Um Sentido para a Vida

by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"Un senso alla vita" è una raccolta di testi inediti di Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in cui l'autore si interroga sull'uomo e sui moti che spingono le sue azioni. Non mancano riflessioni sui sentimenti umani, sulla carità, sulla giustizia e sulla caducità della vita, caratterizzate da un pervasivo tono nostalgico e da una straordinaria spontaneità, che ci conducono fino alla parte più intima dell'animo del celebre scrittore francese. Di fronte a questa sfavillante costellazione di pensieri, il lettore non potrà far altro che lasciarsi avvolgere dalle dense e profonde parole di Saint-Exupéry al fine di comprendere il senso della vita degli uomini.

Genres: Fiction, France, Classics, Philosophy, Poetry

150 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

People best know French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry for his fairy tale The Little Prince (1943).

He flew for the first time at the age of 12 years in 1912 at the Ambérieu airfield and then determined to a pilot. Even after moving to a school in Switzerland and spending summer vacations at the château of the family at Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens in east, he kept that ambition. He repeatedly uses the house at Saint-Maurice.

Later, in Paris, he failed the entrance exams for the naval academy and instead enrolled at the prestigious l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1921, Saint-Exupéry, stationed in Strasbourg, began serving in the military. He learned and forever settled his career path as a pilot. After leaving the service in 1923, Saint-Exupéry worked in several professions but in 1926 went back and signed as a pilot for Aéropostale, a private airline that from Toulouse flew mail to Dakar, Senegal. In 1927, Saint-Exupéry accepted the position of airfield chief for Cape Juby in southern Morocco and began his first book, a memoir, called Southern Mail and published in 1929.

He then moved briefly to Buenos Aires to oversee the establishment of an Argentinean mail service, returned to Paris in 1931, and then published Night Flight , which won instant success and the prestigious Prix Femina. Always daring Saint-Exupéry tried from Paris in 1935 to break the speed record for flying to Saigon. Unfortunately, his plane crashed in the Libyan Desert, and he and his copilot trudged through the sand for three days to find help. In 1938, a second plane crash at that time, as he tried to fly between city of New York and Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, seriously injured him. The crash resulted in a long convalescence in New York.

He published Wind, Sand and Stars , next novel, in 1939. This great success won the grand prize for novel of the academy and the national book award in the United States. Saint-Exupéry flew reconnaissance missions at the beginning of the Second World War but went to New York to ask the United States for help when the Germans occupied his country. He drew on his wartime experiences to publish Flight to Arras and Letter to a Hostage in 1942.

Later in 1943, Saint-Exupéry rejoined his air squadron in northern Africa. From earlier plane crashes, Saint-Exupéry still suffered physically, and people forbade him to fly, but he insisted on a mission. From Borgo, Corsica, on 31 July 1944, he set to overfly occupied region. He never returned.

Reviews

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not going to spoil this book by telling you how amazing it is. Just know that it's one of those books where you interrupt someone else, who is probably reading, to read aloud to them the most beautiful, heart-rending sections. And what makes it even more unbelievably good is how relevant it is today, 70 years later. If you haven't read Saint-Exupéry, then you're missing out!

[Eric Hinkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential book if you can find it! A collection of essays and journalistic articles spanning his entire literary career, even including his one (and only?) short story "The Aviator" - his first published work. There are some amazing dispatches from his covering of the Russian and Spanish revolutionary wars of the 30s, and he gets extremely intimate with himself and with the anarchists and peasants around him. Lovely stuff. There's also a spell-binding piece describing his two-hour battle with the currents of an Argentinian cyclone, in which his plane was literally stuck in the air, unable to move in any direction - easily my favorite of his aviation descriptions. It's absurd and humbling. The last quarter of the book has some overlap with the pieces in the (also essential) Wartime Writings 1939-1944, but with some of these the entire pieces are offered, whereas in Wartime Writings they were sometimes edited. You also get a different translation here, so anything you may be reading twice is entirely worth it - and besides, Tonio is meant to be read 100 times anyway. As humane, intelligent, and philosophical as ever, this is brutally honest and meditative writing. He's truly every bit the saint that his name implies.

