What to read during a flight
Specifically for Kupi.com, Maxim Mamlyga, book reviewer for "Rules of Life" magazine (ex-Esquire), art department curator at "Podpisnye Izdaniya" bookstore, and editor-in-chief of "Knigi u morya" newspaper, compiled a selection of books for different flight durations — from concise texts for Moscow-Minsk type flights to weighty page-turners perfect for flying all the way to Kamchatka.
For flights lasting 1.5–3 hours
Natalia Zaitseva "Mortgage of Suffering"
Publisher: No Kidding Press
Pages: 64 pages
This little book is one of four gems in No Kidding Press's Russian-language series. In terms of genre, it most resembles what used to be called "notebooks" (like "phone notes" now?), although "Mortgage of Suffering" can be classified as autofiction (i.e., writing about oneself). 134 entries of varying lengths, each a moment, a thought, an impression, a situation, a reflection, an incident. From these, the narrator's year unfolds, further divided into seasons. Overall, it resembles real life in the midst of a serious personal existential crisis. Yes, a new coordinate system is needed, but: debts, theatrical experiments, trips, meetings, dates, quarrels, memories, family squabbles, sudden insights. Such a book is good not only for testing one's own empathy (for some, the book might cause sharp irritation) but also for reflecting on one's own experience, finding parallels, and perhaps devising the next step for oneself. After all, as stated in entry #50: "To be happy is our duty to the beauty of this world."
Charlotte Gingras "Wars"
Publisher: "Samokat"
Translator: Nina Khotinskaya
Pages: 104 pages
This small but heartbreaking book by the Canadian writer simply had to be translated into Russian. It was published in the young adult series "Vstrechnoe Dvizhenie" (Counter Movement), but in reality, it is very, very mature. A family of five lives in Canada: mother, father, elder daughter, son, younger daughter. The father works as a physical education teacher, but at some point decides to go serve in Afghanistan, and this changes everything. We learn about the family's transformations and all the nuances and difficulties of family relationships from two narrators, who alternate in the text with graphic emphasis — from the teenage boy Luka (the son, large font) and his mother (the wife, small font). Preparation for deployment, long separation, and returning home — an entire life, within which you realize that no internal problems can be solved with external tools, and some are better off without.
Ready to fly. To St. Petersburg, for example!
For flights lasting 3–5 hours
Maria Zakruchenko "Arabella"
Publisher: "Abrikobooks"
Pages: 248 pages
When you grow up, you don't want to remember the despair that loneliness can drive a teenager to: it's too painful, too scary. Zakruchenko acts sharply — this is exactly where "Arabella" begins: with the most hopeless darkness, in which, however, there is a tiny ray of hope. Sasha is fourteen years old. The home situation is not great, but school is utter gloom, it's a shame she even has to go there. Her only solace is the sci-fi series "Fire Star." Its heroine, with her symbiotic spaceship, becomes Sasha's best friend, helping her with everything and giving her self-confidence. An imaginary friend, though. What will happen when Sasha needs real help? "Arabella" is a wonderful young adult novel that would also be worthwhile for an adult to read, to remember how fragile the world of a growing person can be, and to feel, if only for a second, what they feel.
Jane Yolen "Briar Rose"
Publisher: "Knizhniki"
Translators: Galina Gimon and Olga Bukhina
Pages: 272 pages
Briar Rose is one variant of the well-known fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty." The heroine of this book knew it by heart — her grandmother told it to her since childhood. However, time passed, the heroine grew up, her grandmother aged and was preparing to die. Feeling her end was near, she reveals a secret to her granddaughter: she is Briar Rose, it was her castle and her kingdom that fell into slumber, and it was a prince's kiss that woke her. At first, the heroine dismissed it as an old woman's ramblings: what wouldn't a dying old woman say. But it turned out that the end of one story was the beginning of another: a convoluted and no less grim one, leading us along the traces of her grandmother's past into the horrific, inhuman times of the Holocaust and into a very real concentration camp. This book delicately balances on the edge of fairy tale and reality; it is about memory, about love on the brink of life and death, and about something else subtly important that you feel as you approach the last page.
These books will definitely last until Istanbul, Yerevan, or Sochi
For flights lasting 5–7 hours
Antti Tuomainen "The Rabbit Factor"
Publisher: "Sinbad"
Translator: Nikolai Golovin
Pages: 384 pages
Publishers call the book a "comedic crime thriller," but that's only true to the extent that a thriller can be charming. Imagine a typical mathematician. This is Henri — everything is ordered and calculated for him. And our story begins where calculations stop working. He loses his job, inherits an amusement park from his brother (what? yes!) and, of course, falls in love in the most unsuitable way — with the artist Laura, who is as far from any order as our hero is unlike Petrarch. Theoretically, Henri could have gotten out of this, but it turns out that his brother borrowed money for the park from some gangsters who very, very much want it back, and that's when our hero will have to run. A funny, light book, whose sequels with similar, ahem, zoological titles will soon be released in Russian: "The Moose Paradox" and "The Beaver Theory" await us.
Read on the way to Dubai, for example
For flights lasting 7–9 hours
David Scott Hay "The Fountain"
Publisher: Polyandria NoAge
Translator: Anastasia Rudakova
Pages: 446 pages
Fairy tales teach us a simple truth from childhood: magical objects should be handled with caution at the very least, and avoided entirely at most. Evidently, the characters in this book are not ready to heed these warnings (nor are they ready for the consequences). At an exhibition in the Chicago Museum, a magical fountain appears; drinking from it makes you incredibly talented for a while. To save people time, the organizers even prepared the necessary art materials — all right there, next to the fountain. What happens if a child drinks from it? What if an elderly woman does? What if a professional artist drinks the water? And what, in the end, will be the price to pay? David Hay, in this book steeped in postmodern tradition, truly reflects on the nature of art and talent, but more so on the nature of humanity itself and its relationship to its own destiny.
With such reading, you can even fly to Tel Aviv
For flights lasting 10+ hours
Thomas Pynchon "Gravity's Rainbow"
Publisher: "Inostranka"
Translators: Anastasia Gryzunova and Max Nemtsov
Pages: 928 pages
This is a re-edition of one of the main masterpieces of American postmodernism with a new translation. Given that researchers and interpreters have been grappling with "Gravity's Rainbow" for many years, once you conquer 900 pages, you'll want to, if not reread the book, then return to individual chapters and episodes, ponder references to popular culture, and rack your brains over Pynchon's mathematical schemes — enough not just for the longest flight, but for a multi-month vacation. Retelling the plot is almost useless, as crowds of characters from all four parts swirl around the secret V-2 rockets at the end of World War II. Pynchon uses them both for a social commentary on violence and to break the patterns of literature of that time and find new paths and languages.
