The Empusium
A Health Resort Horror Story
-
- 9,49 €
-
- 9,49 €
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
“A folk horror story with a deceptively light and knowing tone … elegant and genuinely unsettling.” –The New York Times Book Review
Strange doings in and around a sanitarium expose the horrors that lie beneath the 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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This haunting historical novel from Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk blends mystery, folklore, and philosophical debate. Suffering from tuberculosis, young Polish engineering student Mieczysław Wojnicz arrives at a mountain health resort in 1913, where he finds himself drawn into nightly debates with fellow patients on topics ranging from politics to the nature of the soul. As a strange local liquor flows, eerie noises emanate from the attic and legends of shape-shifters are told, hinting at darker forces at work in the surrounding wilderness. Combining disquieting suspense with analytical inquiry, Tokarczuk creates an atmosphere thick with ideas and dread. She turns familiar literary tropes on their heads to reflect on the horrors that lie beneath societal norms and the mysteries of the human condition. Against a backdrop of illness, superstition, and impending war, The Empusium is a mesmerizing journey into the shadows of history and the psyche.
