Tierra de los hombres

by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Rafael Dieste (translator)

Recipient of the Grand Prix of the Académie Française, Wind, Sand and Stars captures the grandeur, danger, and isolation of flight. Its exciting account of air adventure, combined with lyrical prose and the spirit of a philosopher, makes it one of the most popular works ever written about flying. Translated by Lewis Galantière.

Genres: Nonfiction, Classics, Memoir, Travel, Adventure, France, Biography

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 6, 1939

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

[Elizabeth]

oh... maybe I'm just a sucker for Saint-Exupéry. Let me go on about the title. It just doesn't translate into English. I LIKE the traditional English title, Wind, Sand, and Stars, but the puns all get lost. They'd get lost no mattr how you translate it, though. In French, la terre is not just the world, the earth, but also earth, dirt, ground and land; there are puns on terrain--terraine, landscape--and territoire, territory--the word atterrir, TO LAND an aeroplane, literally means to alight on earth. So all these things get talked about, man's relationship to earth from above and from ON the earth, but also you get quite a bit of the literal translation "world of men"--a plea for peace and for environmental moderation. (All the early aviators are blown away by the beauty of the earth from the air.)

My favorite part of this book is where he lands on an inaccessible plateau in North Africa and, after marvelling that he is the first living thing EVER to have drawn breath here, notices that the place is littered with meteorites. And what is so wonderful about this book is not that St. X experienced that moment, but that through him, *I* get to experience it too. "Nous demandons à boire, mais nous demandons aussi à communiquer." The pages are filled with the desperation to communicate, man's love of solitude tempered and ruined by his dependence on others. This is the landscape of The Little Prince--all the characters are here, and were real.

Incidentally, I'd forgotten what a huge influence the core story in this book--plane crash in the desert and subsequent brush with nearly dying of thirst--was on my own book, The Sunbird.

This is the first time I've read this book in French. It's not long and it's very accessible to the struggling Francophile.

[Henry Avila · Rating 4 out of 5]

What would seem just a simple memoir by the pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupery turns into something much greater a philosophy of life, with all its complexities and anxieties revealed, which transforms this and becomes inimitable... The beginning is about the young airman full of doubt as he is given his first long flight carrying mail, set in 1926 and ending by 1936. You can imagine how flimsy the airplanes were, no radio or Global Positioning System only landmarks for navigation, in bad weather the low flying craft, becomes a treacherous journey. Nevertheless Antoine perseveres while others fall to perpetual darkness ...pilots are brave yet not immortal. Crashing in the Sahara desert with intractable tribes nearby doesn't make our friend happy the opposite though, however the nature of him will always be positive. Besides the love of being airborne over scorching deserts, dodging tall mountain peaks in the snowy Andes in South America unruffled, high above free as the eagle feels, not nervous but supreme confident of his maneuvers, climbing heavenly and the descend mythical . And crossing the immense endless oceans knowing to plunge would be his last day, thrilled by the accumulated experiences, still gaining acclaim from fellow aviators. But Monsieur Saint-Exupery is an observer of the human race, seeing slaves in West Africa and freeing one by paying the master for his freedom . Surviving another crack-up in North Africa, with Prevot his mechanic, mirages and thirst will make anyone hallucinate. Seeing things that are not there yet wishing they were. Step by step he advances, spotting lakes, cool pools as his throat needs quenching, the fiery sun beats relentlessly down, viewing Arabs he knows aren't real but wishes otherwise. Later the biggest trauma he views until then is the brutal, appalling , hideous civil war in Spain. The same people butchering the enemy who a few weeks ago were their countrymen, although now they are quite different , evil personified these things, subhuman for some, grotesque
creatures who must be eliminated from the face of the earth both sides believe. A stupendous writer and the book proves it but the sad truth is he left us too soon, still Antoine perished doing what the author loved. An impressive achievement for a pilot or any writer, for this story is a constant joy, the spirit lifts the world.

[Julie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a fantasy book club in my head. . . an eclectic group of readers who meet with me, once a month, and listen on with great zeal and approval, as I suggest our newest "assignments."

For this month's fantasy assignment, I will be asking the bald warlocks, former pole dancers and Hillary Clinton (this is who I tend to think of as the members of this select group) to read the middle section of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's memoir, entitled "Prisoner of the Sand."

"Prisoner of the Sand" is a sublime offering. It is, to me, THE takeaway story from this somewhat uneven memoir. In "Prisoner," the reader learns the true story of his harrowing plane crash in an African desert with his mechanic, Prévot (just 9 years before his plane would go down again, forever).

Then, I will ask my little pack of gypsy literati to read or reread Saint-Exupéry's classic The Little Prince.

Oh, the tears and laughter our group will share, when we compare dear Antoine's real life plane crash in the desert with the fictional story of THE LITTLE PRINCE that would be published, 8 years later, as a direct result of this life-threatening experience.

Saint-Exupéry's writing, in this section, has nary an equal, in all the world.

I'll leave you with this paragraph, what he wrote of the man who found them in the desert and without whom we would never have had THE LITTLE PRINCE:

You, Bedouin of Libya who saved our lives, though you will dwell for ever in my memory yet I shall never be able to capture your features. You are Humanity and your face comes into my mind simply as man incarnate. You, our beloved fellowman, did not know who we might be, and yet you recognized us without fail. And I, in my turn, shall recognize you in the faces of all mankind. You came towards me in an aureole of charity and magnanimity bearing the gift of water. All my friends and all my enemies marched towards me in your person. It did not seem to me that you were rescuing me: rather did it seem that you were forgiving me. And I felt I had no enemy left in the world.

