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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
Short, sweet, and perfectly lovely. The concept was quite clever, and right up my 'multi-generation/multi-perspective across time and space' alley, and while there was nothing too groundbreaking, it was well written, and just the right balance of thought provoking and easy reading to make this a perfect 'short book to read to fulfill your annual reading goal' list.
I'm so bogged down with work and technical reading (one a "book" of some 1050 pages) that I was looking through my list for something short and provocative and settled on this one, which calls itself a "novel" but is more properly a novella, or perhaps a collection of 12 (literally) linked short stories, of some 145 pages. The sequence apparently originated as radio programs on BBC 4. If you need something to fill a flight or to serve as a weekend respite from your more serious cares, this is something.
In some ways I felt like I was reading the result of some Oulipo challenge: Write a fiction in which each chapter connects in one airport and ends in another, with stories about people who encounter one another along the way. This is actually a narrative technique I've seen elsewhere: In film, I think you can catch this in John Sayles's "City of Hope" where the camera, as a sort of disinterested narrator, links scenes that are ostensibly disconnected. Anyway, it is powerful stuff, and manages to hook up stories involving births, deaths, illness, secrets . . . The scope here is global, involving these airports: LGW, MAD, DSS, GRU, YYZ, SEA, HKG, SGN, BKK, DEL, COK, DOH, BUD, LGW. BUD and LGW are obviously special to the author. When I finished it, I almost started it over, it was that intriguing (had I but world enough and time . . .). I'm not going to re-read it now, but I have little doubt I will be returning to it at some point. This was about as perfect "free indirect discourse" as you're going to get nowadays (in terms of its artistic control, it reminded me of [b:Asymmetry|35297339|Asymmetry|Lisa Halliday|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1524238425l/35297339._SY75_.jpg|56664184]).
Of course my gripe is that it is so efficient and brief. Now I'm going to have to see what else David Szalay (Booker short-listed for another one) has written.
Recommended.
In some ways I felt like I was reading the result of some Oulipo challenge: Write a fiction in which each chapter connects in one airport and ends in another, with stories about people who encounter one another along the way. This is actually a narrative technique I've seen elsewhere: In film, I think you can catch this in John Sayles's "City of Hope" where the camera, as a sort of disinterested narrator, links scenes that are ostensibly disconnected. Anyway, it is powerful stuff, and manages to hook up stories involving births, deaths, illness, secrets . . . The scope here is global, involving these airports: LGW, MAD, DSS, GRU, YYZ, SEA, HKG, SGN, BKK, DEL, COK, DOH, BUD, LGW. BUD and LGW are obviously special to the author. When I finished it, I almost started it over, it was that intriguing (had I but world enough and time . . .). I'm not going to re-read it now, but I have little doubt I will be returning to it at some point. This was about as perfect "free indirect discourse" as you're going to get nowadays (in terms of its artistic control, it reminded me of [b:Asymmetry|35297339|Asymmetry|Lisa Halliday|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1524238425l/35297339._SY75_.jpg|56664184]).
Of course my gripe is that it is so efficient and brief. Now I'm going to have to see what else David Szalay (Booker short-listed for another one) has written.
Recommended.
The twelve interconnected stories collected and bound here were originally written by BBC Radio 4 and aired in late 2018, and are all available to listen to online or as a podcast. That might actually be the better way to experience them, as reading them straight though over the course of 90 minutes left me distinctly underwhelmed.
The structure is that each story features a traveler, and a minor character in one story then becomes the protagonist in the next story, as the narrative circles the globe arriving back to connect the twelfth story to the first. To be sure, Szalay posses what one critic calls "fluent internationalism" -- so his multinational cast of characters and locales all rings authentic as the book takes of and lands in cities ranging from Dakar to Seattle. But the problem with such a gimmicky framework is that it, well, feels gimmicky...
And with eight to ten pages person person, even the most elegantly delivered vignette struggles not to feel melodramatic, just as the overall theme of humanity's interconnectedness struggles not to feel cheesy. There's clearly a talent at work, and I will definitely try one of his longer form works -- but try this just as a sampler and don't expect it to be filling.
The structure is that each story features a traveler, and a minor character in one story then becomes the protagonist in the next story, as the narrative circles the globe arriving back to connect the twelfth story to the first. To be sure, Szalay posses what one critic calls "fluent internationalism" -- so his multinational cast of characters and locales all rings authentic as the book takes of and lands in cities ranging from Dakar to Seattle. But the problem with such a gimmicky framework is that it, well, feels gimmicky...
And with eight to ten pages person person, even the most elegantly delivered vignette struggles not to feel melodramatic, just as the overall theme of humanity's interconnectedness struggles not to feel cheesy. There's clearly a talent at work, and I will definitely try one of his longer form works -- but try this just as a sampler and don't expect it to be filling.
Turbulence is a striking novel, a fresh story that feels like many stories. It begins with a flight from London to Madrid. She talks to a seatmate and the next chapter follows him. And the third chapter follows another person he encounters, continuing a chain of human connection that takes us around the world and back to London in twelve luscious vignettes.
I enjoyed Turbulence a lot. It was short and easy, a book I read in one sitting. Szalay quickly sets up each new chapter, connecting us to the last chapter. The scenarios are natural, though sometimes dramatic. But then for many people, there are often dramatic reasons for flying from one place to another.
Turbulence is an excellent short novel that left me wanting to know more about every single one of the people whose stories were one leg of this round-the-world trip.
I received an e-galley of Turbulence from the publisher through NetGalley.
