Friday, March 9, 2018

Book Beginning: Olga Tokarczuk's Flights


I'm a few years old. I'm sitting on the window sill, surrounded by strewn toys and toppled-over block towers and dolls with bulging eyes.

...is the beginning of Olga Tokarczuk's Flights.

This came out in English last year from Fitzcarraldo Editions (they're not spending any money on cover design, are they?) but originally in Polish in 2009, where it apparently won some awards. It's translated by Jennifer Croft.

The description on the back begins, "Flights, a novel about travel in the twenty-first century and human anatomy (!) is Olga Tokarczuk's most ambitious to date. It interweaves travel narratives and reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body."

The first section, a little more than a page long, is a rather dreamy recollection of the narrator's childhood. I'm not much past that at the moment. It's going to cover Poland for my Europe challenge at Rose City Reader.

Book Beginnings on Fridays is a bookish meme hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader. To play, quote the beginning of the book you're currently reading, give the author and title, and any thoughts if you like.

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