A French pilot talking about his scouting flight flown while the German's were pouring into his country like a flood. The French high command was in disarray and he felt his scouting flight was probably useless and likely to get him killed. But he went anyway. Along the way on this one flight he talks about philosophy, life, the situation in France, and with the French Air Force.

A sample: "There is a cheap literature that speak to us of the need of escape. It is true that when we travel we are in search of distance. But distance is not to be found. It melts away. And escape has never led anywhere. The moment a man finds that he must play the races, go the Arctic, or make war in order to feel himself alive, that man has begun to spin the strands that bind him to other men and to the world. But what wretched strands! A civilization that is really strong fills man to the brim, though he never stir. What are we worth when motionless, is the question." ~ WWII French pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Толкова много харесвам и обичам "Малкият принц", грешка е било, че познавах Екзюпери, единствено и само от тази малка, трогателна книга. Преди да посегна към другите му творби, разговоряхме с братовчедка ми за творчеството му, силно ме впечатлиха думите ѝ, между които и тези , Умберто Еко е казвал за Екзюпери, че не се знае дали лети за да пише, или пише за да лети. "Южна поща"; "Нощен полет"; "Земя на хората" и сега "Боен пилот", през цялото ми четене, бавно, повтарящо и преповтарящо на моменти, съм се спирала и мислила и върху думите на Еко.

"Боен пилот" е разказ за конкретен полет, полетът на Арас, който е едва ли не излишен в своята предопределеност, плашещ, злокобен. Силно отекна този книга в мен с размишленията на Екзюпери за безполезността на конфликта и неговата трагедия, с красиво изразените му мисли относно човечеството като цяло и неговото лично място в това целокупно човечество. Със заключителните глави , Екзюпери се доказа за мен и като един ярко изразен философ хуманист, освен и писател летец, който пише поезия в проза.

საოცარია ეს კაცი. ტექსტი მეფერება ხოლმე რომ ვკითხულობ. მიყვარს ძნ, აუცილებლად წასაკითხია ეგზუპერის ყველა *-*

"ΠΟΛΕΜΙΚΟΣ ΠΙΛΟΤΟΣ"

Ένα έργο που δύσκολα εντάσσεται σε κάποιο είδος. Κάτι ανάμεσα σε απομνημονεύματα, μυθιστορηματική αυτοβιογραφία, φιλοσοφικό δοκίμιο, συλλογή σελίδων ημερολογίου, ή όλα αυτά μαζί.
Ο Εξιπερι στο έργο του με τον τιτλο "Πολεμικός πιλότος" παρουσιάζει τις σκέψεις του, καθώς αναλαμβανει μία αποστολή αυτοκτονίας, ενώ οι Γερμανοί έχουν νικήσει τη χώρα του και πολλοί κάτοικοι της ενδοχώρας της Γαλλιας, τρέχουν να σωθούν, πανικόβλητοι, χωρίς σχεδιασμό και λογική.
Εν τω μέσω της καταγραφής των σκέψεων του για τη συγκεκριμένη αποστολή, κάνει αναδρομές στα παιδικά και εφηβικά του χρόνια, σε άλλες παλιότερες αποστολές του, αλλά κυρίως διερευνά τον λόγο που πολεμά και ίσως τον οδηγήσει στον θάνατο. Μιλά για τον Θεό, τον πολιτισμό, τον παραλογισμό του πολέμου, την ειρήνη, την ευθύνη του ανθρώπου, την αδελφοσύνη και τον ανθρωπισμό.
Εξαιρετικές οι παρομοιώσεις του, οι αναδρομές του και η ευαισθησία με την οποία προσεγγίζει την επικίνδυνη αποστολή του καθως φτάνει τελικα να συνειδητοποιεί το γιατί πολεμά και γιατί θα φτάσει να θυσιαστει.

Μία εκ βαθέων ψυχής καταγραφή σκέψεων ενός πιλότου (και συγγραφέα) που βίωσε τον παραλογισμό του Β' Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου.