Turbulence at Scribner | Simon & Schuster
David Szalay author bio
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2019/07/17/9781982122737/
I enjoyed Turbulence a lot. It was short and easy, a book I read in one sitting. Szalay quickly sets up each new chapter, connecting us to the last chapter. The scenarios are natural, though sometimes dramatic. But then for many people, there are often dramatic reasons for flying from one place to another.
Turbulence is an excellent short novel that left me wanting to know more about every single one of the people whose stories were one leg of this round-the-world trip.
I received an e-galley of Turbulence from the publisher through NetGalley.
Turbulence at Scribner | Simon & Schuster
David Szalay author bio
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2019/07/17/9781982122737/
All my reviews can be seen at https://deedireads.com/.
Rating: 4.5/5
Thank you, NetGalley and Scribner, for the advanced review copy of this book. It will be published on July 16th, 2019.
This book was creative, and gripping, and just plain great writing. It’s not long; I read it in one evening. I hadn’t planned to, and it kept me up about two hours past my bedtime to do it. But I couldn’t resist. I felt like I got pulled into something that would break if I stopped in the middle.
Turbulence is made up of 12 chapters — you might even see them as individual short stories — about 12 different characters and their ordinary, emotional lives. We start with a woman on a plane who is afraid to fly. She speaks to a man who heads home to some bad news. That bad news implicated the next man, a troubled pilot. And so on and so forth.
Until we come — unbelievably, and yet how could it be any different — full circle. All the way around the world (literally) in 12 stories. In 12 people.
The effect is this: We are all enduring something. You are never as far as you think from another person in this world, whether in connections, or in space, or in experience. We are all doing our best to live a life we love, alone and together.
This one needs to rumble around in my brain a little more, I think. But it is welcome to do so.
Rating: 4.5/5
Thank you, NetGalley and Scribner, for the advanced review copy of this book. It will be published on July 16th, 2019.
This book was creative, and gripping, and just plain great writing. It’s not long; I read it in one evening. I hadn’t planned to, and it kept me up about two hours past my bedtime to do it. But I couldn’t resist. I felt like I got pulled into something that would break if I stopped in the middle.
Turbulence is made up of 12 chapters — you might even see them as individual short stories — about 12 different characters and their ordinary, emotional lives. We start with a woman on a plane who is afraid to fly. She speaks to a man who heads home to some bad news. That bad news implicated the next man, a troubled pilot. And so on and so forth.
Until we come — unbelievably, and yet how could it be any different — full circle. All the way around the world (literally) in 12 stories. In 12 people.
The effect is this: We are all enduring something. You are never as far as you think from another person in this world, whether in connections, or in space, or in experience. We are all doing our best to live a life we love, alone and together.
This one needs to rumble around in my brain a little more, I think. But it is welcome to do so.
I liked this interwoven collection of people. You never really got to latch own to any character before the story ended. I enjoyed it, but wished there was more.
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Turbulence by David Szalay was a beautifully written collection of short stories (and I mean really short) stories.He does an absolutely beautiful job of weaving together cahracters and stories, so that as the planes travel around the Earth, so do the readers end up right back where we started – it's an excellent example of the ripple effect of humans.
I enjoyed reading the book, and it only took me about an hour or two, so that was lovely, but I didn't get that much out of it. I could tell it was supposed to be profound or supposed to move me or something, but it just didn't. The stories didn't really stick with me and the characters felt ephemeral, which I chalk up to both the format of the short story and the idea that these are "everyman" individuals who represent the larger aspect of human nature.
Now, in Szalay's defense, I am not generally a short story fan and the fact that I enjoyed reading this collection is definitely a plus. But if there was any bigger meaning, I'm not sure it moved me in the way it was supposed to.
Turbulence by David Szalay was a beautifully written collection of short stories (and I mean really short) stories.He does an absolutely beautiful job of weaving together cahracters and stories, so that as the planes travel around the Earth, so do the readers end up right back where we started – it's an excellent example of the ripple effect of humans.
I enjoyed reading the book, and it only took me about an hour or two, so that was lovely, but I didn't get that much out of it. I could tell it was supposed to be profound or supposed to move me or something, but it just didn't. The stories didn't really stick with me and the characters felt ephemeral, which I chalk up to both the format of the short story and the idea that these are "everyman" individuals who represent the larger aspect of human nature.
Now, in Szalay's defense, I am not generally a short story fan and the fact that I enjoyed reading this collection is definitely a plus. But if there was any bigger meaning, I'm not sure it moved me in the way it was supposed to.
As an avid traveler and fan of airports, I really loved the concept of Turbulence. Each chapter is a short story that focuses on the life of a different character, each in a different country. However, each character is somehow connected through the flights they take. Airports and flights make the world so interconnected and small, and this book absolutely captures that. The writing is wonderful and the story is really interesting since the concept is so unique!
I received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book is basically 12 short stories, each story with a new main character that has at some point crossed paths with the main character from the previous chapter. In the end, it all goes full circle.
I didn't think I would like this book so much. Short stories just aren't my thing. I did wish that some of the chapters were longer so we could learn more about the characters, but the whole purpose ( in my opinion) was to give a snapshot of their lives, just a few moments were you get to learn about them.
Would recommend it, it's easy to read and though provoking
This book is basically 12 short stories, each story with a new main character that has at some point crossed paths with the main character from the previous chapter. In the end, it all goes full circle.
I didn't think I would like this book so much. Short stories just aren't my thing. I did wish that some of the chapters were longer so we could learn more about the characters, but the whole purpose ( in my opinion) was to give a snapshot of their lives, just a few moments were you get to learn about them.
Would recommend it, it's easy to read and though provoking