A fragmented novel-essay hybrid weaving together short fictional vignettes and essayistic digressions on travel, anatomy, and the preservation of the body — from a modern flight attendant to the real 17th-century anatomist Filip Verheyen and his amputated leg.
Books mentioned in Flights (6)
Anathemas and Admirations by Emil Cioran: “And it was clear to me that our mission was to graze the dust in search of a mystery stripped of anything serious.' * (Anathemas and Admirations, by Emil Cioran, translated by Richard Howard).”
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville: “The other one is Melville's Moby Dick.”
Nowe Ateny (New Athens) by Benedykt Chmielowski: “Its author was a Catholic priest named Benedykt Chmielowski who hailed from Volhynia... In a chapter with the lengthy title of 'On other strange and wonderful persons of the world: That is, Anacepholus, alias Headless, or Cynocephalus, alias Dog-Headed...', he writes: ...”
Corporis Humani Anatomia by Filip Verheyen: “when several years later in 1693 I was sent by the printer to show Verheyen the fat edition of his first book – the great anatomical atlas, Corporis Humani Anatomia, still damp from the printer's ink.”
The Clinical Syndromes: “We had better take a peek at this old edition (published in the seventies) of The Clinical Syndromes, which is an encyclopaedia of syndromes of sorts.”