Paperback was sitting on my shelf, I picked it up to fill in time and actually struggled to finish it despite its small size. Maybe it was the old clunky English translation that affected me, but I just couldn't develop any appreciation for the work. The characters were unnecessarily introspective, the author's philosophical ramblings too abstract. A few descriptive sections providing some beautiful imagery, other than that I simply couldn't wait to toss the book back on a (lower) shelf and forget about it.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, why did you die so young?
This of course is not his best, it was only his second published work and it needed to be polished. Yet he gave such beauty to his writing, such an artist he was. This piece of art deals with much else he wrote, flight and airplanes. And he uses such a simple thing to convey if long-term goals (and money) are more important than a human life, and it is left to us to choose which side is our own, while him making it seem he chooses human life.
"Et Rivière, à pas lents, retourne à son travail, parmi les
secrétaires que courbe son regard dur. Rivière-le-Grand, Rivièrele-Victorieux,
qui porte sa lourde victoire. "
(And Rivière, slowly, back to work, among the Secretaries curved his hard gaze. Rivière-the-Grand, Rivièrele-Victorious, bringing his heavy victory.) MORE LIKE Rivière-LE-SCUM.

Zafer... Yenilgi... Bu kelimeler hiçbir anlam taşımıyor. Yaşam bu imgelerin altında ve yeni imgeleri de hazırlamış durumda. Bir halk zaferle güçlenirken bir öteki yenilgiyle şahlanır. Riviere’nin yaşadığı bu yenilgi belki de gerçek zafere uzanan bir girişimdi. Önemli olan devam eden olaydır.

painava, runollinen kirja ammattinsa nielemistä ihmisistä voittojen ja tappioiden kentällä, jossa yksilön koettelemus on tuotannontekijä. uus lemppari!! <3

Tätä teki mieli lukea autiolla lentokentällä. Saint-Exupéryn lentäjän ammattitaidon hyödyntäminen toimii niin hyvin, ja kirjailijan oma kohtalo hittaa nyt eri tavalla. Jos etsii ei-pidettävää päähenkilöä niin Riviére on 100% sellanen. Shoutout Nea jonka suosituksesta bongasin tän

Night Flight is exactly that and a little more. It’s a short novel written in the pioneering days of air mail delivery. The story all takes place in one night and it’s a tense one. Split between the pilot’s story and the office story (air mail company in Buenos Aires) it’s a night of increasing tension as the pilot flies his route from Patagonia towards home. Saint-Exupery himself was one of these air mail pilots and was able to describe the flying in a dramatic and beautiful way. You see the nonchalance of the pilots covering their tensions and recognize the glamour that readers of the Art Deco era no doubt felt was the story of early aviation. They were the astronauts of their day.

Flying by night is shown to be a gorgeous and scary experience with primitive planes and no fancy electronics to tell you to PULL UP, PULL UP! There is joy, beauty and thrill in the book. Fantastic prose and solitary reflection.

Well, I tried to read it, but could not finish it. The topic was not my cup of tea. Or rather the mood was not appropriate. I will try to read it again sometime in the future.

بلغة شاعرية عذبة مرهفة ، يأتيك سرد ممتع ناعم لقصة طيران ليلي بقلم صاحب "الأمير الصغير" انطوان إكزوبيري..
يصور لنا مغامرة مأساوية لاحدي قائدي الطيران الليلي التجاري بمطلع القرن العشرين ، حيث المغامرة محفوفة بمخاطر هائلة...
لم يكن يحلق في فضاء شاسع فارغ...أبداً ، بل هو في كل لحظة يجتاز حاجزاً لامرئياً في ظلمة الليل ، بعدما يودع الأرض التي تحتضن بيوتها وسهولها ووديانها وجبالها ، وقد بات كل شيء متناهي الصغر ..يرقات مضيئة شبحية متناثرة ...ها هو يصارع وحيداً في معركة يجهل فيها ماهية عدوه الحقيقية...في لحظة خاطفة ينطمس صفاء الليلة لتنطلق صرخة موحشة يدوي أصداؤها في الفضاء لتبتلع ذاك السكون المسالم في هوة معتمة...
ماذا يا ترى تخبيء الأقدار ؟...عاصفة ثلجية...رعدية...
إعصار هائج ..ضباب غائم كثيف....
يقبض بكلتا يديه على مقبض عصا القيادة ..هل يستدير راجعاً ؟...
ها هو يسقط في غياهب الظلمة ..تتعلق الأنفاس ..وتندس الكلمات ما بين ثنايا روح تتوق للنجاة...
هناك في مركز المراقبة ...قائد مسؤول عنيد..صارم ..حاسم في قراراته ، الهزائم توقظ شيء ما بداخله يتعذر التعرف عليه غير أن شعلة الحماسة المتقدة بداخله تأبى أن تذوي ...
إنه يصنع رجالاً يناضلون في أعماق الليل لا يتبعون سوى غريزة الرغبة في تحقيق الانتصار وحدها....
في اللحظة التي يترقب فيها قائد الطائرة مرفأ آمن ...بزوغ الفجر وإن بات بعيداً ، تومض نجمة خاطفة يتبعها ليغرق فى عالم حليبي مجهول..لا يسعك وأنت بمركز المراقبة سوى الانتظار...انتظار اشارة من نجمة تغني ...علامة النجاة....
أخيراً ترى ما الذي يدفع المرء ليتجاوز ذاته ليقبض على المعنى خارج نطاقها ؟؟...
أن يخاطر بحياته من أجل مهمة تكفل بتنفيذها....؟؟
انتظر ..لا تبحث عن إجابة..فالاجابة شقاء السؤال...
أجل تحرمنا من الانفتاح على إمكانية الاحتمالات وثرائها...لذا دع السؤال معلقاً لا تبحث عن إجابة.....
إذا كانت حياة الانسان لا تُقدر بثمن ، فإننا نتصرف دوماً كما لو أن ثمة شيئاً ما يتجاوز في قيمته الحياة الإنسانية ، ولكن ما هو هذا الشيء؟....