(Επίσης : https://www.instagram.com/p/BE8etdfLbZ5/ Κριτικη στη σελίδα μου στο instagram, με το φιλολογικό μου ψευδώνυμο Ηλέκτρα Αλεξάκη).

As a kid growing up in a safe suburb of a safe country at a safe time I really did not think about things all that much.
I picked up and read this book because it was about flying and WW11 both topics I was fascinated by.
But this book, while I have trouble remembering the specifics, let me know that people have an inner life that is complex and compelling. That one can be brave physically and spiritually.
Saint-Exupery is thinking about why the hell he is on a near suicide mission with little prospect of success or really any point at all because his country is near collapse. He does not hate Germans. He does not think France is beyond reproach. But he does know that he must continue to fight because this is a larger war than one of nations. It has a moral dimension that demands that he and his country men can not shirk.

Wenn mir das Buch eines gezeigt hat, dann das mir nicht nachvollziehbare Vergleiche und endloses herumphilosophieren keinen spaß machen zu lesen. Die Geschichte selbst könnte man wohl auf 10 Seiten erzählen der Rest ist mit Gefühlen, Eindrücken und philosophischen Gedanken gefüllt dir mir nichts gaben.

Sicher gibt es ein paar Seiten die wunderbar sind und diese waren auch der Grund für mein Interesse, aber gerade die letzten 40 Seiten waren ein Elend.

Hier noch der Abschnitt der mich zum kauf bewegte, leider sind diese Stellen sehr rar.

„Was muss einer tun? Das. Oder das Gegenteil.
Oder etwas anderes. Die Zukunft ist nicht vorherbestimmt. Was muss einer sein? Das ist die eigentliche Frage; denn der Geist allein befruchtet den Verstand. Er ist vom künftigen Werk trächtig. Der Verstand wird ihn zum Ziel führen. Was muss der Mensch tun, um das erste Schiff zu erschaffen? Die Formel ist zu verwickelt. Im Grunde wird dieses Schiff aus tausend widersprechenden Tastversuchen erstehen.

Aber der Mensch, was muss er sein?

Hier halte ich die Schöpfung an ihrer Wurzel. Er muss Kaufmann oder Soldat sein; denn dann wird er, erfüllt von der Sehnsucht nach fernen Ländern, Techniker herbeirufen, Arbeiter einsetzen und eines Tages sein Schiff vom Stapel lassen! Was muss einer tun, damit ein ganzer Wald davonfliegt? Ach!

Das ist zu schwierig ... Was muss einer sein? Er muss Feuersbrunst sein!“

I had already read some of Saint-Exupéry's earlier works and was charmed by his typical combination of action and reflection: both ‘Vol de Nuit’ (1931Night Flight) and ‘Terre des Hommes’ (1939, Wind, Sand and Stars) offer unique insights into how modern man through machines ( in this case always airplanes) is confronted with the essence of existence. Still, those two works didn't really captivate me: they got a little stuck in non-committal reflections, even if they floated on the adrenaline of a man forced to the limit in the battle with the elements.

Of course, the intense experience this book, 'Pilote de Guerre' (1942, literally 'War pilote'), offers, is even more extreme. Because Saint-Exupéry here describes a hallucinatory reconnaissance mission over occupied France in May 1940. The author-pilot already knows at that moment that the war is lost for France, that his mission is pointless, and that he can only have a minimal chance to survive the low flight over the German positions around the city of Arras.

Well, this time I wàs captivated by the book. Perhaps this was because the author literally takes us inside the mind of the pilot de Saint-Exupéry who is trying to come to terms with the question of why France, himself and his crew are willingly being slaughtered. And here he does it again through a combination of action scenes (steering his reluctant machine, a dizzying journey across the German barrage, a real hell-flight), of observations (of his taciturn crew, of the refugee flows, the advancing German tanks, and the land and sky seen from high altitude) and of contemplation (thoughts of killed and wounded colleagues, childhood memories, and above all musings about existence, man, sacrifice, love…).