[Maria Silva · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Para descobrir onde reside esse mal estar é preciso, dominar os acontecimentos. Somos cegos, se quisermos olhar de muito perto.”
Crónicas da sua experiência como aviador de guerra; é interessante a forma de pensar de A Saint-Exupèry; a sua postura perante a vida, sem dúvida que foi influenciado pelo seu trabalho de aviador em tempo de guerra. Em cada capítulo se sente que dá valor à vida, com a simplicidade dos grandes. Analisa contradições, frivolidade e outros aspetos humanos. O último capítulo é uma exortação a paz.
Não é um romance, cada capítulo é diferente do seguinte, mas convergem num ponto: a vida.
Para ler com atenção.

[Knutschi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es regt zum Nachdenken an 😉


Ausschnitt aus dem Buch : ✏️.. Prevost hat unter den Trümmern eine Apfelsine entdeckt, und dieses unverhoffte Wunder teilen wir uns jetzt. Ich bin ganz außer Fassung, und wie wenig ist es doch für Menschen, die zwanzig Liter Wasser nötig hätten. Ich ruhe neben dem Lagerfeuer und betrachte die leuchtende Frucht, und ich sage mir :"Die Menschen wissen nicht, was eine Apfelsine ist!"
Und weiter dachte ich :"Wir sitzen hier, zum Tode verurteilt, und doch verdirbt mir diese Gewissheit nicht den Genuss. Diese halbe Apfelsine, die ich in meiner Hand halte, ist eine der größten Freuden meines Lebens."
Ich lege mich auf den Rücken, ich lutsche meine Frucht aus und zähle die Meteore. Für eine Minute bin ich restlos glücklich.. ✏️

[Rick Felli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ogni lettera, racconto, memoria dell'Autore sono dei piccoli, profondi, esistenziali capolavori in questa racconta. È nobilitante.

[Michal Angelo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A posthumously collected group of miscellaneous pieces written over a lifetime [1900-1944] by the famed author of Wind, Sand, and Stars & The Little Prince.
One does not merely read these accounts, but rather lives them. The authors philosophical probing and poetical prose are delivered with direct and truthful expression.
Saint-Exupery searches desperately for evidence of human brotherhood in the midst of the confusion and conflict that he foresaw as the prelude to general collapse and man's inability to communicate the exact meaning of dramatic experience--ungraspable at livings moment because of the very violence of action.
It is heartening to enter so quickly into direct contact with the point-of-view of a man of action and reflection who wishes to give meaning to men's lives.

[Rubi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es de admirar su capacidad narrativa y reflexiva; comprendo las alusiones bélicas aunque no me gustaron, pero me quedo con algunos de los mensajes implícitos en sus relatos.
His narrative and reflective capacity is to be admired; I understand the war allusions although I did not like them, but I am left with some of the implicit messages in their stories.

[Radarici · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was just a teenager when I read this book and it was one of the best books I ever read. His personal story is just amazing and when it is combined with his talent for both journalistic and literary writing the combination is just perfect! Saint-Exupéry was the type of 'the right man in the right place' guy as we say in Brazil. I just wonder how incredible (and scary) was an intercontinental journey by plane in the 1930s. His essays continue relevant and updated not because of their content but because of his extremely humanized writing style.

[Lizzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Antoine de Saint-Exupery. He is one of my favorite writers. This book is difficult to find, and now I know why... it's not as rich, detailed, or beautifully written as any of his other works. As a collection of essays and articles, it's probably better than most. But, it did not transport me as some of his other works have.

A decent read for anyone enthusiastic about Saint-Exupery. But, you should definitely start with one of his other works if you've never read anything by him.

[Taaya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ich begreife diesen Mann die meiste Zeit nicht. Und wenn ich ihn mal begreife, muss ich ihm widersprechen. (Und teilweise widerspricht er sich auch noch selbst in seiner Philosophie.) Größtenteils wirkt er aber unglaublich konservativ, vom christlichen Glauben verblendet und erfüllt von Hass auf alles Moderne. Und das, obwohl er selbst Pilot war.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love "The Little Prince" so I was quite excited to read this, but I'm afraid it got really repetitive. Maybe if I had read one section at a time it would have gone better. But I'm giving up for now.

[Marcin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading in original, bien sûr. Exupery was a genius.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compared to Gelhorn's articles about World War II, St. Exupery's were much more lyrical and deep.

