In the Polish countryside, an aging farmer named Szymek sets out to build an elaborate family tomb—though his parents are already buried and his brothers long gone. His sprawling, digressive telling ranges from a wild youth through wartime resistance to a lifetime of village work, in a novel built entirely from one unforgettable voice.
Life begins and ends with words, and death is simply the point where words stop. Since a long silence waits for everyone anyway, every word we held back from each other will later weigh on us like a sin. So it makes no sense to force one another into silence while we are still alive.
Life is worth wanting for its own sake, as much and as long as possible, even when there is no further reason for it. Living might be the commandment God forgot to give. Nothing else on offer is better.
Building a grave costs nearly as much as building a home, because people treat it as one: a dwelling for the next life. Whether or not it lasts forever, a person wants a corner to call their own, even in death.
People belong to the particular soil they were born on, which is why villagers leaving home carried a little bundle of it with them. The earth is your cradle at birth, and death only lays you back down in it, rocking you until you are unborn again.
All the evil in the world comes from envy, and envy runs through everything that exists. Mountains envy mountains, small rivers envy big ones, and even one apple on a tree envies the apple next to it.