So, in itself these elements don't really diff from those in his previous novels, but Saint-Exupéry here presents it all a bit more sharply, more focused. Perhaps the intensity of this journey through hell is not alien to this. Or is it the cocktail of jest, resignation, cynicism, sarcasm and vitalism that does it? What is particularly striking is that the main character, the pilot de Saint-Exupéry, undergoes a remarkable, philosophical evolution during this death flight. Where in the beginning he still takes a rather idealistic point of view ("the real space does not exist for the eye, it is only given to the mind. And that space is worth as much as language is worth, because language connects things"), the near-death experience over Arras opens him to the view that it is the ‘substance’, the body, that makes all human experience possible ("I certainly do not want to downplay the intellect, nor the victories of consciousness. I admire clear thinkers. But what is a man without substance? A man who is a look but not a being?"). This turn is not just a fall into flat materialism, because Saint-Exupéry appears to regard man above all as a junction of relations, and thus also of the principles of solidarity, the collective and the universal, which enables him to forge a link with the sense of sacrifice. And that brings us back to the starting point: the explanation why France seems willinngly to undergo the defeat in May 1940.

Certainly at the end of this novel, de Saint-Exupéry does not shy away from big words, in an emphatically pronounced confession of faith that founds humanism on a new, non-religious basis. Those final pages may seem a bit solemn, after the action scenes that preceded. Perhaps that is why he wrote the disarmingly simple ‘Le Petit Prince' (1943, The Little Prince) shortly after this novel, only to disappear in circumstances that still have not been clarified. To me this 'Flight to Arras' is his real spiritual testament.

After flying international airmail during the 30s, Saint-Exupery flew reconnaissance for France in WWII. Flight to Arras is nominally about a particular flight made over enemy-held territory while Hitler's forces were in the process of overrunning France. The details of that flight are frightening, but the real power of the book lies in Saint Exupery's meditations on the tragedy and uselessness of the conflict, doomed as it is, and then on his further thoughts, beautifully expressed, on the state of mankind and what it means to him to be a part of it. I won't try to be more descriptive, because whatever I would write would only diminish what he has written. All I can safely say is that his is the work of an extraordinary philosopher humanist, and is poetry in prose form. Don't miss it.

This book was a 3 star read that slowly but surely progressed to a 5 star read. I feel bad that it took me so long to actually appreciate it in its full glory, but I guess that’s just how it is with some books. They take time to sink in. Now, since I like to think I’m actually cool because I read the same book twice in two different languages, here is what I like most from the English translation;

**Disclaimer; This is not a review of the book per se but rather quotes I really liked. Not all of them require context but for some, the context is important so if they look like random passages – that is the reason behind it.
**Warning; Spoilers ahead.

Flight to Arras – Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
Chapter XII, page 60; “I have aged so much that all that was is left behind me.”

Chapter XIII, page 79; “What could the men who governed us know of the war?”

Chapter XV, page 88; “Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas. Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection, despite its ugliness. I take it for granted that to create a tree I condemn a seed to rot.”

Chapter XVI, page 89; “After all, it is we ourselves who call this a funny war. Why not? I should image that no one would deny us the right to call it that if we please, since it is we who are sacrificing ourselves, not those who think our epithet immoral. Surely I have the right to joke about my death if joking about it gives me pleasure.”

Chapter XVII; Throughout the whole chapter he talks to Paula, bouncing between his internal monologue directed at her and the current happenings as they fly to Arras. The whole chapter breaks my heart every time I read it. It is both absolutely beautiful and sickeningly saddening. Masterfully crafted and I believe that this was one of the more influential things in the book that made me change my mind about my initial rating.

Chapter XXIII, page 135; “The kind of truth advanced in verbal bickerings can no longer satisfy me.”