Mon Dieu! I envy anyone who can read this in the original French!

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whenever I am forced to name my most favorite book ever, my automatic response is Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince. I read it first when I was a boy but I did not understand what was it all about except the hat with an elephant inside and the planet with big trees called baobab. The second time was in college when it was a required reading in World Literature. I did not really like it until my professor explained that the novel was about man’s search for friendship. I recall that there was no internet at the time and I still had to go to the school library to research more on Saint-Ex’s life so I can make a better book report. We were not required to read other books (that was great since you know how busy a college student can be) of the same author and there was no Wikipedia yet. So, my knowledge of Saint-Ex stopped with his tale of this little prince.

I re-read it from cover to cover this month as it was voted by the Filipinos here in Goodreads for February 2012 group read. It was for this reason, why I read this other popular Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s book, Wind, Sand and Stars. I wanted to find out more about the man and probably more about The Little Prince.

Since this was originally written in French, its title was Terre des homes that literally means “Land of Men” when it was published in France in 1939. Later that year, it was published in the US as “Land of People” But when The Little Prince became a worldwide phenomenon in 1943, the US publishers changed the title to Wind, Sand and Stars maybe to establish its connection between the two books. In the US, this book Wind, Sand and Stars won the National Book Award in 1939 for the Non-Fiction Category. The National Geographic Adventure magazine also memoir as No. 3 in its all-time list of 100 best adventure-exploration books.

For you who loved The Little Prince, read this book. You will see semblances of that book’s characters and events with what happened to Saint-Ex in this book. There is a scene here where Saint-Ex, the pilot of Aerospostale (airmail carrier) landed in a place full of meteorites. There is his bestfriend Henri Guillaumet (1902-1940) who in June 13, 1930, crashed in another place and though tempted to give up, he persisted while thinking of his wife, Noëlle, (very similar to Saint-Ex thinking of his rose) until June 19 at dawn when he was rescued by a 14-year-old boy named Juan García (who should be his inspiration for his Little Prince character). Some critics say that Guillaumet is Little Prince himself or maybe the fox but Saint-Ex dedicated that book to Leon Werth, his other friend who he met in 1931. Léon Werth (1878-1955) spent the war unobtrusively in Saint-Amour, his village in the Jura, a mountainous region near Switzerland where he "was alone, cold and hungry", and had few nice words on French refugees. Saint-Ex returned to Europe in early 1943, rationalizing, "I cannot bear to be far from those who are hungry... I am leaving in order to suffer and thereby be united with those who are dear to me."

The book is very insightful. He reminded me of Richard Bach who wrote my favorite love story, The Bridge Across Forever. Saint-Ex brilliantly connected love, life, flying and male friendship. I am sure that he inspired Bach who is also a pilot and a novelist.

The only difficulty I had with this book was my zero interest on flying. I am more of a sea or mountain person. Thus, there were parts when I could not stop hum-hum while reading. But overall, since I love The Little Prince, I appreciated to the answers this book provided me. Answers to the questions that I had when I was a little boy for the first time reading about the little prince in the desert up to the time when I re-read it in college and learned that it was about man's search for friendship.

[Robin Sloan · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I had to choose between The Little Prince and this book, I'd choose this book, because in a way you can use it to derive Saint-Exupéry's classic. If The Little Prince is the diamond, this book is the coal: a hard-earned mass of adventure and experience. The book reads like a long letter from your most astonishing friend. Sublime.

[Algernon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know nothing, nothing in the world, equal to the wonder of nightfall in the air. [...] Mermoz said once, “It’s worth it, it’s worth the final smash-up.”

Flying in 2015 has become about as commonplace and unexciting as taking the subway to work or the train to the weekend lodge. It is safer than driving a car and most of the work, beside take-offs and landings, is done by sophisticated instruments. What we have gained in safety and comfort. We may have lost in our sense of wonder and our perspective. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, poet and pioneer aviator, is probably our best guide back to the miracle of flight, and this present autobiographical novel is I believe the best example of his profound humanism and lyrical prose. Considering some common details about a plane crash in the desert, the eagle-eye view of humans struggling to fill in huge empty spaces on a planet hurtling through a vast emptiness, the common themes of friendship, love, death, peace, Terre des Hommes is closely related to Le Petit Prince, the more famous novella about the boy who looks at earth with innocent and hopeful eyes.

In structure, the novel pays homage to the early days of the Aeropostale, the first French company who opened up new routes of travel from Europe to Sahara, over the Andes in South America, to the Far East and beyond. It shows us the people for whom courage was only a short step away from suicidal madness, throwing themselves with reckless abandon in the middle of the storm without navigation instruments and with weak radio stations to guide them back to ground. I could quote whole pages, but I tried to restrain myself to a couple of the best examples:

