A review by tinido
Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

It took me a while to really get "into" the novel, because it's not telling a straightforward story or is working towards a solution or a sort of joint closure for all the separate stories it tells. The whole structure and feel of the book is much more that of a musical piece, where different but somehow related melodies and harmonies weave in and out of each other or just change into each other. After a while you start to recognize the motives, tropes and narratives, that Tokarczuk works through in her novel. You can never be quite sure who is talking or narrating, point of view changes constantly, but there are some voices and/or stories that stand out, without dominating the novel. I really liked the overall vibes of the book: It's a bit weird and eery, without employing classical weird and speculative fiction motives and tropes, but by layering narratives and images onto each other, so that readers start to see "the signs". Trying to make sense of these signs on the other hand really gets you nowhere, or you learn that the only sign reading that works is telling stories.