In this, the journey between falls away, much like in the novel where the middle passages fall away from memory by the novel’s conclusion. But like a Wikipedia search or a body in motion, the beginning is perpetually connected to the end. Everything is connected somehow evolution is ongoing. Moreover, this beautiful extended metaphor of flight demonstrates how the “natural” is a social construct.
“Flights” is a novel that emulates Wikipedia each reader will understand Tokarczuk’s purpose differently, and the fragmentary structure is reminiscent of diving into articles, clicking link after link until the reader spirals through information to a destination far from where they began. If the project succeeds, then this encyclopedia undergoing perpetual renewal will be the greatest wonder of the world.”īy situating Wikipedia among the greatest wonders of the world, Tokarczuk is also placing herself within this narrative.
She is enamored with things like Wikipedia and airplanes, writing that “people bring to Wikipedia everything they know.
While fragmentary and experimental, Tokarczuk is fascinated by the continuous, strategic pace at which the modern world is accelerating travel and life. Some are set in the Middle Ages and others in the present day, with a cast of floating characters whose identities are mysteriously woven together and distinctly disconnected. Each chapter - if you can even call them chapters - is a different length, with some spanning pages and including detailed maps and others consisting of only a single sentence. Tokarczuk experiments with form in ways that allow the novel’s plot to encompass the smooth, natural flight of a bird and the violent, mechanical path of an airplane. “Flights” was translated into English by the multitalented Jennifer Croft in 2017, awarding the novel the Man Booker Prize in 2018 and amassing praise from critics and book lovers alike.ĭescribing the novel is difficult since, in many ways, it is not a novel at all. Originally published in Polish in 2007, “Flights” was a massive success in Europe and cemented Tokarczuk’s status as one of Poland’s most celebrated novelists, earning her the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2018. Tokarczuk discovers more than beautiful imagery and metaphor but produces a novel philosophically attuned to the world it portrays. What does it mean to travel when the world is standing still? In Nobel Prize-winning writer Olga Tokarczuk’s fragmentary novel “Flights,” she dissects the world’s movements through the journal of a young, Polish traveler.
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