This was my first time reading St Exupery and almost feel ashamed because I didn't like this book and his writing style. I even found some parts quite bad and the constant use of comas is slowing the reading path. The story's meaning itself is a powerful memory of an era but it didn't ring any bell to me.

چرا پروازهای شبانه باید ادامه پیدا می کردند؟
چرا مدیر شرکت پست نباید دست از اهداف جاه طلبانه اش برمی‌داشت؟
چه هدف والایی در پروازهای شبانه وجود داشت که ارزشش از جون انسان ها بیشتر بود؟
کتاب توصیفات زیبایی داره...فقط همین!

Five stars for the original French edition, a scant three stars for the 1931 English translation by Stuart Gilbert.

It is 1930. South America. As a golden day turns into night, three planes are bound for an air field in Buenos Aires carrying mail from Chile, Paraguay and Patagonia. At the airfield office, the manager and ground crew wait. Across the continent, a vast cyclonic storm system is building.

The story of this night flight is told from several points of view: the pilot bound north from Patagonia on the longest and most hazardous route and the onboard radio operator who is filled with foreboding; on the ground in Buenos Aires, a timorous bureaucratic functionary and another pilot waiting to carry the mail on to Europe. Every hour counts, each one widening the company’s slender time advantage over rail and sea.

At the heart of the story and in the eye of the storm stands Rivière, the manager of this continent-wide venture and the main character. Rivière is a hard man, even a brutal one, who can goad a pilot into facing his fears or whip a ground crew to super-human efforts, all to keep the planes and pilots safely aloft for another few hours.

But tonight Rivière is bedeviled with doubts, feeling his age, second guessing his decisions. Rivière is not a likable character but he is at times admirable and as a study in a kind of leadership that is sometimes needed but has fallen out of favor, he is superb.

I read this novella in the original French, simultaneously with a 1932 English translation by Stuart Gilbert that I used as a sort of oil can and spare tire every time my rusty, rickety French ground to a halt. I am so glad that I persevered with the original.

The rhythm of the language is extraordinary. There are densely poetic passages that take us sweeping across the vast, empty steppes where only a few lights twinkle in the night, or that fly us into the towering cloud walls of a terrible storm. Then, abruptly, the poetry is pushed aside, elbowed out of the way by sharp, spare prose as impatient men force their way through the night, doing impossible jobs with too little gasoline, too little information, too little time...too little time! The dialog is even harsher: raw staccato sentences that rip across the page.

It’s potent, heart-pounding stuff, but alas only in the original.

Let me give you a taste of why I rate this book five stars in French, but only three stars in the Stuart Gilbert translation.

In a flashback, Rivière is firing an old mechanic, a veteran who is guilty of a single error and must be made ‘an example’. The man pleads desperately for the job that is his life, the core of his identity. Rivière's response is curt, implacable:

- Je vous ai dit: je vous offre une place de manoeuvre.
- Ma dignité, Monsieur, ma dignité! Voyons, Monsieur, vingt ans d'aviation ...
- De manoeuvre.
- Je refuse, Monsieur, je refuse!

And here is how the same passage is rendered in English:

“I told you you could have a job as a fitter.”
“But there’s my good name, sir, my name…after twenty years’ experience…”
“As fitter.”
“No, sir, I can’t see my way to that. I somehow can’t, sir!”

An Englishman might have said that last line, but never this proud, anguished French-Argentine mechanic.

I suspect most of the negative reviews are from readers who only read the Gilbert translation and they are not wrong, but if you can read the original even as haltingly as I did you’ll find it terrific. Content rating: Perfectly clean language in both English and French, no sex, no physical violence.

A first fly-over for the South American leg of my Around-the World challenge.

Küçük Prens’i lisede okumuştum, ve bilmiyorum, benim pek ilgi alanıma girmemişti. Yakın bir arkadaşım elindeki kopyasını vermişti okumam için –o fena halde bir Küçük Prens manyağıydı, kendisine bir doğum gününde Küçük Prensli yapboz yaptırmıştık, o kadar- sanırım onun bu kadar sevmesine ters tepki ben sevememiştim. Sonrasında hiç yazarı okumayı da düşünmedim. Yine birkaç arkadaşla okuma etkinliğimiz kapsamında seçtiğimiz bir kitap da buydu, haliyle okumuş oldum.

Bu da çok fazla ilgimi çekmedi açıkçası. Anlatım genel olarak fena değildi, ama oldukça kısa bir kesiti anlatan kitabın odağını dağıtacak türdeydi. Okurken de oldukça sıkıldım. Pek sarmadı beni dediğim gibi ama pilotluğa filan ilginiz varsa benden daha çok keyif alarak okuyabilirsiniz. Ayrıca değinilen güzel yerler de vardı. Kötü bir kitap değil yani, ortalama denebilir belki.

Çeviri de güzel ve okunaklı, baskı hataları ufak tefek var ama sıkıntı değil. İlgilisi okuyabilir.