch And a perch with Ukraine Hey, hey, hey falcons Wash away the mountains, forests and valleys Ring, ring, ring, little bell My step is close to the threshold Hey, hey, hey falcons
Oh, my dear, how I love you!
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