Book Reviews: Flights (By: Olga Tokarczuk)

 

This novel is dedicated to the theme of travel, but not a flight from a to b, it is an internal flight. The novel is made of short stories, essays, travel notes, where at the centre there is the traveler.

The author investigate on the travel of psychology, the reborn of the desire to movement, to revive a desire, in order to escape from a settled life.

It narrates how the people behave inside an airport.

The travel is a personal story that mixes with that of others, the travel is not only movement, the travel is our destiny.

Flights is a memoir, notebook, it is a nomadic story, we are all nomads in the infinite search for a destination, everything is liquid, but in order not to die it is necessary not to stop in one place, "Whoever takes a break will become Stone, whoever stops will be skewered by a bug." (P.213).

This novel is the story of  Slavic nomads who move counting on the kindness of others, of lost whales and sailors, is the story of Chopin's sister, the journey is also understood as a movement, where everything is on move, even the doctor's waiting room or the supermarket, it is a place where to share a thought with others. All of us are wanderers are always looking for something, and when we find it, we will feel the need for something new.

The final question is What does it mean to be a traveler, in a non-place and with a confused idea of destination?

This novel has won the Man Booker Prize, the Nobel's prize in literature and the Nika Award.