Pondering life’s meaning while piloting a sortie in WWII under fire and on a mission that was most likely a death sentence…could there have been a more honest and timely report from the edge?

130814: three novels that together give the best and worst of saint-exupery. the best is pure, romantic, adventures of flight in the early 20th century, adventures that remind readers of an era, not so long ago, when to fly, to pilot, was a grand romantic experience, dangerous, transcendent, amazing and beautiful. the first time flown i was about two to Kauai, then seven to Europe, then every year to Honolulu, fourteen to New Zealand, to LA, the usual interisland in Hawai'i, when only Honolulu could land international flights, so the romance of flight never was fabulous as it had been for my father- who had never flown until 29 or so. i have never wanted to be a pilot. i remember more jet lag and distances escaped and not very good food. the worst in this collection is when St-Exupery ventures into philosophical if not religious discourse on his idea of Man, his ideals of heroism, fraternity, sacrifice etc... but this is mostly the last section of 'flight to arras', the third novel, and you can skip it without much loss...

one time, flying southwest from Vancouver or Seattle to Lihue, Kauai, we happened to takeoff just before sunset, and as we flew i remember watching from my window seat, the longest sunset i might ever see, a feeling of being suspended in sunset golden light, a feeling of magical transport, the flight smooth, unhindered by turbulence or crowded by clouds... and this is the most romantic flight ever taken...

read this because of this:
Merleau-Ponty's Existential Phenomenology and the Realization of Philosophy

I have read this again and again. It is a collection of St-Ex's three books: Flight to Arras; Wind, Sand and Stars; Night Flight.

These books show the dreamy nature of flight and are often autobiographical sketches of some amazing stories.

I wanted to like this because I love airplanes. Unfortunately the author writes about everything but. For example, one story spends a long time with the pilot approaching his plane. Then it skips to his arriving at the destination. Another story spends a few pages with him in the air and the rest of the time wandering the desert.

It’s like reading about a trip to Italy but the character never leaves the hotel.

Sometimes I read books for silly reasons. My first exposure to St. Exupery was reading The Little Prince in high school French class. At that time the teacher told us that St. Exupery was also famous for his book Wind, Sand and Stars , which is included in this trilogy. I was more interested in the last story in the book, Flight to Arras because I thought it would compliment my hobby of building model airplanes. And there is the silly reason for reading this book.

On several shelves in my basement lie approximately 50 unopened model kits that I bought on eBay ten years ago. Among them is a World War II French Bloch 174. I had read on one of my favorite time wasting model building websites that this kit was a model of the very aircraft St. Exupery flew in Flight to Arras. Naturally I suspected it wasn't true because the Internet was the source. In Flight to Arras St. Exupery recounts a dangerous reconnaissance mission while flying for the French Air Force Unit 2/33. He mentions 2/33 and its men several times. Curiosity compelled me to go down cellar and study the unopened box for the Bloch 174 model more closely. It is a French kit and most of the box is printed in French. It offers options to build two aircraft, one of which was from "Groupe de Reconnaissance II/33". I realized that "II/33" was Roman numeral two, hence "II/33" was actually "2/33 "and was elated to learn that the model plane which has been waiting to be built since 2006 is truly the one from St. Exupery's story, Flight to Arras. French model kit of a French airplane flown by a famous French author; what else could it be?

If you don't like war stories you won't like Flight to Arras. However, I actually found it useful in my everyday life. I help teach an adult religious education class and cited it in one meeting. I thought the members would all appreciate a break from the Bible and Roman Catholic catechism. We were discussing charity and St. Exupery wrote a beautiful sentiment about charity in Flight to Arras. To paraphrase: Charity is a gift that man gives to God. Everyone one in the class perked upon hearing that. Also, it made me look smarter too by dropping a mellifluous name like Antoine de Saint Exupery -even if they had never heard of him.

My high school French teacher did well by dropping the title of the first book in this trilogy, Wind, Sand and Stars, so many times. It is a captivating tale of St. Exupery's exploits as an airmail pilot in the 1920s and 1930s. He survives flying through cyclones over South America and then a crash in the Sahara Desert. But the story gets even better as he, like many of his contemporaries, journeys to Spain to witness the Spanish Civil War.

The second part of the trilogy is a novella entitled Night Flight. I hated the main character. He was jerk who enjoyed sending men to their deaths under the pretense that fear would make them better pilots and that although he actually loved them he must never let them know.

I will probably be the last person ever to borrow this book from the Boston Public Library. It was published in 1942 and is not the edition pictured above. It is hardbound and the blue dye on the frayed cover stained the cuff of my coat sleeve in a rainstorm. Ultimately the brittle binding broke and the cover came off in my hands.

Airman's Odyssey is a compilation of 3 books by the author, all written with a clear love of flying, adventure, and through a philosopher's lens.
I would rate the first book, Wind, Sand and Stars, the best and most approachable. The second, Night Flight, and the third, Flight to Arras, have their strengths, but tend to feel a little bogged down in their discussion of various philosophical ideals at length, and I sometimes found myself needing to take a break before continuing.
But the intentions of Saint-Ex are good, and in each of the 3 books the reader can find something that will capture them.

