Flight Book

In this, the age of the Euro, it seems appropriate that Victoria Glendinning has chosen to write a novel about Europe and about people whose lives are no longer bound by physical borders. The characters in Flight are new Europeans: wealthy professionals who think nothing of breakfast meetings in Paris, lunch in Cologne. But what effect has this opening up of nations had on these people's psyche, their cultural heritage? Have they lost some innate sense of belonging, or have they somehow morphed into citizens of the new world, comfortable in their cultural openness? Glendinning's characters jet across the continent desperately seeking answers to these and more fundamental questions of a secular existence: how to be a good person, live a decent life, pursue ethical business practices, love one's family and friends. Martagon (his mother named him after a pink lily) is a highly respected engineer, known throughout the industry as a forward-thinking but deeply conscientious man. Having failed to get on an architecture course, he has spent his working life as an "artist engineer" justifying himself by pushing boundaries, working with the best, specialising in advanced use of glass. An only child whose father died young, Martagon has few friends and has never fallen in love. Until, quite unexpectedly, in the course of building a glass airport in the south of France, Marina enters his life. A minor French aristocrat, she is a vision of French elegance. Stunningly beautiful and clever too, Marina is proud of her cultural heritage and personal identity. Martagon is instantly captivated. Inevitably, things soon start to go wrong. Martagon¹s desire for Marina affects not only other areas of his personal life, but, more importantly, his hitherto exemplary professional life. Glendinning builds her plot towards a shocking end, but ultimately, while questioning the basic human need to 'belong", and the overwhelming power and destruction of passionate love, Flight doesn't quite pull it off. --Carey GreenRead More