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The Empusium

By: Olga Tokarczuk
Narrated by: Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Natasha Soudek
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Publisher's summary

AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER!

“A folk horror story with a deceptively light and knowing tone … elegant and genuinely unsettling.”–The New York Times Book Review

The Nobel Prize winner’s latest masterwork, set in a sanitarium on the eve of World War I, probes the horrors that lie beneath our most hallowed ideas

September 1913. A young Pole suffering from tuberculosis arrives at Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen in the village of Görbersdorf, a health resort in the Silesian mountains. Every evening the residents gather to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur and debate the great issues of the day: Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women born inferior? War or peace? Meanwhile, disturbing things are happening in the guesthouse and the surrounding hills. Someone—or something—seems to be watching, attempting to infiltrate this cloistered world. Little does the newcomer realize, as he tries to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target.

A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Olga Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, with signature boldness, inventiveness, humor, and bravura.

©2024 Olga Tokarczuk (P)2024 Penguin Audio
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Critic reviews

“Deft and disturbing. . . In Antonia Lloyd-Jones’s crisp translation, Tokarczuk tells a folk horror story with a deceptively light and knowing tone. . . elegant and genuinely unsettling.”—Hari Kunzru, The New York Times Book Review

“In Tokarczuk’s hands, the staid genre of the bildungsroman erupts with sinister possibility…. A grand fantasy of revenge …taut, febrile.”—Washington Post

“A novel that in Tokarczuk’s dexterous hands transcends its own limits, further cementing the Nobel laureate as one of the most original storytellers of our age. Equipped with only our measly five senses, it leaves us questioning—just like her characters—what might be hiding in plain sight.”—Financial Times

What listeners say about The Empusium

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    3 out of 5 stars

I'm still thinking about it weeks later

This was a slow moving plot, in much the way I feel when I read Dostoyevsky, and has lots of long conversations of men expounding their views on all things. There were some absolutely creepy parts on several levels for me as a woman reader. And that is definitely the point.

It was beautifully written, I felt myself in the mountains many times, and the conclusion was 5 stars for me. Which makes me think overall it deserves 5 stars, but I know many people will struggle with the pace of the book.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Never ending Misogyny

Well written story that recreates a place in time very well.
However, this title was listed in the “horror” section. In my opinion that does a disservice to an otherwise well researched tale, its locale, and the research involved in the above mentioned misogyny.
There is actually a teeny element of horror but honestly I was so constantly horrified by the men/misogyny that the event was the lesser of the evils.

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3 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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story never engaged me

felt like I was being slowly boiled in a stew of misogyny, blind middle-class, white male entitlement and ignorance, and a lovely central European landscape painting. I stopped 6 hours short of the end. was the promised ultimate horror meant to be hours of navel-gazing boredom? like the humour of Andy Kaufman, this novel was not for me.

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1 person found this helpful