Extremely original. Feels like it was written during its setting of early 20th century. Eerie but just not quite clear enough in its delivery for me.

Dear Author,



Your voice carries a weight that commands my attention; your words captured me. I knew nothing of your previous work; in all honesty, you are unknown to me. But I am very pleased I found this novel. The horror may not be what I’m used to, although the horror of misogyny is real and relevant. I enjoyed your book and look forward to reading your other works.



Yours truly,

J. D. McCoughtry



Thank you, NetGalley and Riverhead Books, for the chance to read this e-arc.

As a Thomas Mann superfan, you know I had to check out The Empusium. Tokarczuk and Mann could not be more different in writing styles which is why The Empusium works so well. There is more restraint here in terms of the size of the story but also the visceral horror of this version. Tokarczuk drops you right into the mix of this health resort, a feast for your senses.

This has some fun horror moments but overall it just drags. It's overly descriptive and I could not keep my mind from wandering while reading. I just wasn't that engaged. Based on reviews I'm in the minority. Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC

The Empusium is a book that builds up the atmosphere until reader's will be able to smell and taste the changing seasons of the health resort and the underlying rot of the place. Although there are women in the story, often illusive creatures, and basically unknown to any of the characters, this is an extremely satisfying feminist story where the men of the resort can talk of nothing but women. Often parroting misogynist philosophers, but to humorous effect, proving themselves bumbling idiots who have only each other to impress, and who could only impress one another at any rate. For readers who are not afraid to read ridiculous statements that could make a woman very very angry, but remember these men may well die at the resort, as one seems to every November.

This was excellent. So strange, weird, creepy, haunting. While this was really god and enjoyable all the way through, it definitely picks up in the last quarter of the book and gets pretty intense. Definitely read the authors not at the end. Fascinating.

A satire of pretentious men at a health resort that is bogged down by the extensive debates of the pretentious men. That said, the book had a terrific slow-build surprise.

In the years before a cure was available for tuberculosis, those who could afford it would retreat to sanatoriums in the mountains or somewhere where the air was supposed to be better. Patients could receive all kinds of treatments, ranging from enforced rest to hydrotherapy to whatever the doctors in charge could think up. None of this actually cured the patient; only antibiotics could do that. The Behmer Sanatorium, in the mountains of Silesia, seems to be one of the more benign sanatoriums until our protagonist, Mieczysław, starts to see hints that something sinister is going on among the townsfolk of Görbersdorf. In Olga Tokarczuk’s slow-burning new novel, The Empusium, we are treated to a strange blend of folk horror and historical fiction along with Mieczysław. This book is beautifully translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

Mieczysław is a polite young man who has been sent by his father to the Behmer Sanatorium to get him out of the dirty air of urban Lwów. He is the quiet sort, preferring to listen instead of talk and, my, to his fellow patients residing in Willi Opitz’s guesthouse for gentlemen like to talk. Tokarczuk’s authors note reveals that many of the things these men say come straight from philosophers and writers ranging from Plato and Aristotle to Sigmund Freud and Jean-Paul Sartre. Mieczysław is a master at controlling his emotions and reactions (we learn why over the course of the novel) and it’s a very good thing because the ideas espoused by some of these patients are absolutely infuriating to any right-thinking person who believes that women are people, too. If I had been a maid at this particular guesthouse, I would be spitting in their food and indulging in other forms of petty revenge every chance I got.

Like the tuberculosis bacilli, it takes a while for the symptoms of what is wrong in Görbersdorf to present. Mieczysław notes in the cemetery that an awful lot of men seem to have died on about the same day in November over the years. Then there are the female figures built out of dirt, wood, and other organic material scattered throughout the woods. And there’s the Schwärmerei, a curious drink that makes Mieczysław drift a bit from reality every time it’s pushed on him. (The German word Schwärmerei means, as far as I can tell, a kind of limerance.) I had no idea where Tokarczuk was going with all of this until late in the book, when everything came together in one of the most astonishingly satisfying (and violent) climaxes I’ve ever seen in fiction. The Empusium is definitely a slow read but the reward is well worth the patience.

As I read, I was struck by the narration of The Empusium. The narration is a “we” and it’s not always Mieczysław, who we often follow so closely that it feels like the narration is shifting from first-person plural to close third-person. This “we” is most noticeable when Mieczysław indulges in his temptation to touch fabrics and embroidery, eats a meal, or wanders around the woods. The text becomes incredibly rich in sensory detail in a wonderful contrast to the hot air spewed by the other men at the Opitz guesthouse. Their words feel very hollow, almost meaningless, in comparison to the real sensation of touching the bark of a tree or trying to sift through different flavors on one’s tongue. Although hurtful, all those philosophical arguments come from a group of dudes who really need to go out and touch grass (and at least talk to a woman for once in their lives).

I admit that there were parts of The Empusium I struggled with (mostly dialogue between the men at the guesthouse) but I am really glad I stuck with it. I can’t express how much I loved the conclusion of this book. Everything came together so fantastically (literally and figuratively) and satisfyingly that I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who likes a reading challenge.

"Health Resort Horror Story" is such a fun concept for a novel. Olga Tokarczuk's The Emposium was a mix of gothic and body horror with a mix of unsettling and strong atmosphere.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Pengin Group Riverhead for an advanced copy of this novel that deals with a young man, traveling to the mountains to help him deal with his illness, but finds much more than he expected among the curious denizens he finds there.