Chapter XXIII, page 151; “When I took off for Arras I asked before giving. My demand was in vain. We must give before we can receive, and build before we may inhabit. By my gift of blood over Arras I created the love that I feel for my kind as the mother creates the breast by the gift of her milk. Therein resides the mystery. To create love, we must begin by sacrifice. Afterwards, love will demand further sacrifices and ensure us every victory. But it is we who must take the first step. We must be born before we can exist.”






Ах, да, мојот чатал нема граници. Ова се белешките и цитатите што ми оставија впечаток од македонската верзија. Искрено, преводот беше ТОЛКУ добар што мислам да можев цела книга ќе ја цитирав. Затоа уствари имам толку повеќе напишано тука.
**Предупредување; И тука има spoilers.

Воен Пилот – Антоан Де Сент Егзипери
** Го отелотворува концептот на занесот при војна, како чувства се нешто за кое нема време од сета лавина од проблеми а и воедно од самиот тој “занес“ се менува и концептот на нештата. Во смисла на, толку си вдаден во размислувањата за воени стратегии и обврски што човечкиот дел од себе се замаглува. Не се веќе луѓе туку збир од нешта. Едно нешто што во суштина си го разложил на повеќе нешта прави полесно да е “справувањето“ со него и што и да му се случи. Го отуѓуваш од чувствата и од комплексноста што ја има. Не е човечко и чувствително туку предметно.

„Во општата збрканост на поставените проблеми, во општото пропаѓање, ние сме и самите поделени на парчиња. Оној глас. Оној нос. Онаа навика. А парчињата не возбудуваат.“ (страна 21)
Признавајќи дека и тој мисли само на детали а не на големата слика – прави токму совршена транзиција на реченицата. Во пасус во кој детално се објаснува за тоа како сè е хаос ама никој не го гледа, објективната анализа на сериозниот проблем е прекината од прашањето ‘каде се неговите проклети ракавици?’

**Го има доловено моментот кога телото/мозокот си бара shut down од премногу анксиозност и исчекување. Фантазира за полесно заминување – како на пример да се расипе нешто во авионот за поскоро да умрат. Буквално си бара излез од агонијата на неизвесноста.

Страна 38, 39; „Треба... треба... би сакал сепак да ми се исплати навреме. Би сакал да имам право на љубовта. Би сакал да знам за кого умирам...“ Ако ова не те прави да се осеќаш понизно и како твоите проблеми и опкружувања да се благи и подносливи – не знам што.

Страна 48; „Се фрлаа онака, на среќа, мостови преку бездна, како што би постапиле кога би сакале да навлеземе во мракот на глувонем слепец на кој би сакале да му помогнеме.“

Страна 54; „Недостапни како некоја убава жена, ние ја следиме својата судбина влечејќи го полека н��шиот фустан чијшто опаш е исткаен од ледени ѕвездички.“

Страна 54; „Еве ја стварноста. Но јас се враќам кон мојата евтина поезија. Овој вираж ќе предизвика вираж на цело едно небо од несреќни љубовници.“

Цела глава XI. Цела. „Телото е твое ама не е.“ (страна 56, 57, 58, 59)

Страна 64; „Срцето е многу нежна работа. А треба да служи долго време. Бесмислено е да го изложуваме на опасност поради вакви груби работи. Тоа е како да сакаме да запалиме дијаманти за да свариме еден компир.“

Страна 77; „Колку вредиме ние кога ќе станеме еднаш неподвижни?“

Страна 93; „Ви давам седум букви. Тоа се седум букви од Библијата. Составете ја со нив повторно Библијата.“

Страна 101; „Што има срамно во тоа да се има земја која дава повеќе жито одошто машини? Зошто срамот да падне врз нас а не врз сиот свет?“

Страна 109; „Чудно е како животот одеднаш се собрал. Го стокмив мојот багаж од спомени. Никогаш тој нема да служи за нешто. Ниту пак за некој.“

Страните 110, 111, 112 и 113 цели. Кога ѝ збори на Паула. Никогаш нема да прекине да ми биде тажно.

Цела глава XXII.