Thus, when Mermoz first crossed the South Atlantic in a hydroplane, as day was dying he ran foul of the Black Hole region, off Africa. Straight ahead of him were the tails of tornadoes rising minute by minute gradually higher, rising as a wall is built; and then the night came down upon these preliminaries and swallowed them up; and when, an hour later, he slipped under the clouds, he came out into a fantastic kingdom.
Great black waterspouts had reared themselves seemingly in the immobility of temple pillars. Swollen at their tops, they supported the squat and lowering arch of the tempest, but through the rifts in the arch there fell slabs of light and the full moon sent her radiant beams between the pillars down upon the frozen tiles of the sea. Through these uninhabited ruins Mermoz made his way, gliding slantwise from one channel of light to the next, circling round those giant pillars in which there must have rumbled the upsurge of the sea, flying for four hours through these corridors of moonlight towards the exit from the temple. And this spectacle was so overwhelming that only after he had got through the Black Hole did Mermoz awaken to the fact that he had not been afraid.
---
Mermoz and his mechanic had been forced down at an altitude of twelve thousand feet on a table-land at whose edges the mountains dropped sheer on all sides. For two mortal days they hunted a way off this plateau. But they were trapped. Everywhere the same sheer drop. And so they played their last card.
Themselves still in it, they sent the plane rolling and bouncing down an incline over the rocky ground until it reached the precipice, went off into air, and dropped. In falling, the plane picked up enough speed to respond to the controls. Mermoz was able to tilt its nose in the direction of a peak, sweep over the peak and, while the water spurted through all the pipes burst by the night frost, the ship already disabled after only seven minutes of flight, he saw beneath him like a promised land the Chilean plain.
And the next day he was at it again.


When I think of Guillaumet, Mermoz, Saint-Exupery and of their colleagues in the Aeropostale , I have this image of one of our Romanian monuments to the early aviators: their arms spread out and covered with feathers, they went to the sky as naturally as we walk, they fought singlehanded against wind, darkness, cold and tiredness, and they paid dearly for their daring, falling back to ground in flames, like Icarus. In their own words: It was worth it!



Even as the peasant strolling about his domain is able to foresee in a thousand signs the coming of the spring, the threat of frost, a promise of rain, so all that happens in the sky signals to the pilot the oncoming snow, the expectancy of fog, or the peace of a blessed night. The machine which at first blush seems a means of isolating man from the great problems of nature, actually plunges him more deeply into them. As for the peasant so for the pilot, dawn and twilight become events of consequence. His essential problems are set to him by the mountain, the sea, the wind. Alone before the vast tribunal of the tempestuous sky, the pilot defends his mails and debates on terms of equality with those three elemental divinities.

An interesting chapter describes the flying machines they used on their missions, and Saint-Exupery uses the occasion to lash out at those who complain about the modern man’s dependence on technology. It is not the tool itself that drives us away from nature, but the way we use it. Like the ever-present so-called ‘smart’ phones, they are not making us lonely by breaking up our direct contact with our fellow men, their role is actually to make it easier to communicate and get in touch. Airplanes also bring us closer together by reducing the travel times and thus the distances that separate us.

Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of the flickering pictures – in this century as in others our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together. Do our dreamers hold that the invention of writing, of printing, of the sailing ship, degraded the human spirit?

While acknowledging the dangers of man being made to serve the machine (industry), the poet sees further and deeper, and argues for the spiritual liberation that the conquest of the air brings us:

A man cannot live a decent life in cities, and I need to feel myself live. I am not thinking of aviation. The airplane is a means, not an end. One doesn’t risk one’s life for a plane any more than a farmer ploughs for the sake of the plough. But the airplane is a means of getting away from towns and their bookkeeping and coming to grips to reality.
Flying is a man’s job and its worries are a man’s worries. A pilot’s business is with the wind, with the stars, with night, with sand, with the sea. He strives to outwit the forces of nature. He stares in expectancy for the coming of dawn the way a gardener awaits the coming of spring. He looks forward to port as to a promised land, and truth for him is what lives in the stars.

The winds, sand and stars of the title are revealed here as the keepers of the ultimate truth about life and about our place in the universe. An eagle-eye look at our planet from several thousand feet up in the air helps to put life in perspective, showing how insignificant some of our daily worries are, how feeble is our grip on the earth’s crust, how much a simple drink of water may mean to a man dying of thirst, and how the most important thing we can do is to share the burden with another human being. The main event in the novel is a plane crash in Sahara. The desert, like it did with countless prophets, is one of the best places in the world to bare a soul naked and bring it closer to divinity. It is not surprising that such a powerful revelation will mark the author’s writing both here and in Le Petit Prince:

When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with outstretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself flung forth and plunging downward like a diver.
But I did not fall. From nape to heel I discovered myself bound to earth. I felt a sort of appeasement in surrendering to it my weight. Gravitation had become as sovereign as love. The earth, I felt, was supporting my back, sustaining me, lifting me up, transporting me through the immense void of night. I was glued to our planet by a pressure like that which one is glued to the side of the car on a curve. I leaned with joy against this admirable breast-work, this solidity, this security, feeling against my body this curving bridge of my ship.

From the austere purity of the desert, the poet turns reporter and takes us on a trip to Spain during the civil war, trying to understand the impulses and the failures that drive brother against brother:

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction. There is no comradeship except through union in the same high effort. Even in our age of material well-being this must be so, else how should we explain the happiness we feel in sharing our last crust with others in the desert? [...] What sets us against one another is not our aims – they all come to the same thing – but our methods, which are the fruit of our varied reasoning.

