Physiology and Theology

This theme is recurring, starting with vignette three. Tokarczuk writes about how physiology and theology are more solid and stable than other studies, such as psychology, that they are the pillars of our knowledge. Hence the term “pilgrimages” for her characters’ travels. Pornography and religion are the only things the narrator can find on a hotel tv when the channels are broadcast from somewhere where it is night in “Pursuit of Night.” Tokarczuk ends this vignette with a summary of the subject of these channels: “The body and the divine. Physiology and theology” (101). The feelings of reverence that a man expresses by kissing the relics that are body parts—praised for their freshness—being kissed by someone evokes a feeling of disgust because the objects of his devotion are described as “snippet” of a nose, a head with a hat, “deceased for some three...