The Rest on the Flight

Christopher Tietjens, a brilliant, unconventional mathematician, is married to the dazzling yet unfaithful Sylvia when, during a turbulent weekend, he meets a young Suffragette by the name of Valentine Wannop. Christopher and Valentine are on the verge of becoming lovers until he must return to his World War I regiment. Ultimately, Christopher, shell-shocked and suffering from amnesia, is sent back to London. An unforgettable exploration of the tensions of a society confronting catastrophe, sexuality, power, madness, and violence, this narrative examines time and a critical moment in history.

The word 'eunoia,' which literally means 'beautiful thinking,' is the shortest word in English that contains all five vowels. Directly inspired by the Oulipo (l'Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle), a French writers' group interested in experimenting with different forms of literary constraint, Eunoia is a five-chapter book in which each chapter is a univocal lipogram – the first chapter has A as its only vowel, the second chapter E, etc. Each vowel takes on a distinct personality: the I is egotistical and romantic, the O jocular and obscene, the E elegiac and epic (including a retelling of the Iliad!).

Stunning in its implications and masterful in its execution, Eunoia has developed a cult following, garnering extensive praise and winning the Griffin Poetry Prize. The original edition has been a bestseller in Canada and the U.K. (published by Canongate Books), where it was listed as one of the Times' top ten books of 2008.

This new edition features several new but related poems by Christian Bök and an expanded afterword.

'Eunoia is a novel that will drive everybody sane.' – Samuel Delany

'Eunoia takes the lipogram and renders it obsolete.' – Kenneth Goldsmith

'A marvellous, musical texture of rhymes and echoes.' – Harry Mathews

'An exemplary monument for 21st century poetry.' – Charles Bernstein

'Bök's dazzling word games are the literary sensation of the year.' – The Times

'A resounding success ... brilliant.' – The Guardian

'Brilliant ... beautiful and strange.' – Today Programme, BBC Radio 4

'Impressive.' – Sunday Telegraph

'No mere Christmas stocking filler for Countdown fans. Rather, it's an ingenious little novel ... playful and irreverent ... charming.' – Metro

Germany’s master of wit and irony now for the first time in English.

Hinrich takes his existence at face value. His wife, on the other hand, has always been more interested in the after-life. Or so it seemed. When she dies of a stroke, Hinrich goes through her papers, only to discover a totally different perspective on their marriage. Thus commences, a dazzling intellectual game of shifting realities.
 

Why Peirene chose to publish this book:
“This novella deals with the weighty subjects of marriage and death, in an impressively light manner. Shifting realities evolve with a beautiful sense of irony and wit. It is a tone that allows us to reflect –without judgment – on misunderstandings, contradictory perceptions and the transience of life.” Meike Ziervogel

"Inventive and deeply affecting, this remarkable fiction lingers in the mind long after the last page has been turned."  The Independent.

"This is a tale of a marriage gone awry and the potential loneliness of cohabitation ... but Matthias Politycki leavens his grim tale with playful teasing of his reader's expectations." TLS.

"A teasing, testing story that makes you want to revisit and seek out those fascinating fragments you might just have missed." Lancashire Evening Post.