Sexism Viewed Through a Gothic Horror Lens
The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, is a feminist homage to Thomas Mann’s 1924 novel, The Magic Mountain. The story unfolds across the lush, atmospheric backdrop of Gorbersdorf, a sanitorium located in Lower Silesia. Renowned for its underground lake and clean, mountain air, the sanitorium boasts an exhaustive, cutting-edge regiment for curing even the most hopeless consumptives, but that does not mean it is devoid of deadly secrets.
When Mieczysław Wojnicz, a young Polish engineering student suffering from early signs of tuberculosis arrives at the resort in September 1913, he is determined to fit in amongst his peers. He takes a room at the Guesthouse for Gentlemen, where the boarders’ opinions are as intriguing as their carefully crafted facades, and tries not to behave like the sissy his father has long suspected him of being.
The Empusium, 2022
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Along with his fellow boarders, Wojnicz spends his days participating in rest cures, hydrotherapy, and scenic walks, and his evenings imbibing the local hallucinogenic liquor and debating the great moral quandaries of the age. Of paramount interest among the men is the baffling, infuriating subject of women. The more they talk, the more they drink, until suspicion begins to gnaw at Wojnicz’s mind that perhaps everything is not as it seems at Gorbersdorf. At night, the attic thrums with the cooing breath of some hungry, living thing. The forest is filled with strange female effigies the locals refer to as Tuntschi. And rumors swirl that once, long ago, a rebellious group of women ran into the woods, abandoning their respectable lives for an eternity of dark witchery. Is it simply the manic imaginings of an ill man? Or is something deeply, horribly wrong in this mountain valley of dead and dying men?
The Empusium is a tangled web of gothic horror and clever commentary on the strict gender roles of the early twentieth century. Featuring a cast of peculiar characters at turns hateable and heroic, Tokarczuk is unafraid to paint a sweeping portrait of sexism’s lasting impact on society’s psyche. For fans of strange, twisted stories of female vengeance, The Empuisum is a feast of flavors; a decadent delight dripping with bloody good prose and sugary, sweet somberness. But readers, be warned, this book has teeth. For every bite you take, The Empusium takes two. Begging the question: What hurts most, starting the feast or finishing it?
