Clouds with silver linings

Over the years I’ve been in touch with a number of middle-aged professionals who, despite the success they’ve found in their chosen careers, have asked themselves whether perhaps they should have become pilots instead. Among these correspondents (the fly-curious, we might call them), architects make up the largest contingent. It’s hard to know why this might be. But in the absence of a better explanation, I’ve come to enjoy the idea that both pilots and architects have found inspiration in realms that, despite popular associations with freedom, are in fact unusually constrained: by simple or not-so-simple physics; by the corporeal realities of humans; by elaborate rules and strict regulations.

This ‘bonsai’ description of flight’s wonder — of transcendence arising within an endeavour despite, or as a result of, the extreme limitations imposed on it — is also the best way to understand the pleasures of Rebecca Loncraine’s Skybound. Indeed, she laboured under two additional constraints.