With this last quote I move from the English title to the original French one: Terre des hommes. For Saint-Exupery we are all one nation, one people, rich in diversity, but united in spirit, divided by language, religion or politics but brothers in arms before the court of desert and stars. Flight is a tool, not a destination, and the best use we can put it to is to open us up to the beauty of companionship. From his whole career as a pilot, the poet values most the times he shared his passion and his experiences with his comrades, a beautiful word that should not be held hostage to political propaganda:

We told stories, we joked, we sang songs. In the air there was that slight fever that reigns over a gaily prepared feast. And yet we were infinitely poor. Wind, sand, and stars. The austerity of Trappists. But on this badly lighted cloth, a handful of men who possessed nothing in the world but their memories were sharing invisible riches.
We had met at last. Men travel side by side for years, each locked up in his own silence or exchanging those words which carry no freight – till danger comes. Then they stand shoulder to shoulder. They discover that they belong to the same family. They wax and bloom in the recognition of fellow beings. They look at one another and smile. They are like the prisoner set free who marvels at the immensity of the sea.
Happiness! It is useless to seek it elsewhere than in this warmth of human relations. Our sordid interests imprison us within their walls. Only a comrade can grasp us by the hand and haul us free.

Saint-Exupery died, like many of his comrades he shared a meal with in the desert, doing what he loved best in the world – flying. Or maybe like his Prince he visited us for a while and then went back to his tiny planet to tend his volcano and his flower. He left behind a message of hope for the future and of trust in our ability to gather together when danger threatens us. I tried here to explain why he is more than a favourite author, he is an old friend that walked beside me and pointed out the beauty of a sunset or of a child’s smile, the necessity of sharing:

Old friends cannot be created out of hand. Nothing can match the treasure of common memories, of trials endured together, of quarrels and reconciliations and generous emotions. It is idle, having planted an acorn in the morning, to expect that afternoon to sit in the shade of the oak.
So life goes on. For years we plant the seed, we feel ourselves rich; and then come other years when time does its work and our plantation is made sparse and thin. One by one, our comrades slip away, deprive us of their shade.

[Mohammad Hrabal · Rating 3 out of 5]

به نظر و سلیقه‌ی من اگزوپری فقط شازده کوچولو و تمام. امتیاز واقعی من سه و نیم. ترجمه آقای حبیبی عالی و نسخه‌ی انتشارات علمی و فرهنگی تر و تمیز و بدون غلط بود.
********************************************************************************
و به راستی هیچ چیز جای رفیق گم شده را پر نخواهد کرد. نمی‌توان برای خود دوستان قدیمی درست کرد. هیچ چیز با این گنجینه‌ی خاطرات مشترک، این همه رنج‌ها و مصائب با هم چشیده، این همه قهرها و آشتی‌ها و هیجان‌های تند هم‌سنگ نیست. این دوستی‌ها تکرار نمی‌شوند. کسی که نهال بلوطی به این امید می‌نشاند که به زودی در سایه‌اش بنشیند، خیالی خام می‌پرورد. سیر زندگی بدین سان است. اول گنجی گرد آوردیم. سال‌ها درخت نشاندیم. ولی روزگاری می‌رسد که زمان، زحمت ما را تباه می‌کند و درختان را می‌اندازد. رفیقان یک یک سایه‌ی خود را از سر ما می‌گیرند و ماتم‌های ما از این پس با تأسف پنهان پیری دل آزار تر می‌شود... گنج راستین یکی بیش نیست و آن روابط پنهان میان آدم‌ها است. ص 32 کتاب
در برابر این سرنوشت حقیر، یاد مرگی به راستی مردانه در ذهنم بیدار می‌شد. مرگ باغبانی که در حال احتضار به من می‌گفت: (می‌دانید... گاه، هنگام بیل زدن عرق می‌ریختم. درد روماتیسم پایم را می‌آزرد و به این زندگی بردگی ناسزا می‌گفتم. اما امروز دلم می‌خواهد بیل بزنم. تمام زمین را برگردانم. بیل زدن به چشمم چه زیباست. انسان هنگام بیل زدن چه آزاد است. وانگهی چه کسی درخت‌هایم را هرس خواهد کرد؟)ص 49 کتاب
در جهانی که زندگی به این خوبی به زندگی می‌پیوندد و گل‌ها در همان بستر باد با هم می‌آمیزند و قو با همه‌ی قوها آشناست، فقط انسان‌هایند که دیوار حصار تنهایی خود را بالا می‌برند. ص61 کتاب
این‌ها (اعراب بادیه نشین مغربی) کسانی بودند که هرگز درختی یا چشمه‌ای یا گلی ندیده بودند و وصف باغ‌ها و نهرهای آب روان را فقط از قرآن شنیده بودند. زیرا در قرآن، بهشت چنین وصف شده است. بهشت و حوریان آن به پاداش مرگ تلخ در ریگزار، به تیر کفار، پس از سی سال محنت، بهره‌ی آنان می‌شود. ولی خدا آن‌ها را فریب می‌دهد. زیرا از فرانسویان در برابر این همه نعمت که به آنان ارزانی می‌دارد، نه عطش می‌خواهد و نه مرگ. ص 96 کتاب
تجربه نشان داده است که دوستی آن نیست که در هم بنگریم، بلکه آن است که در یک راستا نگاه کنیم. ص 201 کتاب

