Flight, by Julian Pohl

Julian Pohl

Flight

Sherman Alexie

Fiction

25.08.2013

            The novel „Flight“ is about an orphan Native American boy in the USA who has to face cultural problems and stereotypes that are held against him. His real name is a secret kept to himself, he doesn´t want to share his real name with anyone because he believes he is not important anyway. Therefore he calls himself Zits, due to many pimples on his face. During the novel Zits gets very mad at everyone surrounding him because he feels that too many Native Americans are being discriminated for no reason.

He believes in a legendary dance of his ancestors, which can bring back Indians, who died in the American Indian movement, and would let white people disappear. Zits has a feeling to take revenge on the white people for killing his ancestors and other Native Americans in 1975. With this absurd idea he walks into a bank with loaded guns and he dances and shoots his guns like a maniac. Due to miracle events Zits time travels into different people´s bodies and learns about violence and morality from tragedies happening to these people.

What I personally like about this book are the tragedies happening to all the characters in the book. It teaches the reader about many lessons and you can see how Zits is being affected by these lessons. Zits learns that some people don´t always have choices about their actions and he is taught the theme ”Before you judge someone, you have to step in their shoes”, as well as many other very important themes. I connected to the book by events or situations that I have once been in. I could understand how the characters felt and why they reacted the way they did because I reacted the same as them. What surprised me about the book is how Zits time travels as well as into whom he time travels. Without spoiling too much I can say that Zits doesn´t always like the people who he is set into, which makes him act very unsure and confused about what his next step is going to be.

            I would recommend this book for non-native speakers or people who have some difficulties with English. It is an easily understandable book and there are only rarely words that you may have to look up in the dictionary. I also think with only 180 pages it is a very short book and for those who might don´t like reading a lot, I would recommend it to those too. I personally don´t like reading on holiday nor do I read in my free time, but I have to admit that I did like this book and that I enjoyed reading it when I was bored, even though I was on Holiday. I read the book at home in my room or at other places where it is was quiet. I can´t read and concentrate if it´s not quiet enough. If there are disturbing noises I have those noises in my head, though I continue on reading, but when I think about what I just read, I can´t remember a word. Everyone can read this book where he wants to, but remember to mark, note and underline important phrases, because then it is a whole lot easier to write your Summer Reading Texts and Reviews like this one.