Abstract
Astrology has invaded literary fiction. Astrological references harrow the plot of Nobel Prize-winning Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2019). The novel’s eccentric, zodiac-obsessed protagonist, Janina Duszejko, lives on the post-Soviet Czech-Polish border and uses astrological charts to track down the hunters who killed her “three Little girls” who turn out to be dogs. As Poland’s most famous contemporary novelist, Tokarczuk straddles the post-Iron Curtain world, postmodernism, and the occult. Her Poland is multicultural; Mrs. Duszejko’s best friend Dizzy translates William Blake into Polish. The novel’s title comes from Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell.”
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Notes
- 1.
C.f. William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell: “In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead…. All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap.”
- 2.
Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob, trans. Jennifer Croft (New York: Riverhead Books 2021), p. 859.
- 3.
- 4.
Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), p. 206.
- 5.
Linda Goodman, Sun Signs (Taplinger Publishing Company 1968).
- 6.
Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones (New York: Riverhead Books, 2018). All quotations are followed by page numbers in parentheses.
- 7.
- 8.
See Antonio Damasio’s Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Feeling Brain (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1994) and his Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious (New York: Pantheon, 2021), pp. 143 f.
- 9.
Quoted in Liz Greene, Jung’s Studies in Astrology (New York: Routledge, 2018).
- 10.
- 11.
The phenomenon is described as influencing a person’s life development at roughly 29.5-year intervals, coinciding with the approximate time it takes the planet Saturn to make one orbit around the sun, roughly 29.5 years. As Saturn “returns” to the degree in its orbit occupied at the time of birth, a person crosses over a major threshold and enters the next stage of life.
- 12.
C.f. Ernst Cassirer The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1923).
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
In Luke 21:25, Jesus tells his disciplines, “There shall be signs in the sun, moon, and stars,” predicting his return.
- 17.
- 18.
Jeremy Lent: The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2017), 431.
- 19.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Compensation.” https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/compensation.html
- 20.
Quoted in Julius Seelye Bixler, “Mysticism and the Philosophy of William James” International Journal of Ethics 36 (1925): 71–85.
- 21.
See Wikipedia on the list of Polish astrologers from the fifteenth through the twentieth century. For, example, Marcin Bylica (c.1433 in Olkusz) served as the physician and astrologer to of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary. Michael Falkener (ca. 1450 or 1460 in Wrocław) was a professor of astrology at the Kraków Academy. Robert Maria Walter (b. 1908 in Lvov, d. 1981) was a famous Polish anthroposophist, astrologer, and homeopath.
- 22.
For the article on astrology as science, Stierwalt, Sabina “Is Astrology Real? Here’s what science says,” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-astrology-real-heres-what-science-says/. For astrology and neuroscience, see Edward Frederick Block IV, Ph.D. Updated May 2006 http://diamondhead.net/amnhb.htm
- 23.
Raphael. The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century: Or the Master Key of Futurity, being a Complete System of Astrology, Geomancy & Occult Science. (London: Knight and Lacey), 1825.
- 24.
Nicholas Campion, A History of Western Astrology. Volume II: The Medieval and Modern Worlds (Bloomsbury, 2009).
- 25.
Amanda Hess “How Astrology Took Over the Internet” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/arts/how-astrology-took-over-the-internet.html
- 26.
- 27.
“A Terra é Plana e Não se Move ? ! ! ! ? Olavo de Carvalho.” YouTube.
- 28.
Antony P. Mueller, “Understanding Russia’s War: The Strange Philosophy of Aleksandr Dugin – Analysis “(Eurasia Review, May 19, 2022).
- 29.
Quoted from Jennifer Senior, “American Rasputin,” Atlantic July/August 2022. See also Benjamin Teitelbaum’s War for Eternity: Inside Bannon’s Far-Right Circle of Global Power Brokers (New York: Dey Street Books, 2020).
- 30.
The Dalai Lama’s connection to astrology is laid out in Charles Ramble’s obscurely detailed research in the article, L’assimilation de l’astrologie dans la religion tibétaine Bon. https://doi.org/10.4000/extremeorient.288
- 31.
- 32.
Vegan Astrology Total Guide https://www.mypandit.com/astro-fun/vegan-astrological-signs/
- 33.
Bibliography
Books and Articles
Bixler, Julius Seelye, “Mysticism and the Philosophy of William James” International Journal of Ethics 36 (1925): 71–85.
Campion, Nicholas. A History of Western Astrology. Volume II: The Medieval and Modern Worlds (Bloomsbury, 2009).
Cassirer, Ernst The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1923).
Damasio, Antonio Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Feeling Brain New York: G.P. Putnam, 1994.
Damasio, Antonio Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious (New York: Pantheon, 2021), pp. 143 f.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo “Compensation.” https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/compensation.html
Goodman, Linda. Sun Signs Taplinger Publishing Company 1968.
Greene, Liz. Jung’s Studies in Astrology. New York: Routledge, 2018.
Lent, Jeremy The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2017.
Mueller, Antony P. “Understanding Russia’s War: The Strange Philosophy of Aleksandr Dugin – Analysis” (Eurasia Review, May 19, 2022).
Raphael. The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century: Or the Master Key of Futurity, being a Complete System of Astrology, Geomancy & Occult Science. London: Knight and Lacey, 1825.
Ramble, Charles L’assimilation de l’astrologie dans la religion tibétaine Bon
Ruddick, Sara. Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace Boston: Beacon Press, 1989.
Jennifer Senior, “American Rasputin,” Atlantic July/August 2022
Teitelbaum, Benjamin. War for Eternity: Inside Bannon’s Far-Right Circle of Global Power Brokers New York: Dey Street Books, 2020.
Tokarczuk, Olga. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones New York: Riverhead Books, 2018.
Tokarczuk, Olga The Books of Jacob, trans. Jennifer Croft. New York: Riverhead Books, 2021.
Web Sources
https://astrologicalmusings.com/dalai-lamas-buddha-aditya-yoga/
https://www.autostraddle.com/your-completely-queer-guide-to-horoscope-hookups-156790/
https://www.bigumbrella.co.in/astrological-analysis-of-liver-diseases-prostate-cancer-renal-failure
https://www.bklynlibrary.org/blog/2020/01/12/olga-tokarczuk-interview
Edward Frederick Block IV, Ph.D. Updated May 2006 http://diamondhead.net/amnhb.htm.
“A Terra é Plana e Não se Move ? ! ! ! ? Olavo de Carvalho.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hETItWFxTDw
Hess Amanda. “How Astrology Took Over the Internet” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/arts/how-astrology-took-over-the-internet.html
https://michaellutin.com/2022/01/27/time-to-get-naked-and-change-your-life/
Vegan Astrology Total Guide https://www.mypandit.com/astro-fun/vegan-astrological-signs/
Stierwalt, Sabina “Is Astrology Real? Here’s what science says” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-astrology-real-heres-what-science-says/
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Straus, N. (2023). Olga Tokarczuk, the Astrology Industry, and Women’s Anxiety. In: Burns, W. (eds) Astrology and Western Society from the First World War to Covid-19. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40486-3_8
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