[Nikoleta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Αγαπώ ή μάλλον όχι, λατρεύω το Σαιντ Εξυπερύ.
Νιώθω λίγο κουτή που μέχρι τώρα είχα διαβάσει μόνο τον Μικρό Πρίγκιπα θεωρώντας ανόητα ότι ήταν ότι καλύτερο έχει να προσφέρει.
Στο «Η γη των ανθρώπων» μας αφηγείται τις πιλοτικές του εμπειρίες, όλες αυτές τις ολοκληρωτικές, αχανείς εικόνες ενός κόσμου που από εκεί ψηλά μοιάζει τρομακτικά απέραντος… Αυτές που τον μάγεψαν, τον ωρίμασαν και τον έπλασαν σε αυτόν τον μαγευτικό καλλιτέχνη.
Και πόσο υπέροχη, σαγηνευτική αφηγηματική γλώσσα χρησιμοποιεί… Όταν θα νιώθω την ανάγκη να ταξιδέψω νοητά, θα ανοίγω το βιβλίο «Η γη των ανθρώπων», θα διαβάζω μια παράγραφο και θα φεύγω…

«Κάπου αλλού ίσως οι άνθρωποι βυθομετρούσαν το άπειρο ή έκαναν τους υπολογισμούς πάνω στο νεφελοειδή της Ανδρομέδας. Αλλού έκαναν έρωτα. Κάπου απόμερα φέγγανε στον κάμπο αυτές οι φωτιές σαν να αποζητούσαν να ξαναγεννηθούν. Ακόμα και ως τ’ απόμερα που βρισκόταν ο ποιητής, ο δάσκαλος, ο μαραγκός.
Μα, ανάμεσα σ’ αυτά τα ζωντανά αστέρια, πόσα σβησμένα φώτα, πόσοι άνθρωποι που κοιμόντουσαν…
Χρειάζεται μεγάλη προσπάθεια για να κάνεις όλα τούτα να ταιριάξουν. Πρέπει να δοκιμάσω να επικοινωνήσω με μερικά απ’ αυτά τα φώτα που φεγγίζουν από μακριά μέσα στον κάμπο.»

[Ulysse · Rating 5 out of 5]

One
Day flying
Above the desert
You crash-land behind a
Dune now you are stranded
Without a single drop of water
In sight to quench the thirst which
Like a vice tightens your throat until you
Choke and fires flash in the corners of your
Eyes and for 1,000 miles all around hot desert sand

Just when you think you have reached the very end
You round one last dune and can’t believe your
Eyes—is this another mirage or are those
Footprints you see in the sand?—yes
You and your shadow will survive
Never has water tasted so
Sweet never so vital
Life is accorded
One more
Day

[Lynne King · Rating 5 out of 5]

I purchased this book from the Folio Society on 8 January 1993 (I have this rather annoying habit of stating in my books when and where I purchased them. Just a quirk that I have.)

I was a member of this book club and just liked the look of the cover and in my stupidity I thought that it would just be about the desert (that I love),the wind and stars. I had no idea that this French aristrocrat, writer, poet and author of the "Le Petit Prince" was a pilot.

I must confess that initially I thought it all rather difficult to absorb but I was determined to enjoy this book and I did indeed. What an incredible individual and a true adventurer. I was inspired by it all and to think that he died in the forties. Such a shame. I hope that there is indeed an afterlife because this gentleman truly deserves it. Plus he has given great pleasure to a minor individual like me and for that I applaud him.

Mr. Saint-Exupéry has a place in history which is richly desrved and I just recommend book this to everyone and to all ages.

[Mohamadreza Moshfeghi · Rating 3 out of 5]

مجموعه اى از نوشته ها وخاطرات هوانوردى و ماموريت هاى آنتوان دوسنت اگزوپرى خلبان و نويسنده بزرگ فرانسوى كه در اين خاطرات وياداشت ها با نگاه متفاوت و بينش خاص او نسبت به انسان وزندگى همچون اثر برزگ خود "شازده كوچولو" همراه مى شويم. بينشى متفاوت وعميق كه گويا برگرفته از شغل وحرفه،عشق وشوق نويسنده به پرواز است ونگاهى كه از بالاى ابرها وآسمانان به مسائل و اتفاقات زندگى وانسان ها بر روى زمين دارد.آنجا كه دره ها ودريا ودشت ها را گاهى مأمنى امن براى خلبان وهواپيما مى داند وگاهى دامى كه صيد وشكار را به كام خود فرو مى برد.در اين كتاب نويسنده با نقل خاطراتى جذاب ونفسگير همچون يك رمان جذاب خواننده را همراه با خود به دل اتفاقات ولحظه ها نفس گير حيات خود دعوت مى كند و سعى دارد خواننده كتاب را به نگاهى متفاوت به زندگى ،حيات ومرگ وا دارد و ارزش انسانى وگوهر وجودى در درون آدم ها را به آنان بشناساند و مى كوشد آنان را براى زندگى كردن و تسليم نشدن در بزنگاه ها و درك معناى واقعى زندگى همچون متن زير كه ازكتاب است تشويق نمايد؛
{بعضى چنين مردمانى را با گاوبازان يا قمار بازان در يك شمار مى آورند وخوار شمردن مرگ را در اين گروه مى ستايند.ولى من اندك گرفتن مرگ را كارى خطير نمى دانم.اگر تحقير مرگ از مسؤوليتى پذيرفته ريشه نگرفته باشد،جز نشان حقارت يا بسيارىِ جوانى نيست. جوانى را مى شناختم كه خود را كشت.نمى دانم غم عشقى بى مقدار او را بر آن داشته بود كه گلوله اى در دل خويش جاى دهد يا به وسوسه اى ادبى تسليم شده و به انتحارى خودنمايانه دست زده بود اما به ياد دارم كه در اين جلوه فروشى غم انگيز نه شرف بلكه نكبت يافتم.در پشت اين چهره دلپذير،و زير اين جمجمه انسانى هيچ نبود،مگر تصوير دختركى سبكسر ونظير بسيارى ديگر.}

