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Image taken from https:\/\/fitzcarraldoeditions.com<\/p><\/div>\n
The structure of Flights <\/em>is not easy to define. It presents numerous stories of varying length \u2013 some invented, some based on historical fact, many (but not all) to do with the pickling and preserving of human bodies \u2013 and these are punctuated by the ongoing travelogue of an unnamed female narrator. Though the different stories are, for the most part, apparently unconnected, they all share common themes of movement, nomadism, and the convergence of time and place. From the harrowing tale of a mother and son vanished from a Croatian island in \u2018Kunicki: Water (II)\u2019 to the hilarious drunken sailor taking his ferryboat passengers out to the open sea in \u2018Ash Wednesday Feast\u2019, Flights <\/em>is an eclectic collection of stories, and yet it is not a short story collection. It defies genre, blending short stories with travel narratives, and studies of human anatomy with philosophical musings on time and place. If there is any way of describing Flights<\/em>, perhaps it is as \u2018episodes\u2019, a definition to be found within the pages of the book itself: \u2018We often refer to separate stages of time as episodes. They have no consequences, interrupting time without becoming part of it. They are self-contained occurrences, each starting from scratch; each beginning and each end is absolute\u2019. It is, however, revealing that Tokarczuk puts these words in the mouth of a young tour guide, \u2018quite young, wearing army boots, her hair pinned up in a way I found amusing; she must have been fresh out of her master\u2019s programme\u2019. So although we are given hints as to how we might categorise this book, these are destabilised even as they are presented to us. At a later point, the narrator even muses on her choice of writing mode: \u2018Am I doing the right thing by telling stories? Wouldn\u2019t it be better to fasten the mind with a clip, tighten the reins and express myself not by means of stories and histories, but with the simplicity of a lecture, where in sentence after sentence a single thought gets clarified, and then others are tacked onto it in the succeeding paragraphs?\u2019<\/p>\n Ouch. So maybe I shouldn\u2019t try to analyse this at all, but rather refer you to Claire Armitstead\u2019s explanation<\/a> of Tokarczuk\u2019s own view of Flights<\/em>, namely that \u2018what she calls her \u201cconstellation novels\u201d throw stories, essays and sketches into orbit, allowing the reader\u2019s imagination to form them into meaningful shapes\u2019. I think, though, that Tokarczuk\u2019s own definition doesn\u2019t do justice to her cleverly crafted work. For example, if you\u2019re still wondering what pickling human bodies has to do with travel writing, Tokarczuk gently explains it on the penultimate page, when her narrator, waiting for a flight, takes out a notebook and writes about another passenger, also waiting for a flight, and also writing in his notebook (possibly about her): \u2018We will simply write each other down, which is the safest form of communication and of transit; we will reciprocally transform each other into letters and initials, immortalize each other, plastinate each other, submerge each other in formaldehyde phrases and pages\u2019. The book itself becomes a preserved artefact \u2013 and yet it doesn\u2019t, because it will shift and transform with every reading of it.<\/p>\n Is your mind boggling yet? Let\u2019s talk about the title for a moment, then. The translated title has come under scrutiny, as there was no word in English that could cover all meanings of the original title, Bieguni<\/em>. Kapka Kassabova writes<\/a> of bieguni<\/em> that \u2018this word is the key to the book [\u2026] The\u00a0bieguni<\/em>, or wanderers, are an obscure and possibly fictional Slavic sect who have rejected settled life for an existence of constant movement\u2019. \u00a0I like the idea of \u2018wanderings\u2019 rather than \u2018flights\u2019 (though it would have made for an awful title), as many of the tales in Flights <\/em>deal with journeys that are not airborne. The problem of translating the title is further complicated by Monique Charlesworth\u2019s revelation<\/a> that bieguni<\/em> \u2018also has the meaning of running or jogging in every Slavic language, says Tokarczuk; that also defined her book in a certain way\u2019.<\/p>\n I do like a knotty translation problem. Although \u2018flights\u2019 may not suggest \u2018wandering\u2019 and \u2018running\u2019, it brings other implications to the English translation that enrich the work: Flights <\/em>offers a birds-eye view, it takes flight, it flees. It is an action, an act, a trajectory, the passage of time, a flock, a stairway between different levels of meaning.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s slightly unnerving that every original observation I might *think* I\u2019ve come up with about this book has already been foreseen by its author\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As for the content, I found the focus on human anatomy a little uncomfortable \u2013 get me near a scalpel and I\u2019ll become squeamish \u2013 but the observations on the preservation of human bodies or body parts was nonetheless a thought-provoking counterpoint to the nomadism elsewhere. Tokarczuk dissects and disrupts preconceived notions of what constitutes \u2018movement\u2019 or \u2018stasis\u2019 as the mapping out of the human body becomes its own form of topography. Connections are drawn between anatomy and travel narratives: Chopin\u2019s heart makes a posthumous journey from Paris to his desired resting place in Warsaw; the \u2018phantom pain\u2019 of a 17th<\/sup>-century anatomist whose leg was amputated is echoed in the \u2018phantom pain\u2019 felt by the modern-day Kunicki in the second part of his story, when his wife and child are returned to him but his wife refuses to tell him where they went. But if you think I\u2019ve made a clever connection off my own bat, think again: Tokarczuk urges us to find these connections, because \u2018there are different kinds of looking. One kind of looking allows you to simply see objects, useful human things, honest and concrete, which you know right away how to use and what for. And then there\u2019s panoramic viewing, a more general view, thanks to which you notice links between objects, their network of reflections\u2019. It\u2019s slightly unnerving that every original observation I might *think* I\u2019ve come up with about this book has already been foreseen by its author.<\/p>\n Perhaps this is the reason why reviewers have noted that, though they admired Flights<\/em>, it is a difficult book to write about: Michael Kitto describes it<\/a> as a novel \u2018that should be experienced rather than written about\u2019, and Ken Calfus found it to be<\/a> \u2018a dense challenging novel [that] makes for slow reading\u2019.\u00a0I must admit that I was quite relieved to find I wasn\u2019t alone in finding this a challenging read. This does not in any way detract from my admiration of Flights<\/em>, but it was certainly a different kind of experience than most of the novels I\u2019m reading for this project. There were sections I enjoyed more than others: my favourite was the one entitled \u2018Flights\u2019, in which the bieguni<\/em> appear. The protagonist, Annushka, needs to escape her daily life, and in her wanderings through monuments and crowds, she begins to follow a shrouded woman who is always muttering something to herself. Everything about this story is imbued with double meanings; take for instance Annushka\u2019s observation of two particular passengers on her metro journey: \u2018Why does she remember those two? I suspect because they\u2019re constant, somehow, as though they moved differently, more slowly. Everyone else is like a river, a current, water that flows from here to there, creating eddies and waves, but each particular form, being fleeting, disappears, and the river forgets about them. But those two move against the current, which is why they stand out the way they do\u2019. Couldn\u2019t we say the same of particular episodes in Tokarczuk\u2019s collection? And yet even as I write this, I suspect that Tokarczuk had already thought of that.<\/p>\n
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