[Mike Booth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of words, like everything this man seems to have written. If it's not quite as much fun as his others, it's because he reused a lot of his writings - completely fairly - in his novels that he originally composed in his journalistic career. As a result, you end up reading passages and even whole sections that you are already familiar with.
Despite this, the book is still touchingly beautiful, and often hauntingly so as it deals with the subject of war. Rereading a passage from an author that crafts his words so perfectly is no chore, and the slight differences from this collection to the final book is interesting to see - where the author trims, expands or modifies gives a little insight to his thought process.
Although this is the last book of his (at least in the sense that it was published posthumously and contained the majority of his works not already published), it is not the last of his that I have read. I'm glad of this, as otherwise I would've been more seized by the melancholy that always accompanies reading an author's final work. As such, I'm only saddened instead of devastated that this wonderful wordsmith didn't live long enough to produce anything more - which makes his railing against the futility of the war only more poignant. Such a waste of such a talent. As, of course, could be said of all the millions dead during the war.

[A K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Niedoceniona pozycja, do której kiedyś chętnie wrócę. Czuć w słowach autora, że odznaczał się głęboką wrażliwością i zdolnością wnikliwej obserwacji, by potem obrócić to w erudycyjne piękno na papierze. Pokazał, jak brutalność niszczy życie ludzkie poprzez opisy prozaicznych scen. Wojna przestaje być statyką, reportażem zmiany sił, frontów i strat, a zniża się do jej przeżycia z punktu widzenia pospolitego człowieka opuszczającego dobytek i zostawiającego pelargonie, które kochał podlewać. Można odkryć, co kryło się za niektórymi motywami, które zostały zamieszczone w ,,Małym księciu" i spojrzeć na nie poprzez nową perspektywą. ,,O sens życia" stanowi przyjemne uzupełnienie powyższej lektury szkolnej, pozwalające poznać lepiej myśl autora i odczuć żal, że tak wcześnie odszedł.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

alr did sum description abt the book in my profile but I totally recommend it if ur into history (this one is specifically about the civil war in Spain and the revolutionary one in Russia). It does have hard vocabulary and a fluid way of written thoughts about the daily society (have in count this was around the 30's/40's) and also the society we would think we were gonna be in the future. We was totally right abt his guesses tho, turning the most interesting part of the book the one where he has questions and worrys about our future that still stands to have no answer now-a-days.

[Seth Lease · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting turn in his work after reading his book The Little Prince first. I get this Steinbeck-ish feeling around his war report wording.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet collection of quotes that help you understand more about the Little Prince.

[Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seemed to be more about flying than philosophy

[Henrique Fendrich · Rating 2 out of 5]

Esperava encontrar aqui algo tão maravilhoso em sua essência humana como "Terra dos homens", mas achei que esse esteve bem abaixo.

[Parker Story · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, captivating, and impactful! Sometimes the choices made by the translator made it difficult to grasp, but Saint-Exupéry’s message still rang clear.

[Marc Nadal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Combina l'esperit del reporter de guerra amb el poeta atònit que es resisteix a entendre el mal.

[Gift · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dieses Büchlein hat für mich nicht funktioniert. Ich weiß nicht, ob es an dem Format lag, oder an Saint-Exupéry selbst, aber ich konnte mich gar nicht einlesen.
Das Buch ist in mehrere thematische Bereiche aufgeteilt, die Auszüge aus unterschiedlichen Werken von Saint-Exupéry beinhalten. Ganz einfach ausgedrückt, die Herausgeberin hat alle, nur ein bisschen poetisch klingelnde Sätze und Absätze, die der Autor je geschrieben hatte, zusammengefasst und „neu“ geordnet. Die Idee an sich finde ich gar nicht schlecht. Es ist zwar nichts komplett Neues (eigentlich ganz im Gegenteil, viele von den Zitaten sind beispielsweise an Goodreads erschienen), aber warum nicht. Es gibt viele Saint-Exupéry-Fans, die sich bestimmt für so etwas ganz gut begeistern lassen. Andererseits… Sollte man einen Schriftsteller nur auf die „großen“ Sätze reduzieren/aufwerten?

[Dorota · Rating 4 out of 5]

Już dawno nie miałam w rękach nic autorstwa Antoine de Saint-Exupéry i dzięki tej książce ponownie zatęskniłam do jego pisarstwa. Jest to kilka tekstów, w których zawiera swoje refleksje na temat podróży do Moskwy, czy wojny domowej w Hiszpanii, a także swoich doświadczeń jako pilota. Działający na wyobraźnię, poetycki styl i wplecione w opisywane wydarzenia liczne pytania nie dają spokoju jeszcze jakiś po zamknięciu książki.