Current media trends seem to be in looking back rather than looking ahead, mining old intellectual properties, for modern audiences. This has in many ways mixed success. This inundation of remakes, reimagining, reboots, and retreads has gone past saturation and into a flood of just material, some of which really does not beg for sequels. Even publishing has hopped on this bandwagon. People are releasing books on minor characters in classics, writing about what could have been for great characters, or what happens when the popular adventures are over. Some of these have been ok, most of them have been awful. Few have equaled the source material. The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story by Olga Tokarczuk has taken the idea of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain and made something fresh, new feminist, scary and very reveling about today, even based on a book over one hundred years old.

Mieczysław Wojnicz is a young man in very poor health. Wojnicz's lungs are filled with tuberculosis, forcing him to travel away from his father, and at great cost come to the Gobersdorf Institute for treatment. The dry clime, the high mountains and the lack of lung ailments makes this a very popular place for treatment, and as such Wojnicz must stay in the Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen, run by a particularly odd man. Wojnicz is an engineer by study, focusing on the art of sewer treatment, a study that his ailment made quite difficult. Wojnicz is barely there a day when the wife of Opitz commits suicide, her body laid out table that hours later the guests will use to dine on. Wojnicz is introduced to a heady alcohol, a mushroom liqueur, which causes a lot of strange conversation, usually about woman to come up. Before going to bed Wojnicz is told that almost every year a few male patients seem to have bad things happen to them, dying not of disease, but of violence. And the more time Wojnicz spends there, the darker and sinister everything seems to becoming.

Using The Magic Mountain as a start, Tokarczuk has created a novel that is both gothic in feeling, deep in thinking, and feminist in writing. I'm not sure if Nobel award winners have hommaged or if this is the first. This is a heady book and one that I nearly gave up on until something went click in my head, so be patient. Wojnicz is an interesting character, one who seems naive and lost in the world, but one with his head more secure than most of the people in this book. The other characters are also well written, even when saying of doing some horrible things. My favorite part of the book is that the writer shares that many of the misogynistic comments made by the men, are real comments from men of letters discussing women. There is a list at the end of the book. I thought that was not only a good idea, but a brave idea, and I am sure a few people will not like that addition.

A gothic horror story with body horror, class horror, the horror of being a woman in a man's world, and some beautiful writing. The translator did a wonderful job, I saw nothing odd, or awkward in the translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Not the book one expects from a Nobel prize winner, but a great book with a lot of big ideas, and a strong atmosphere, that gives a nice spooky feel.

_The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story_ is a historical fiction read that is thought-provoking and unsettling, complete with well-developed characters. It follows Mieczysław, a young man suffering with tuberculosis, as he stays at a health resort catering to male patients. Through plentiful dialogue the reader is invited into the discussions of the men, ruminating on topics such as war, the female’s place in society, and forms of government. But while they receive treatments, mysterious phenomena take place.

Olga Tokarczuk’s latest novel is a captivating dive into a sanitarium on the eve of World War I. Set in September 1913, the story follows a young Pole with tuberculosis who arrives at Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen. Amidst debates on monarchy, democracy, and the existence of devils, the residents face unsettling events hinting at a mysterious force infiltrating their lives.

Tokarczuk’s narrative is rich with Eastern European dread and philosophical discussions, reminiscent of Thomas Mann’s *The Magic Mountain* but with her own bold twist. The conclusion, tying up the murders and Wojnicz's future, is satisfying and well-executed.

I was so engrossed that I immediately ordered her previous work, *Jacob*. Tokarczuk’s ability to challenge simplistic worldviews is just one reason why she deserved the Booker and the Nobel Prize.

First off, my thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Riverside for the eARC of this title, to be published September 24, 2024. The publication of the English translations of 2018 Nobel Prize winner Tokarczuk (and, I just found out, a career clinical psychologist!) is a little haphazard. This is her first novel since "The Books of Jacob", published in Poland in 2014, but not in English until 2022. 2022 is when this novel was published in Poland.
A brilliant rewrite of Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain". Set in the real life TB institute of Gobersdorf in 1913. Tokarczuk, close to 100 years later (MM - 1924) writes a true "novel of ideas", but with a twist of E European horror, and misogyny. As her source note at the end indicates, she took actual writings from many famous (male, of course) authors on women, and has her residents of a guest house voice them. They make that kicker for the KC Chiefs sound progressive and open minded.
Antonia Lloyd-Jones does her usual excellent translation of Tokarczuk's prose. She had earlier done "Primeval and Other Times" (1996/2010 - and the hardest [$$$$] of Tokarczuk's books to find), "House of Day, House of Night" (1998/2002), and "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead" (2009/2019 - and the only other Tokarczuk I have read).
There are a few minor flaws in here. How does August August find out about Wojnicz' difference? A couple anachronisms. And the sudden trip to the attic - followed by nothing about what he finds there and what he does with his find. That scene in particular just seemed to float unattached to anything else in the novel.
But from the beginning there is that, to me, wonderful E European dread, a dread that is based on "something" in Nature. And the discussion of ideas, not just women. And Tokarczuk expresses and presents those ideas well - there is no hesitation while reading, wondering. "Now what IS she talking about here?"
Tokarczuk ties up the conclusion quickly. The murders/sacrifices, but also Wojnicz' future. But she does it well, and it does not come off as false, or that she had become bored with writing this book and wanted to end it and move on to something else!
I started reading this almost as soon as I had access to my eARC, and half way through I ordered a copy of "Jacob". Now here's hoping I have the patience to make it through that near 1,000 pp tome.
No surprise that the Polish rightists hate her - she answers their (and similar right wing populists parties, such as the old GOP in the US) simplistic/B&W/one-or-none world POV in this novel.
Outstanding, and further proof of why she deserved the Booker and the Nobel.