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Transcendant, beautiful, embracing. When I read three books in a row where this book featured prominently (The Goldfinch was one) I felt the book calling to me. For me, it was not the type of book that I could sit down and read in one go. I wanted to mull and linger on the words, and to embrace St Exupery's words demands a kind of internal honesty and emotionality from the reader that can be freeing but also emotionally exhausting. I think that is why I put it down so often. I mean, I started this book August 2014, and finished August 2016- how is that for timing? Still, an excellent book, and one I would suggest to anyone that likes a good adventure memoir or wants to question the human condition or spirit.

What a man. What a life. What a soul.

[Francisco · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is in many ways a wonderful background book for The Little Prince. The non-fiction stories of the author's adventures as a pilot allowed me to see the man behind one of my all time favorite books. The Little Prince is one of those books where you can sense the soul of the author and Saint-Exupéry's non-fiction books, like this one, let you see that your initial intuition while reading The Little Prince was correct. This is a very un-sentimental look at courage and at the urge we all have to transcend what Saint-Exupéry calls "the bureaucracy" of our lives. Saint-Exupéry responds to this universal need by delivering mail in the frail two-person air machines of the 1930's over routes that take him through deserts and alps and oceans. Although this book was written after The Little Prince, the events of the book happened before Saint-Exupéry wrote his timeless "children's" book so it is possible to see in some of his adventures the seeds of that great book. I smiled when he talked about seeing a desert fox when he was stranded on top of a sand dune and I understood what he meant when he talked about the stars that reveal themselves only to those who are brave enough to walk into the darkness of solitude. But what will stay with me forever is the hope and love for life that Saint-Exupéry managed to find within himself in order to keep going and keep living and keep walking when all seemed lost and death by sunstroke and dehydration seemed imminent. I understood then how the author could write a book of simple beauty and wisdom like The Little Prince.

[mai ahmd · Rating 4 out of 5]

اللحظات العظيمة هي تلك اللحظات التي تمسك بيديك كتابا أحببته وعشت معه لحظات سعيدة والكتاب الذي تحزن لفراقه هو الكتاب الذي يمّسّك بقوة .. الكتاب الذي يحلّق بك إلى أعلى سماء ممكن أن تطالها .. لطالما كان الحلم بأجنحة وهذا ما يفعله أكزوبيري الروائي الفرنسي الجميل صاحب الرواية الصغيرة الأمير الصغير الذي عمل لفترة طويلة في تجربة الطائرات فامتهن المغامرة هو ورفاقه الطيارين كما تكون المغامرة الحقيقية وها هو يقدم لنا تلك الأجنحة الطيارة لنسافر معه بعيدا ..
ينظر من أعلى الحلم لكل تلك الأشياء الجميلة التي تبدو كالنقطة وتصبح في الأعلى لها معاني أخرى لا يدركها من تلمس رجليه الأرض ..
قرأت مرة مقالا في مجلة دبي الثقافية كان فيه أكزوبيري يحكي عن كيف ممكن أن يتنفس الغرق تحت الماء أعني يتنفس الماء وهو يسقط في الماء وكيف يجب أن يفتح رئتيه له اعتبرها الكثيرين نبوءة لموته الذي جاء إثر سقوط طائرته بعد أن ضربتها طائرة ألمانية وهو في مهمة إستطلاعية حسب المقال ليسقط في الماء ويموت كما كانت النبوءة .. حين تقرأ أرض البشر ستعرف سرّ هذا العشق الكبير للماء .. فمن هو أكثر قدرة على معرفة ماذا يعني الماء أكثر من تائه في الصحراء سقط أكزوبيري وهو متجه لبنغازي في الصحراء مع صديق له وحيث إنه نجا من هذا السقوط لكنه لم ينجو من السراب والعطش والضياع في الصحراء .. إمشي كما قال غيومه وهكذا بدأ يمشى يجره السراب في متاهات عظيمة الجفاف يجرح شفتيه و دون أن يعرف إلى أين يمضي ..
إن المشاهد التي كتبها أكزوبيري وهو يعاني العطش والجفاف في صحراء خانقة بإمتدادها الشاسع لا حدود لها لهو موت آخر .. فكيف له بعد ذلك أن لا يتمنى
الموت في الماء ..
جاء السرد شاعريا غنائيا فلسفيا وروحانيا
كلماته كأحلام العصافير المهاجرة وهو يرسل تحاياه
للرياح للرمال للنجوم للجبال لأصدقاءه المغامرين
في تلك الليالي الضبابية

لكم أحببت هذا الكتاب


ملاحظة .. سقطت نجمة بسبب الترجمة المرتبكة تهبط وتعلو حينا
ولذلك أنصح بنسخة دار المدى

[Mary 🍀 · Rating 4 out of 5]

شاهکار دیگه ای از اگزوپری 👌👌👌
حس میکنی شازده کوچولو قصه های جدید برات داره 😁
چقدر فصل انسان هاش رو دوست داشتم
و دوست دارم هرازگاهی باز برم سراغ کتاب و بخونمش

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

The steadily growing stream of birth and marriage announcements on my Facebook feed has led me to rethink these “steps” that most people take each passing year. I used to think (and still sometimes do when I’m feeling unsure or cynical) that this seemingly prewritten way of living, of societal norms pushing us forward, was depressing evidence for a lack of creativity. But lately I see these steps not as predetermined chains on a pair of manacles we never knew we were wearing, but as a climb up a mountain or a neverending game of “I dare you.” I dare you to try more, to do something different, to remember or to learn how best to live.

