This odd book is described as a ‘health resort horror story’. It’s set in Silesia, just before the First World War. I wasn’t sure where exactly the region is, but Wikipedia tells me it’s in Poland with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. The story is about a group of men who have tuberculosis and are staying at the sanitorium, where the fresh mountain air, cold showers and hearty cooking are supposed to cure them. The main character is a young man, Wojnicz (pronounced voy-nitch), an anxious and passive kind of person who feels a sense of dread about the place. I understand the novel is a feminist take on Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, which I haven’t read.

The story is very, very slow-moving. There are many dreary paragraphs of the other men reciting what sound like essays on the prevailing intellectual opinions of the era, about politics, philosophy and especially women. These go on and on, which is perhaps the real horror of the book! On a serious note, I think the most tangible horror is the suffering caused by tuberculosis. I didn’t think the more supernatural horror element was particularly well done, but I did think it clever who the ‘we’, which the narrative voice sometimes slips into, turned out to be. Some of the writing expressions were very interesting and unusual, but old-fashioned at the same time, which gave the book the feel of a classic work. I didn’t enjoy the book much and was frustrated with it, but it was certainly different.

First published in Polish as Empuzjon, 2022. English translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2024.