BookBrowse Reviews The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft

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A labyrinthine tale that twists truth and perception against the lush, fantastical background of a primeval Polish forest.

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Eight translators, each rendering Polish into a different target language. One globally adored, eccentric author, thought to be in line for an "inevitable Nobel Prize." The eccentric author's tall house of "undulating, unscathed oak" stuffed with various aged knickknacks, large enough to accommodate all eight translators as they gather to usher her latest book, believed to be her masterpiece, into their respective tongues. Poland's ancient Białowieża Forest (see Beyond the Book), lurking on the edge of the author's village near Belarus, an intense place crawling with death, life, and fungi.

These frankly grandiose elements make up Jennifer Croft's debut novel The Extinction of Irena Rey. A reader who hasn't seen the Białowieża Forest can easily imagine it to be as stunning as it appears here, but the way the first-person narrator, Spanish-language translator Emilia Martini (aka Emi), introduces eponymous author Irena Rey and the fictional world of literary celebrity she embodies is already a bit much: "Many tried to describe her indescribable aura. Some said it was akin to fine filaments of strummed silver that hovered over her dark cascading hair. Others were reminded of the southern lights, brilliant streaks that hissed across her deep-sky eyes." Luckily for the reader who is already rolling their own eyes, Croft, herself the Booker-winning translator of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, has built a story containing layers of skepticism and wavering reality.

This is partly evident in how it is impossible to refer to the "author" of this "book" without raising the question of whether this means Croft, Irena, Emi, or Alexis Archer, who has the first word in a translator's note, explaining that the following text is a novel written in imperfect Polish by an author whose first language is Spanish (Emi) and then translated into English by Alexis. Alexis is herself the foundation of a character (Irena's English-language translator) in Emi's novel, supposedly based on events they both experienced. Furthermore, Emi considers Alexis a kind of nemesis, and Alexis admits to having taken some liberties to correct the "atmosphere of wrongness" created by Emi's Polish, claiming that every original sentence "becomes a kind of tiny haunted house."

Into this layered linguistic fort springs the story's plot. Shortly after arriving at Irena's, the translators, accustomed to working with their author in a cultish, retreat-style format, notice something is amiss. Irena's husband, Bogdan, appears to have vanished, and Irena is behaving strangely. Soon, she goes missing herself, and the translators are faced with solving the mystery of her disappearance, while also working on their translations and trying to save her beloved Białowieża Forest from increased logging activity.

This story offers several points of metaphorical intersection on themes such as the destruction and creation of writing and translation, the toxic nature of celebrity, and the invisibility of the translator and artist. Croft's novel is genuinely clever in a way that is often delightful. It also, at times, creaks under the weight of its construction. Understanding that there are reasons behind certain strange tediums doesn't keep the prose from sometimes feeling as inscrutable and overwrought as Irena's weird house; one can't help but think that Alexis, who according to Emi believes translation to be a kind of editing, wasn't brutal enough.

Still, the construction holds, and the slow revelation of Emi's humorously flawed character, checked and balanced by footnoted comments from Alexis, is worth the ride. Emi is appalled by Alexis's philosophy, believing that translation should preserve the purity of the author's original intent. She is naive in her ideals but cynical about human relationships, constantly flickering between fickleness and suspicion. She becomes romantically obsessed with Freddie, the Swedish translator, while thinking he may have been having an affair with Irena, is devastated to find he is married, then learns he is in an open marriage, after which she begins having sex with him but thinks he is also sleeping with Alexis, even while knowing that Alexis is not generally interested in men. Emi's views on translation are tied to her insecurities; she makes choices based on her idea of what others find desirable, seeking out competition and conflict at all turns, a trait that eventually culminates in her challenging Alexis to a literal duel.

These characteristics make Emi a perfect acolyte for Irena, as well as something of a reflection of her. Croft's novel is full of playful jokes about the nature of translation and art, but the fire that fuels it is its exploration of power and convenience. It becomes apparent that Irena, who hangs over the plot like a specter, present even in her absence, is using the translators to maintain her own influence. They are also using her, to derive a sense of purpose and significance. But this doesn't make their relationship with her equal, nor does it make it sustainable as it stands. The millennia-old forest, hovering nearby with its ever-present exchanges of birth and demise, serves as a reminder that change is inevitable.

This review first ran in the March 6, 2024 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.