Turbulence by David Szalay

 

Around the World in 80,000 Pages - Prologue: ii

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

You can read about my Around the World in 80,000 pages challenge here.

For our second preamble book, we have another global expedition but this time more modern, and by aeroplane.

David Szalay is a renowned British/Hungarian/Canadian author. Turbulence was nominated for the Booker and his last book, Flesh, (on my TBR pile) won in 2025. 

Turbulence is made up of 12 (very) short stories, each one linked to the last by a minor character becoming the protagonist, and featuring a flight which originates at the last story's destination. The whole book is only some 130 pages, and I would say the stories are linked enough for it to classify as a fragmentary novel. The individual stories are quite dark, but Szalay never dwells on the emotion, and the over-all effect was surprisingly uplifting. It reminded me of walking down a street, catching snippets of conversations. As you might expect from a author of Szalay's credentials, the writing is excellent. I'm generally not a fan of novellas, but this really works. To go deeper into each individual story would be to lose something, as the novella is about the overall effect, more than the individual stories, a global network of the most delicate threads, linking us all through grief and triumph and basically being human.

The first highly recommended read of the year!

I've gone for a literal approach this time, for the paired song - Aeroplane Blues by the Black Keys.

115/140 ★★★★★

Our featured flag for Turbulence is the
British civil air ensign - not a flag you see
very often.