Tokarczuk goes back to the moment in Polish history that has not been elaborated on so far by any other author. Perhaps, this extraordinary story required an equally exceptional narrator. It was her very anarcho-mystical approach that enabled to show Poland as a both familiar (manors, bishops, shtetls) and unfamiliar place, a country whose religious tolerance and Catholic identity has been called into question.
The Frankist heresy was conceived in a multinational, mixed and diverse society. As a mystical but also pragmatic movement it disregarded limitations of tradition, dogma and custom. In today’s discourse it could be defined in terms of a challenge to stale identities and forms, as a prologue to anarchism and socialism. Moreover, the phenomenon described by Tokarczuk is very ambiguous, just as ambiguous is the figure of Jakub Frank, a mystic and a despot, revolutionary and strategist, quack and sage.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that the story of Frank captivated Tokarczuk at this time. There is a sense of a collective urge for self-determination in the air. The Polish account of its past invites new interpretations and leaves room for new, unobvious narratives at the personal level as much as at the level of the entire population with its entangled Polish-Jewish heritage. Tokarczuk emphasizes in interviews that The Books of Jacob is her most ‘pro-social’ project, in which she leaves herself on the side, and writes about other people and for the people.