Reading on a plane

Travel Literature

On a plane you can only read celebrity magazines, tabloids, sensationalism media (only if they don't cover air disasters), bad crossword puzzle and sudoku magazines.

Read anything that doesn't take itself too seriously, the one par excellence is the in-flight magazine, What would you expect of a publication whose readers have nothing else at hand?

Little travel novels bought (at an inflated price) in a tiny stand crammed between the duty free and the public restrooms at the terminal.

Read anything than might prevent you from thinking, from remembering your phobias and terrors, nothing intellectual, not high literature, nothing introspective. And no chaotic narratives either, no Rushdie, no Goytisolo, no Donoso, no Lispector, no Bret Easton Ellis.

In the claustrophobic reality of a plane cabin there is no place for the embarrassment of being caught reading Vanity Fair, Cosmo or a romantic best-seller.

Lately I prefer historical fiction for plane rides, exotic tales of by-gone eras, fictitious romancing.

On a plane, no one would believe, by seeing me, that I'm capable of good reads.

It doesn't matter.

I only want to hypnotize myself and forget about the terror of imagining me on a free fall.

Literary dogmas apply only on firm ground.