We only have one first. A first time riding in a plane, a first time seeing the ocean, a first time eating an orange, a first time falling in love. It happens and it finishes in the same moment. A simultaneous life and death that will slowly kill us if we don’t realize it.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wants us to realize it. To do so he shares exquisite moments where he realized it during his career as an Aéropostale pilot in Northern Africa and South America. He’s lying atop a pebbled ledge in the Sahara Desert and finds a meteorite and knows he’s the only soul who has ever seen this rock. It’s a first, but one that he wants us to savor. He’s in the desert in Libya, three days without water, and he sees fantastic mirages—they are false, but they are something new only once, and he wants us to appreciate that.

What he wants is neither that new nor that radical. By recounting his memories he wants to inspire us to unlock our hands from our keyboards, to put our wallets back in our pockets, to unleash the shopkeepers from their shops, to look in a mirror, to look at each other, and to recognize something.

In English this humanist adventure tale is titled Wind, Sand, and Stars, evocative but lacking. The French title, Terre des hommes, or Land of Men, is better. There is no wind, there is no sand, there are no stars, if we are not there to observe them, or even more, to appreciate them. Life is a battle to stay awake. And according to Saint-Exupéry, it doesn’t have to be much of a battle if we just look around every once and a while. Whether we’re flying across the Andes in a snowstorm straining to find the light of a house and human soul below or whether we simply open our eyes while walking down the street, we can win the battle. Being awake will no longer mean adhering to a game of “I dare you,” a set of steps leading to more, more, more to stop us from getting bored. Everyday can have a first, every person can be awake, if we remember every single moment that we’re alive on this sphere in the universe.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short memoir for me was a wonderful adventure in flying and parallel inward journey by the author. That puts this book on an honored shelf with Mathiessen’s “The Snow Leopard”. St. Expery’s experiences in the 20’s with the French airmail service to North Africa and South America had comparable mind altering impacts and serious humbling in the face of nature’s powers. But instead of a serious quest and a single journey, we get a more open-ended set of stories bound to his flying career and pathways of development for the author’s core values and sources of hope for the human race.

I delayed writing this review for half a year since reading it. It is the kind of delicious book where you want to mark passages on almost every page, so it was hard to pin down the real take-home messages worth sharing. With some perspective now, I can boil my pleasures down. It makes you feel connected to the universe. And part of a human community also struggling to comprehend and come to terms with its mysteries and epiphanies, treacheries and cruel destructions.

The mysteries that flying opens his mind to come immediately with its ticket to a leap into different perspectives. How small all our human constructions appear from the air. How quickly you can be in a different world among the clouds get lost among dangerous mountains, vast deserts, or the endless sea. We get to share in the joys and fears of his first flights. The experience of unboundedness is balanced by strange connections with the plane, the technological wonder his life depends on. He is grounded as well with the camaraderie of his team, including the mechanic and radio man he usually shared his flights with and the fellow pilots he bonded with between flights. These connections rise to special prominence when he or others get in storms, fall out of radio communications, or get stranded after being forced into an emergency landing after equipment failure or fuel shortage.

Here is a sample passage that contrasts the mild disorientations of a routine flight with the more potent impact of others:
So the crew fly on with no thought that they are in motion. Light night over the sea, they are very far from the earth, from towns, from trees. The motors fill the lighted chamber with a silver that changes its substance. The clock ticks on. The dials, the radio lamps, the various ands and needles go through their invisible alchemy. From second to second these mysterious stirrings, a few muffled words, a concentrated tenseness, contribute to the end result. And when the hour is at hand the pilot may glue his forehead to the window with perfect assurance. Out of oblivion the gold has been smelted: there it gleams in the lights of the airport.

And yet we have all known flights when of a sudden, each for himself, it has seemed to us that we have crossed the border of the world of reality; when, only a couple of hours from port, we have felt ourselves more distant from it than we should feel if we were in India; when there has come premonition of an incursion into a forbidden world whence it was going to be infinitely difficult to return. …
And with that we knew ourselves to be lost in interplanetary space among a thousand inaccessible planets, we who sought only the one veritable planet, our own, that planet on which alone we should find our familiar countryside, the houses of our friends, our treasures.

Here the author captures so powerfully some of his altered states of consciousness while stranded in the Sahara at night:
Once, in this same mineral Sahara, I was taught that a dream might partake of the miraculous. …
When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with outstretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized by vertigo and felt myself as if flung forth and plunging downriver like a diver.
But I did not fall. From nape to heel I discovered myself bound to earth. I felt a sort of appeasement in surrendering to my weight. Gravitation had become as sovereign as love. The immense void of night. I was glued to our planet by a pressure like that which one is glued to the side of a car on a curve. I leaned with joy against this admirable best-work, this solidity, this security, feeling against my body this curving bridge of my ship.…
I lay there pondering my situation, lost in the desert and in danger, naked between sky and sand, withdrawn by too much silence from the poles of my life. I knew that I should wear out days and weeks returning to them if I were not sighted by some plane, or if next day the Moors did not find and murder me. Here I possessed nothing in the world. I was no more than a mortal strayed between sand and stars, conscious of the single blessing of breathing. And yet I discovered myself filled with dreams.