An obvious romantic, Saint-Ex takes us on a journey in the first book, blending his airborne adventures as a pilot with his own personal philosophies and ruminations. Flying, the freedom of the air, how the earth looks passing beneath the cockpit, the desperation of solitude in the desert, peace found cutting through the night sky.
I wish that I spoke French so that I might appreciate the writing more fully in its original form.

If you want to be transported by writing clearly crafted with love, I cannot recommend the first book enough. Night Flight is shorter and more self-contained, and so manages to escape suffering for lack of brevity as the final book does. However, I still found a couple quotes I made note of, and with which I will end my review:

If the civilization to which I belong was brought low by the incapacity of individuals, then my question must be, why did my civilization not create a different type of individual?
...
If what I wish is to preserve on Earth a given type of man, and the particular energy that radiates from him, I must begin by salvaging the principles that animate that kind of man.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Flight To Arras

On the surface these are tales of adventure, aviation, and war. In actuality, it is a deep reflection on the human condition and how a pilot's high altitude view informs their perspective on humanity. Much of the prose rings with a poetic quality - translating the experience of flying an aircraft into both the visceral and transcendent.

The book's masculine and European focus has not aged gracefully, but at the same time my sense is if Saint-Exupéry could look back on this work he would modernize it. Throughout the book is informed by his deep, imperfect, multicultural humanism.

Wind, Sand, and Stars is the most typical of the three books. Structured somewhat randomly around different topics, it's probably the strongest of the three from its rich look at how a pilot sees and feels the sky, to how people respond to war.

Night Flight is a strange work of short fiction, but it's informative into the challenges of the people who took the early airmail risks.

Flight to Arras was by far my favorite. Writing as Saint-Exupéry flew reconnaissance missions over an advancing German army in France, it contemplates futility, defeat, failed human systems, refugees, and the meaning of life. But, strangely, all while he is piloting a single reconnaissance mission getting lost in his own thoughts. The effect is striking tho the end goes on a little too long and is a little too preachy. Could have used some editing. Still an extraordinary bit of writing.

This book is sometimes referred to as a novel but more often as a memoir or as an autobiography. In order to comment on this book, it is necessary to look at the biographical details of the man who wrote it. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (St.Ex.) was an airplane pilot in both peace and war and was a mail delivery pilot in between. St.Ex. was also a writer, poet, journalist and an aviator. He is probably best known for his fairy tale titled “The Little Prince” published in April, 1943. St.Ex. was lost over the Mediterranean on July 31, 1944.

This is the first of three books that comprise the collective “Airman’s Odyssey”. The other titles include “Night Flight” and “Flight to Arras”. Of the three books, this one is the memoir most closely representative of his career as a young aviator. The central event in this book was a detailed account of a 1935 plane crash in the Sahara. The memoir covers the years of 1926-1939. This book provided many themes and storylines are reiterated in his novella “The Little Prince” published in 1943. “Prince” was his most successful work—selling >140 million makes it one of the all-time best sellers in history. The narrator in “Prince” is the pilot of a disabled plane. Critics immediately referenced the work as parallel between the author and the main character of the “Prince” and that the views represented in the novella were closest to St.Ex.’s own. Over the years, the novella has been described as “somber”, “fantastical”, “unrealistic”, and notes the novella reflected attitudes of the time regarding the role of men and women, war, condescension, presents an unflattering view as narrowed minded. Sentimental and erroneously profound. Goodreads places this book at 4.32 based on 2,063,230 ratings. I, for one, fall into the 5 star ratings for “The Little Prince” and because I can excuse what are described as “flaws” as an artifact of his times force a rating of 4.5 for this one. Recommend to readers of classics, memoirs, travel, adventure, biography, aviation, philosophy, history and fantasy.

Three books make up this Odyssey. Wind, Sand and Stars, Night Flight, and Flight to Arras.
The first and last are narrations of what happened to him flying the mail and in WWII and the middle one is a true to life novel about those who fly the mail at night and the support crew that sends them. All are beautifully written and are filled with poetry in describing the experiences, the desert, flying, and love of country.
If you read this and don’t feel like you should either join the French Foreign Legion or start flying lessons then your soul has lost its sense of adventure.
St. Ex writes of flying with such romance and love that you will be seduced by his words. I dare you not to be.

Three wondeful books in one!

Unless you are a pilot or love flying stories, this isn't the book for you. But if you are those things, then you will likely love the poetic descriptions and artistry of flight in this book. Be prepared for some old style use of language and get out your dictionary.

The dignity of the human subject is one of the greatest truths literature can reveal. Throughout this collection of novellas from Saint-Exupery, we see the value of a single life. The pilot is often considered a disposable resource in war or in air mail, but Exupery's heightened sense of awareness, his reflections on the meaning of life, his acute observations, his sense of beauty, show us the sanctity inherent in all individual lives even as they serve causes greater than themselves. Wind, Sand, and Stars is the best novel of the bunch for its storytelling, poetic language, and observations on human nature. But the entire book is full of outstanding reflection. It is a pleasure to engage with this great mind!