Flight: A Novel by Sherman Alexie
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Book Reviews of Flight: A Novel
Book Review: Despite some turbulence, it is well worth the flight.
Summary: 4 Stars
Sherman Alexie's Flight reminds us all that we seek love and need love. The novel's protagonist, "Zits" is a wayward teenager who is victimized by the foster-care system and as a result wrestles with shame, alienation and self. Zits draws the reader in as he narrates this tale with a matter-of-fact tone and a sardonic sense of humor that only a teenager of his circumstance could own. After another one of Zit's attempts at running away, the altruistic Officer Dave catches him; Officer Dave is Zits only true friend. In describing Dave, Zits claims, "the wounded always recognize the wounded. We can smell each other." These open wounds are the catalysts that turn a routine visit to kid jail into something more sinister; it is on this visit, that the susceptible Zits comes under the spell of another Juvenile Delinquent named "Justice" and decides to become his brother in arms. While faced with a critical decision, initiated by the charismatic Justice, Zits's conscience soars-literally. We find our selves taken along for the ride as Zits snatches bodies and thrusts us into a series of alternate consciousness. We become an FBI agent, an Indian boy, an Indian tracker, an adulterous man caught with his paramour and even Zits's own father. Aside from gripping action, all this body snatching serves a purpose; these characters act as vehicles for Zits to come to terms with his dubious and heart breaking past. If you want to know whether or not Zits follows Justice's flawed and mad reasoning to his own death, read this novel! Although getting to the destination is riddled with turbulence, it is well worth the flight.
Book Review: Were Holden Caulfield a Mixed-Blood Orphan...
Summary: 4 Stars
"Flight" seems more a novella than a novel, considering it reads fairly quickly. This may simply be a result of the fact that the style of the book makes it so difficult to set down.
Taking a cue from coming-of-age forerunners like J.D. Salinger or even Twain, Alexie's new novel features an automatically loveable narrator and protagonist--he is an ignorant teen spouting every semblance of an idea that comes into his head. Liking the character Zits might seem strange at first, considering the awful thoughts of his that come spilling onto the page, but his ignorance gives him a certain license to honesty that allows me as a reader to learn more about this character than I would were he written under a 3rd person narration.
The progression--or more accurately, temporal digression--of the plot is easy to miss at first. Fortunately, though, if you don't get it immediately after the first time-change, Alexie is kind enough to state explicitly that Zits is in fact traveling backwards in time.
"Flight" is full of gruesome and disturbing imagery, but the book isn't concerned with race or culture in the way one might immediately think. It features characters from across a variety of different cultures and backgrounds who exhibit an entire spectrum of moral human behavior. Alexie isn't trying to point a finger at any people or group, but rather at a thought pattern. So while this book may technically be classified under Native-American literature, it is really simply a book about humanity and the chaotic world in which that heterogenous group exists.
Book Review: A Good Issue Raiser
Summary: 4 Stars
Zits is a half white half Native American orphan who bounces from foster home to foster home. At least this is how the novel begins. Join the cursing narrator Zits as he travels in unexpected ways, taking on different viewpoints as he searches for a home and a sense of peace.
Alexie's writing is simple but this is only because the author does not need big words to get his meaning across. It is written in the first person and Zits would certainly get along well with Holden Caulfield. Flight is less than 200 pages and it is accessible writing makes it a quick read.
Though the novel is short and simply written this does mean it is a simple book. Flight raises many issues that are worth consideration: is killing ever justified?, what does it mean to have a home?, shame, poverty, issues of race, social stratification, and the complexity of people as they make their way in the world.
For all the teachers out there I would recommend teaching this book at the junior high and high school level. You may receive some flak because of the language use but it is viscerally written to emphasize Zits' character rather than shock value. It is important to read about cultural viewpoints different than the mainstream to gain a better understanding of the iniquities of the world. It is only if these iniquities are highlighted that social change can begin. It is the job of the teacher to raise social awareness. It also has a discussion section at the back of the book which you can use to help build lesson plans.
Review By Eli Steier
Book Review: A funny insightful coming of age and maturity story with a twist
Summary: 4 Stars
Sherman Alexie is a unique voice in American literature today, offering a Native American perspective that is fresh, charming, and disarming. He is extremely funny and at the same time very thoughtful. This book is a short novel that could be completely read in 6 hours. The book is an exploration of the impulse of violence, injustice and justice and humanity's odd gravitation back and forth between these concepts. Every one of the interlocking chapters is commentary on either violence, justice, or both.
This novel is about an adolescent young man, part Native American and part Irish, who is full of anger and violence and hatred toward the world. Yet the novel takes this young man through a series of adventures that allows him to explore violence and its consequences, injustice and its consequences, and then resolution and peace.
The young man is called "Zits" and he has all the pent up anger of a rejected teenager. He never knew his alcoholic Native American father. Now he goes from foster home to foster home acting terrible and wondering why the world is so hostile.
The dark humor and insights of Zits reminded me of Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye.
The book takes us through racial collective pain as well as individual personal pain, but creatively also takes us beyond that pain - making this more than a funny novel and more of a sly commentary on the human condition.
Book Review: Easy, interesting read
Summary: 4 Stars
Flight by Sherman Alexie is a very nice escape from the usual high school literature taught in classes. IT reads much easier and quicker than many other books, due t6 its target audience of teens, which could be interpreted by some as being boring. I do not think this, with Alexie's story of Zits, an "orphaned" half-Indian teenager in Washington state who gets shipped from jail to jail and foster home to foster home.
After one escape from jail, Zits meets a white boy named "justice" who convinces him to rob a bank. While in the process, Zits has an epiphany and gets transported into multiple circumstances ranging from a remorseful flight instructor, to an FBI agent, to an Indian at Little Bighorn, to a homeless man near his home town.
Alexie's writing style is one that reads very easily compared to much clasic literature, and the story is compelling, so to keep the reader reading. It is however on the short side of books, and a relatively quick read, so one may be better off checking it out from a library rather than investing in their own personal copy. One other criticism of the book is that there are many literary cliches placed throughout the book, which some readers may find annoying and repulsive. Overall, it was a good book and was worth reading, and I hope Alexie Continues to write books of this genre.