2025 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss Flights by Olga Tokarczuk.

Pages: 403 pages


Length: 1 Month (March)


Participants: oshizu, Ushashi, Sunny


Everyone reads at their own pace during a Buddy Read. Because participants can be at different parts of the book at different times, it is extremely important to mark spoilers so that the book is not ruined for someone who is not as far along as others!!!

Mark spoilers by placing {spoiler} before the text and {/spoiler} after the text but use the < and > instead of the { and }.

I have two other Buddy Reads this month and I know that the two of you are also participating in other Buddy Reads in March.
My plan is to start reading this book around mid-March. What about you?

I haven't made any plans yet. But I could start it around mid-March as well.

Mid-March is good for me, too. How did I get so busy?! :D

I've started the audiobook. So far it feels a little confusing. I am thinking of switching to ebook.

Ushahshi and Sunny

I've been wanting to read this book for a long time, but I haven't been in the mood to read this book over the pat few weeks.
I hope you don't mind that I extend this Buddy Read for an extra month.
Ushashi, it looks as if you'll finish Flights this month. Looking forward to reading your comments!

This has been moved to the April folder!

I have no problems with carrying it into April :)

That's fine with me too. I will probably finish it very close to the end of this month anyway.

I read up to page 22 this morning.

I always end up reading some of the most fascinating things when I join you, Oshizu, on books that I would not otherwise have read. I'm looking forward to seeing how everything comes together.

I plan to start this tonight as my first book of April. :D

oshizu wrote: "I plan to start this tonight as my first book of April. :D"

The reason I started it this morning is because I was going out with the dog and it was the book I had close at hand -- and while the dog did his thing, I sat in the sunshine, with the martins singing in the background, and read.

I'm finding this book easy to read, though, I have to admit some of it feels a bit over my head! And there are times I've had to go back and re-read portions to make sure I haven't missed something.

On page 63 (view spoiler)[ The Abandoned Apartment -- has been one of my favorite bits so far. I loved the way the author put things in the perspective of the apartment. I'm also wondering whose apartment it is. And if she'll go back to it at some point and let us know more about it. (hide spoiler)]

I read to the top of page 79 (view spoiler)[ Another favorite moment is in the airport when the narrator tells about the man taking apart the umbrella -- while the crowds of travelers flowed around him. (hide spoiler)]

I ended up mostly skipping through the parts after the first hundred pages. I couldn't connect to it. Maybe I'll go back to it sometime in the future.
Hope you two enjoy reading it.

I understand how you feel, Ushashi. It's been a hard book to read for me. With this book, my reading sessions don't last as long as usual; I get restless to put the book down and look for something else to do.

That said, Sunny, I'm at roughly the two-thirds point in the book right now. Like you, I've enjoyed some "episodes" more than others but also feel convinced that I'm NOT this book's target audience, lol.
I'll write up my thoughts tomorrow, after I force myself to finish the book. What a relief it will be to pick up Wrexford & Sloane, haha.

To me, it seemed to take forever to finish 400+ page book.
I had a hard time getting into the book at first, all the discussion of embalming and anatomy wasn't really my jam.

I don't really have much to say....
(view spoiler)[
My two favorite sections both dealt, by coincidence, with death and old age:
Godzone: narrated by a woman contacted by her first love who is ailing.
Kairos: narrated by a woman in her 60s who looks after her very elderly and very academically respected husband in his 80s.

I'm not sure but I might have enjoyed these two the most because they were the longest narratives. There was another longish narrative about a woman who left home to live as a homeless, which...meh.

I'm glad that i stuck it out and read the entire book, but I doubt I will ever be enticed to read another book by this other. (hide spoiler)]

I didn’t know about this buddy read, but coincidentally started reading flights a couple of days ago. I’m about 150 pages in, and every few pages I stop to let the words sink in

I stopped on page 125 this morning when I found myself tempted to skim rather than read. I'm reading this one a little at the time and then going to read other things before coming back to it. Of course, this time next week, I may be reporting in that I finished it =)

I just loved the way the author put this:

(view spoiler)[From: Purging the Map If something hurts me, I erase it from my mental map ... this means I've gotten rid of several big cities, and one whole province. Maybe someday I'll eliminate a country. (hide spoiler)]

I really enjoyed Eryk's story(view spoiler)[What a nifty way to use Moby Dick (hide spoiler)]

I really didn't care all that much about most of what I read in this portion of the book. As for the anatomy and the embalming stuff; I could have lived without it.

oshizu wrote: "I understand how you feel, Ushashi. It's been a hard book to read for me. With this book, my reading sessions don't last as long as usual; I get restless to put the book down and look for something..."
That said, Sunny, I'm at roughly the two-thirds point in the book right now. Like you, I've enjoyed some "episodes" more than others but also feel convinced that I'm NOT this book's target audience, lol.

I'm pretty much convinced I'm not the target audience either LOL

Sunny wrote: ".I'm pretty much convinced I'm not the target audience either LOL."

Although we are in agreement, it somehow doesn't feel like something to high five about, haha.

oshizu wrote: "Sunny wrote: ".I'm pretty much convinced I'm not the target audience either LOL."

Although we are in agreement, it somehow doesn't feel like something to high five about, haha."

No, it doesn't, haha.

I've made it to page 189.

One of these days this book will end!

Sunny wrote: "I've made it to page 189.

One of these days this book will end!"

I shouldn't laugh, but I did. This also felt to me like such a loooong book, probably because I always found some flimsy excuse to put the book down to pursue some other distraction...

On the plus side, you are roughly half finished!

oshizu wrote: "Sunny wrote: "I've made it to page 189.

One of these days this book will end!"

I shouldn't laugh, but I did. This also felt to me like such a loooong book, probably because I always found some fl..."

I was actually expecting a laugh =) because I was laughing at myself when I posted. It seems like the more I read the more of it there is -- in spite of the fact that my bookmark is moving and I can see the progress. I keep putting it aside for other things, too. Mostly because I need a break from all the chaos. Maybe chaos is too strong a word, but it seems to fit what I feel toward the thing. Some of these characters are just so out there somewhere! And yet, I want to finish the darn thing!

It Ended!
It Ended!!
It Ended!!!

I kept reading on the 19th until I got to the final page. And I left my notes at home, but I'll go ahead and comment without using names and titles. ... descriptions should be enough.

(view spoiler)[
I honestly could have done without the majority of this book. I much would have preferred a novel about the woman and man and their son who went to the island and she and the little boy disappeared/were lost . I would have loved to have their story fleshed out and to have had more about them and their reactions to things -- to have understood them a bit more. And Eryk's story would have blended nicely into this book about them.

I also, would have loved to have had a novel about the woman who went back to her home country to help her former love to end his life in a humane way. They had an interesting story that would have made a wonderful fleshed-out book.

These characters were the ones I truly got interested in. The rest of the book was just a bunch of stuff I wanted to fast-forward through. (hide spoiler)]

Um, congrats on finishing the book!
I agree. The longer chapters were the most interesting for me, too.