Flights
Nobel Prize and Booker Prize Winner
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3.9 • 113 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE
A visionary work of fiction by "A writer on the level of W. G. Sebald" (Annie Proulx)
"A magnificent writer." — Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Prize-winning author of Secondhand Time
"A beautifully fragmented look at man's longing for permanence.... Ambitious and complex." — Washington Post
From the incomparably original Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, Flights interweaves reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. Chopin's heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time. Where are you from? Where are you coming in from? Where are you going? we call to the traveler. Enchanting, unsettling, and wholly original, Flights is a master storyteller's answer.
Customer Reviews
Not an easy read
If you are a linear thinker this is not your book. It’s kind of all over the place but there are connecting threads—travel, space, time, The human body. A bit surreal it spots. But the author’s masterful way with words and detailed observations kept me reading until the end.
Boring
Not sure how this won awards. I’m a voracious reader. Although I tried, I simply could not engage. Ramblings that seemed to go nowhere. Maybe eventually it made sense. But I cannot go read on. And I seldom give up on a book. Glad it was only $4.99.
Great
Beautifully written and thoughtful observations about the world. Some short passages about things noticed (mostly while traveling), some longer short stories. I enjoyed reading it (with the exception of one repeated story about an anatomist which I will admit I got bored with eventually), and I think it led me to notice more of the world around me.