Rivka Galchen

Something Wicked in Leonberg

This is a story set in the Holy Roman Empire in a small town in The Duchy of Württemberg in the early part of the 17th century. A time and place where ordinary people aka peasants were plagued by witches or being accused of being one (females only), the Black Death, famine, aristocratic rule (males only), and the Thirty Years War.

It was a tough time, especially for women, especially old ones, and especially ones with higher levels of intelligence than your average Joachim.

The story is told in the most part through the eyes of an old woman, as are so many stories written in.the 21st century.

The central character, Katherina is in her seventies and husbandless, again as are many main characters of current fiction. She lives alone her companion being her cow, Camilla. Life is good until she is accused of being a witch for causing the infertility of a fellow townswoman, who had been given a drink by Katherina. Other charming citizens rise to the occasion with their own stories of Katherine’s witch activity. A pig’s foot is broken, a man has a sore knee, someone falls ill with symptoms of the plague. All Katherina has to do is cross their paths.

A trial ensues and in the end … well that would spoil the story. Suffice it to say that many people die and Camilla’s cow is re-homed.

The engaging feature of Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch is the way it describes the lives of ordinary people in the early 17th century in what is now part of Germany. There are no plot twists, no moral lessons, no ambiguities or parallels. It is a story simply told.

I enjoyed it. What you see is what you get - a well-written book by a scholarly writer. The sort of book one could imagine reading in front of a fire in a leather armchair while it is ever-so softly snowing outside.

In short a pleasant book about unpleasant people.… (más)

I think I would've liked this book a lot more if someone had told me to read it in terms of love. I think I was reading it as more of a mystery, waiting for a super twist that would put everything in its place.

Still, it's an interesting book. Galchen is a clever writer and there were many individual sentences and paragraphs that I just loved for the way they twisted logic and convention. This book, to me, is kind of about rational insanity. And I've said it before, but I'll say it again: THINKY DEATH!

As for the shelf I put it on, it's not really magical realism at all, but I'd recommend it to anyone who likes to follow characters who see the world in a skewed way, or, you know, characters who inhabit a slightly skewed world. Also maybe psychology majors.… (más)

Inspired and partly based on the records of the court case where the mother of Johannes Kepler, the astronomer, was accused of being a witch. The title recurs in the text in several places—it seems Katharina is accused and the accusation rings true because everybody is already saying it. In the background, it seems to be about anything other than witchcraft—ordinary village gossip, jealousies, years of bad harvests, people not getting along. It's not about facts or evidence, but gossip, hearsay, stories, statements to the authorities, which are reflected in the structure of the book.… (más)