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bigolarlocat's review
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
No better description for this book than a 'constellation novel'. A series of reflections and short stories on travel, fixated on themes of permanence, change and isolation. Despite being a collection of short stories and reflective pieces, all of the works of this novel blend together seamlessly. My one regret is I didn't read it while travelling or in flight. A fantastic book.
olavit's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
rzerzuszka's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gore
lindzlovesreading's review
4.0
It took me about half way through the book to figure out what Tokarzuk was doing. Or maybe was doing, I'm still not completely sure. I am not that bright and Olga Tokarzuk certainly is, which is why this book is most likely a Masterpiece. I think. I'm pretty certain?
Yes on the face of it this book is a collection of short stories with a similar loose theme of travel. But the further I read the more connections I thought I saw. Tokarzuk constantly goes back to the airport, not really in narrative form but more in snippets, she keeps talking about sitting in odd Travel Psychology conferences, and also different people she or her persona meet on the plane. This collection is actually travelling around from story to story, sometimes it's a short journey other times it's a longer more detailed, and sometimes they are unfinished because you don't see all a country, and sometimes you go back to a character, or another character goes back to the same place. But what ever happens you are constantly in motion
This is probably all in the blurb, which I have not read. Every time I come up an idea, it's like I have come up with the wheel. A great idea but not a new one. As I said I am not that bright.
Yes on the face of it this book is a collection of short stories with a similar loose theme of travel. But the further I read the more connections I thought I saw. Tokarzuk constantly goes back to the airport, not really in narrative form but more in snippets, she keeps talking about sitting in odd Travel Psychology conferences, and also different people she or her persona meet on the plane. This collection is actually travelling around from story to story, sometimes it's a short journey other times it's a longer more detailed, and sometimes they are unfinished because you don't see all a country, and sometimes you go back to a character, or another character goes back to the same place. But what ever happens you are constantly in motion
This is probably all in the blurb, which I have not read. Every time I come up an idea, it's like I have come up with the wheel. A great idea but not a new one. As I said I am not that bright.
rsinclair6536's review against another edition
4.0
Travel and more specifically, flights as an occasion/metaphor to observe life from another distance and perspective and a way to feel more acutely alive and renewed. Body part preservation methods as a metaphor for the human longing for permanence. Life and death, side by side, in stories, impressions and fragments. This book was hard work for me, and the payoffs were not always there. But when they were, they gave me small thrills.
annettefunnycello's review against another edition
3.0
I'll try this again in future, when I have less on my mind. Too scattered to hold my attention though the brilliance is ever-present in the writing.
ruthy_anne's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
4.75
madelineb's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
I liked the 1-2 page essays but the longer essays felt like the most interesting ones didn't make sense in the thread of everything else.
kingabee's review against another edition
5.0
You have to have a very loose definition of a novel to call ‘Flights’ a novel. It feels like a writer’s travel diary - full of jottings, half-formed short stories, observations, imaginings. It’s a perfect representation of the modern world with its multitudes of distractions, with its thirty-seven browser tabs open. Yet, eventually some motives emerge, some uniting thread keeping it all together.
It’s about bodies in motion, bodies travelling, but also bodies stopped mid-motion, preserved for near eternity with plastination. It’s about maps, and bird-eye views, but also about anatomical diagrams – maps of human body, so to speak.
The book, in the original Polish version is titled after an Old Believers sect ‘Bieguni’ who insisted the only way to avoid the devil is to keep in constant motion. This seems to be the philosophy that the author/narrator subscribes to. Never stop. Don’t let your roots grow. And, most of all, stay curious.
Of course, this relentless praise of travelling can get tiring. Especially for homebodies like me, who love travelling knowing that the best part of it is having a home to come back to. This book was also written in more innocent times, before the crash of 2008, before we all became completely disillusioned. It was written when Poland joined the EU and we thought it was the end of history, at least as far as our country was concerned. Suddenly all of Europe was our oyster and we hadn’t yet been told just how bad for the planet all of this travelling and jet-setting was. There is something very 90s Poland about this book. Very hurray capitalism, how good it is to fly by planes like the rest of the modern world and join in in exotising other cultures at last (rather than being the exotised Eastern European open-air museum).
Having said that, it is definitely absolutely unequivocally worth reading. I read it in Polish, but Jennifer Croft’s translation gathers nothing but praise.
It’s about bodies in motion, bodies travelling, but also bodies stopped mid-motion, preserved for near eternity with plastination. It’s about maps, and bird-eye views, but also about anatomical diagrams – maps of human body, so to speak.
The book, in the original Polish version is titled after an Old Believers sect ‘Bieguni’ who insisted the only way to avoid the devil is to keep in constant motion. This seems to be the philosophy that the author/narrator subscribes to. Never stop. Don’t let your roots grow. And, most of all, stay curious.
Of course, this relentless praise of travelling can get tiring. Especially for homebodies like me, who love travelling knowing that the best part of it is having a home to come back to. This book was also written in more innocent times, before the crash of 2008, before we all became completely disillusioned. It was written when Poland joined the EU and we thought it was the end of history, at least as far as our country was concerned. Suddenly all of Europe was our oyster and we hadn’t yet been told just how bad for the planet all of this travelling and jet-setting was. There is something very 90s Poland about this book. Very hurray capitalism, how good it is to fly by planes like the rest of the modern world and join in in exotising other cultures at last (rather than being the exotised Eastern European open-air museum).
Having said that, it is definitely absolutely unequivocally worth reading. I read it in Polish, but Jennifer Croft’s translation gathers nothing but praise.