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Olga Tokarczuk,

Jennifer Croft (Translator)

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What Members Thought

May 23, 2021 Candi rated it really liked it

Shelves: european-literature, book-i-own, essays, short-stories, contemporary-literary

“In my writing, life would turn into incomplete stories, dreamlike tales, would show up from afar in odd dislocated panoramas, or in cross sections – and so it would be almost impossible to reach any conclusions as to the whole.”

This book is nearly impossible for me to describe. One thing I can say with certainty is that Olga Tokarczuk has a curious mind and an adventurous spirit. She takes the reader not just on a journey from one place to the next but on an exploration of what makes us human – “In my writing, life would turn into incomplete stories, dreamlike tales, would show up from afar in odd dislocated panoramas, or in cross sections – and so it would be almost impossible to reach any conclusions as to the whole.”

This book is nearly impossible for me to describe. One thing I can say with certainty is that Olga Tokarczuk has a curious mind and an adventurous spirit. She takes the reader not just on a journey from one place to the next but on an exploration of what makes us human – our substance, the anatomy of our bodies, the synapses and connections in our minds, our desire to learn and our yearning for travel. What is precisely our aim when we travel? Is it simply to reach a particular destination? Is it the process itself, the drive behind that urge to get up and go someplace else, whether temporarily or permanently? She speaks not only of maps of the world, but of the body as well– the muscles, vessels, the brain, and the nerves. She breaks things down into their microscopic parts. It’s a brilliant analogy, really - this comparison between geography and physiology.

The structure of this book is also divided into many parts. Little compartments of information told either in very short form – a paragraph or two – or in extended short story form. One piece is not necessarily linked directly with the succeeding anecdote or story. Flights in its entirety is a thought-provoking composition that perhaps asks more questions than it provides answers.

“Whenever I set off on any sort of journey I fall off the radar. No one knows where I am. At the point I departed from? Or at the point I’m headed to? Can there be an in-between? Am I like that lost day when you fly east, and that regained night that comes from going west? Am I subject to that much-lauded law of quantum physics that states that a particle may exist in two places at once? Or to a different law that hasn’t been demonstrated and that we haven’t even thought of yet that says that you can doubly not exist in the same place?”

Much of this work is a series of musings by the author, some of them as she sat in airports or on planes, writing down those things that came to mind regarding herself, the purpose of travel and her fellow travelers. Her short fiction fascinated me – even the more science-y stories that ventured into speculative fiction and the preservation of human organs and bodies. It was a bit odd to me at first, especially in a collection I assumed would be all about travelling. It didn’t take long for me to get immersed even in this somewhat grotesque aspect of her storytelling, however! Her short stories pulled me in and made me even more inspired to read her longer fiction writing. She has a keen intellect and her reflections resonated with me. I’m not sure I could begin to guess who else would find this appealing, but you most certainly need to go into it ready to soak up a myriad of ideas. After all, an inquisitive mind and the continual search for knowledge is never a bad thing, is it?!

“… I realized that – in spite of all the risks involved – a thing in motion will always be better than a thing at rest; that change will always be a nobler thing than permanence; that that which is static will degenerate and decay, turn to ash, while that which is in motion is able to last for all eternity.”
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Jun 05, 2018 Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Jenn Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Schu marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: cultural

Aug 25, 2020 Celia marked it as to-read

Shelves: historical-fiction, kindle-unread, group-bom, elyse-review, kindle-library-available

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