The original title in Polish, beguny, more literally means “runners” and refers to a sect of Eastern Orthodox Christians called Old Believers, who often had to flee persecution from state powers in recent centuries and actually believed that constant movement across the earth was a way to evade the devil’s influence. Like I said, meaning, feeling, significance, and even concrete facts are slippery throughout the many stories found here. But that’s assuming far too concrete of a relationship between the parts of this work and its whole.
I’ll try not to spoil too much throughout this review, but I’m not sure the fragmentary nature of the novel even allows for the existence of spoilers - anyway, as you might expect from a collection of “philosophical ruminations on modern travel,” there are a number of literal airplane flights throughout the book.
The best place to start talking about a book as slippery and transient as Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights is with the title itself, especially since it’s in translation from the author’s native Polish.
0 kommentar(er)
