But sometimes I fear that the people of my country can unite only beside victims' bodies, over coffins and in cemeteries. Like tribesmen who dance around old totems, we ignore the living and can only appreciate the dead.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the lamentable tendency of a society to unite only in times of mourning rather than appreciating the living.
Olga Tokarczuk's quote speaks to a somber reality where communities bond and find common ground only in the face of tragedy, mourning the dead rather than celebrating the living. It highlights a profound disconnect between individuals in life, suggesting that collective identity may be rooted more in loss than in the shared experience of existence, prompting reflection on how societies value the dead over the living and the importance of cherishing those still with us.
In practice
In a speech about community resilience during a memorial service.
But the fact is we did have colonies in the east of Poland, we did have a slave economy there. But this is not common knowledge - or part of our national myth. It goes against the current romanticised view of the government, and much of the country, that Poles have always been victims, never oppressors.
My books are not 'political.' I don't make political demands. They actually describe life. But when we look at human life, politics creeps in everywhere.
I think that first-person narration is very characteristic of contemporary optics, in which the individual performs the role of subjective center of the world.
The world is a fabric we weave daily on the great looms of information, discussions, films, books, gossip, little anecdotes.
I first read Sigmund Freud's 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle' as a young girl, and it helped me to understand that there are thousands of possible ways to interpret our experience, that everything has a meaning, and that interpretation is the key to reality. This was the first step to becoming a writer.
Well-written novels make you more empathetic towards other people. You can identify with someone who isn't you. You can change your identity. A 14-year-old boy can become Anna Karenina. It is a miracle.
Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation.
Being for every man the touchstone of faith and love, the Eucharist, like on the Cross, divided the minds as soon as it was announced... Nothing engages a man as much as does the Eucharist
Being critical of the nation is a far cry from being unpatriotic or anti-American. In fact, most social criticism . . . is based on a love of America's ideals and a concern we're not living up to them.
Being harmless means being so strong, so empowered, that the idea of showing power through harm is not even a part of your consciousness.
In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line.
And I watch my words from a long way off. They are more yours than mine. They climb on my old suffering like ivy.
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