Reviews

Flights is such a bizarre book, snippets that flit from one narrative to the next, leaving the reader slightly dazed. It almost feels like several different novels smashed into one - when you reach a new storyline and get into it, the old one fades into the background, like a half-remembered dream, and it seems impossible that they’re part of the same book. A man who’s wife and child go missing, a woman who runs away from the responsibility of being a caregiver to her son, a drunk ferry captain who essentially kidnaps a group of passengers, a scientist curating preserved human remains - all of these stories that don’t really go together and yet do. It’s quite something, I can’t say I loved it but it’s certainly unique, and I’m glad I read it.

lakmus's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

Notes to self:
A collection of short stories that subtly weave together to riff on some themes (travel, running away, disappearing, death; anatomical dissections and preservations as also a kind of travel, running away, disappearing, and death), briefly passing by and stopping a bit longer to visit a wide assortment of people.

I don't think I've read anything like it before; it's weird but I liked it, although I can't say there is much happening at any given moment, but overall there is a lot. The language is descriptive but doesn't seem heavy to me, it's vivid but to the point.

Many of the stories were told from a woman's point of view or otherwise showed off that this was written by a woman and honestly that was kind of cool too – like the story of the Russian woman who ran away to live on the subway for a few days to escape her invalid child and unemployed (?) husband and her mother-in-law, and the suffocating routine of caring for them all. And I didn't think I'd see in print somebody pointing out those silly trivia tidbits they put on pad packaging, which is not at all important really, but it's a little piece of reality that helps ground writing and make it seem real through the mundane things (the author does that a lot actually, guess there's that connection with the body she's doing throughout the whole thing).

gal_yosh's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

kskaro's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

Obvious masterpiece once you get into it.

wildblackberrydays's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

masomaro's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

Livro estranho, com estrutura pouco definida. Parece um livro de crónicas ou um diário de bordo, com contos à mistura.
Muito focado no tema do corpo e da sua plastinação.
Não percebi ao certo o objecto do livro... são muitos pontos e muitas ideias.

lilias's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

Flights balances the mapping of the human body, via polymer preservation, with the mapping of the world. Author Olga Tokarczuk ends up posing more questions than giving answers, as it seems to be of human nature to always ask questions, especially about ourselves.

I knew this book would be about travel, and as someone who, for a decade, only had vivid dreams involving public transportation, including airports and airplanes as settings, I expected an expansion of my thinking about travel as a metaphor. But that’s what get tor starting this book with preconceived notions.

I loved Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, and I only loved sections of Flights, maybe half of the book. The other half I could have done without. The narrator’s musings, for example, for the most part, weren’t very interesting to me. But the short stories scattered about were wonderful. And I loved the final installment of the narrator as she boards a plane.

More...