“The Books of Jacob” conjures up a society flooded with the new thinking that emerged from the Enlightenment and the French revolution. Eventually they return to Poland, where Frank dies and his followers join the growing bourgeoisie. Later his group move to Offenbach am Main in Germany, where they create a huge court and religious centre.

Liberated by Russian troops, he makes his way to Brno in Moravia, where he is befriended by Emperor Joseph II and his mother, Maria Theresa. He is accused of heresy and imprisoned for 13 years in a Polish fortress that also serves as a shrine to the Virgin Mary. “He’s a trickster-a charmer and a fraud.”Ī one-time convert to Islam, Frank persuades the group to be baptised as Catholics-and to experiment with incest and other forms of sexual licence-all in a bid for intellectual and emotional freedom. As the author herself has commented, Frank is an ambivalent figure, “ruthless yet sensitive, unpredictable but attentive”, practical if somewhat eccentric. In the mid-18th century they become followers of his heir, Jacob Frank, also based on a real figure (pictured), a tall, charismatic merchant who always dresses in a long coat and a high Turkish hat. The fog is so dense, though, that the crowd can only navigate by the burble of a river, a metaphor for readers who will also find themselves, as the Polish author says, on a “fantastic journey across seven borders, five languages and three major religions, not counting the minor sects”.Īt the centre of “The Books of Jacob” is a large group of Jews from Podolia, in what is now south-western Ukraine, adherents of a real-life Kabbalist rabbi and self-proclaimed Messiah called Sabbatai Tzvi. Vodka and mead are also on offer, Ms Tokarczuk writes, as well as wine from Hungary and the Rhineland. The air is scented with the sweet smell of malt from nearby breweries.

Horsemen, merchants, peasants and priests jostle along a muddy road in central Poland on their way to market.

The books of jacob fitzcarraldo