Страна 142; „Ноќта ги лулка во вечноста. Кога иде времето за вечера, групата ги брои своите мртви. Оние што исчезнале стануваат поубави во сеќевањето. Нив секогаш ги облекуваме во нивната насветла насмевка.“

Страна 142; „Некогаш многу малку ги ценев возрасните. Грешев. Човек никогаш не старее.“

Страна 146; „Единствената победа во која не можам да се сомневам е победата што се крие во силата на зрното. Фрлете го зрното ширум црната земја и тоа ќе стане победник. Но треба да измине прилично време за да го видиме неговиот триумф во зрелото жито.“

**Зборови што ми напраија кејф; адути=доблести, окно, жедувам = to thirst for, клатно = pendulum, безредие, „не се беспокојам“, самољубие, оживотворува, овенчан = со венец на глава.
Цела книга во два збора; Sad and humbling.

Short autobiographical novel by the author of “The Little Prince”, set during (and published only 2 years after) his service as a reconnaissance pilot for the French during the 1940 German invasion which service the majority of his fellow flyers did not survive. The book’s action takes place on a single reconnaissance mission low over the occupied town of Arras to gather intelligence which due to the breakdown of the French infrastructure will and can never be used. While flying and even under heavy attack (an apparent habit that the author had of losing concentration at the controls of the plane) the narrator muses philosophically on the reason for the mission (given its seeming futility), the French war effort and then the reasons for war. After escaping what seemed certain death he is overtaken by a form of euphoria and a renewed believe in the importance of community (both of France and of the squadron).

After landing meditates at some length on how France is based on a humanist development of Christianity – substituting the ideal of Man for God in areas such as equality, respect, charity, self-respect, brotherhood and most importantly sacrifice – but that the abstractness of Man meant the ideal (although to be believed in) was easily corrupted into anarchism, tyranny of the masses or the fascist state. This last section is well written and well expressed albeit it doesn’t sit so well with the first part of the novel and can seem overblown rhetoric.

The value of the book is in its immediacy and also importance – forming an immediate examination of the French defeat (well before the final outcome was known) and it seems being very important in restoring respect for France both internally and externally (including swaying American public opinion – where the book was written – behind intervention in the European war).

این کتاب سراسر حول فداکاری و انسان دوستی ونوع دوستی است. نویسنده که خود خلبان بوده است در خلال پروازهای شناسایی مربوط به جنگ دوم جهانی افکار خود را می نویسد او از آسمان دنیا را می بیند و اوایل کتاب با یک لحن ضد جنگ از وضعیت موجود انتقاد میکند. کم کم وقتی جلوتر می رویم حس فداکاری و انسان دوستی نویسنده نمایان می شود و وارد موضوعات فلسفی می شود او تقریبا از افکار فلسفی موجود انتقاد می کند و میگوید همانگونه که یک انسان باید برای یک انسان فداکاری کند یک جمع هم باید برای حتی یک انسان فداکاری کند او جمع گرایی و فردگرایی را ترکیب کرده و ترکیب آن را یک جامعه انسانی می داند.

جمع گرایی کمونیست و چپ ها و یا فرد گرایی مکتب اومانیست او با هشیاری توضیح میدهد که چرا هم فرد مهم است و هم جمع و به زیبایی هم توضیح می دهد. اصول اگزوپری در تمام زندگی فداکاری و عمل گرا بودن است و حیف که این نویسنده روشنفکر فرانسوی فقط 44 سال عمر میکند و این رمان هم 2 سال قبل از سقوط هواپیمایش نوشته شده با هم بخش های زیبایی از کتاب را بخوانیم که واقعا خواندنی است. و این کتاب اراده و شهامت و اعتماد به نفس را میتواند در دل انسان روشن کند.

The author was a reconnaissance pilot for the French Armée de l'Air during the Fall of France in 1940. The book is told in the scope of one suicidal mission he flew over the town of Arras when the battle was already lost. The story is very philosophical and fatalistic. Not what I was expecting, but a quick read.