Where it comes to trips to South America, there is a sense of real pioneering. Crossing a mountain range like the Andes without radar or a pressurized cabin was quite a challenge they routinely faced. He shares the story of a close friend who miraculously walked out of the mountains after a winter crash. When St. Exupery first visits the most southernmost town in the Chilean Patagonia, struggles hard to feel a connection with ordinary people:

I landed in the peace of the evening. Punta Arenas! I leaned against a fountain and looked at the girls in the square. Standing there within a couple of feet of their grace. I felt more poignantly than ever the human mystery.
In a world in which life so perfectly responds to life, where flowers mingle with flowers in the wind’s eye, where the swan is the familiar of all swans, man alone builds his isolation. What a space between men their spiritual natures create! A girl’s reverie isolates her from me, and how shall I enter into it? What can one know of a girl who passes, walking with slow steps homeward, eyes lowered, smiling to herself, filled with adorable inventions and with fables? Out of the thoughts, the voice, the silences of a lover, she can form an empire, and thereafter sees in all the world but him a people of barbarians. More surely than if she were on another planet, I feel her to be locked up in her language, in her secret, in her habits, in the singing echoes of her memory. Born yesterday of the volcanoes, of greenswards, of brine of the sea, she walks here already half divine.
…I know nothing. I do not enter into their empires. Man in the presence of man is as solitary as in the face of a wide winter sky in which there sweeps, never to be tamed, a flight of trumpeting geese.

This book was a small wonder for me, and I expect it would be so for many of my friends. It reminds me of the line from Leonard Cohen: “We are so small between the stars so large against the sky”. In a couple of sittings, you can be transported and return to earth a better person. I found a free copy on the internet, but I can’t share it because I don’t know if it is an illegal version.

[Asad Asgari · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب حاوی خاطرات نویسنده از ماموریت‌های هوایی است و به شرح حوادثی می پردازد که وی طی سال‌ها خدمت با آن‌ها روبرو بوده است. اینکه چگونه توانسته بارها از مرگ بگریزد و چگونه با دوستان و همقطارانش طی این سال‌ها مراوده و گفتگو داشته است. یک نکته جالب این کتاب برای من این بود که پیش از این نمی دانستم که اگزوپری خلبان بوده و تنها اطلاع من از این نویسنده محدود به خواندن کتاب شازده کوچولو بود و اینکه چگونه در نهایت در اثر یک حادثه نامعلوم هوایی جان خود را از دست می دهد. کتاب مملو از جملات تامل برانگیزی است که حاصل تجارب نویسنده طی سال‌های خدمتش است و به نوعی منعکس کننده نگاه اگزوپری به زندگی، انسان‌ها، زمین و ... است. ترجمه سروش حبیبی روان و خواندنی بود. در کل کتابی نبود که من را خیلی متاثر کند و به این خاطر نمره 3.5 به گمانم نمره مناسبی برای این کتاب است.

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have no regrets. I have gambled and lost. It was all in the day's work. At least I have had the unforgettable taste of the sea on my lips.
*
Of course I know it is a mirage! Am I the sort of man who can be fooled? But what if I want to go after that mirage? Suppose I enjoy indulging my hope? Suppose it suits me to love that crenelated town all beflagged with sunlight? What if I choose to walk straight ahead on light feet - for you must know that I have dropped my weariness behind me, I am happy now. . .
*
What is going on inside me I cannot tell. In the sky a thousand stars are magnetized, and I lie glued by the swing of the planet to the sand. A different weight brings me back to myself. I feel the weight of my body drawing me towards so many things. My dreams are more real than these dunes, than that moon, than these presences. My civilization is an empire more imperious than this empire. The marvel of a house is not that it shelters or warms a man, nor that its walls belong to him. It is that it leaves its trace on the language. Let it remain a sign. Let it form, deep in the heart, that obscure range from which, as waters from a spring, are born our dreams.

[Fahim · Rating 5 out of 5]

«وقتی مرغابیان وحشی در موسم مهاجرت به پرواز در می آیند، در سرزمین هایی که زیر بالهاشان گسترده می شود ، آشوبی عجیب پدید می‌آورند.مرغابیانِ اهلی،گویی به سمت صفِ شکسته ی پروازِ آنها کشیده می شوند و ناشیانه جَستنی می کنند، خیزی در آرزوی پروازی....
آوای طبیعتِ وحشی، بقایای مرموزی را از دوران وحش، در آنها بیدار کرده و مرغابیانِ کنج روستا را لحظه ای به مرغان مهاجر مبدل ساخته است. و ببین که در این مغز کوچک خشک، که جز نقش های حقیرِ برکه و کِرم و مرغدانی نقشی در آن نبود، پهنه های قاره، ساحَت و گستره ی اقیانوس ها و طعم بادهای فراخنای دریا پدید آمده است...حیوان نمی دانست که مغزش گنجایش چنین شگفتی هایی داشته است و ببین که بال می زندو دانه و کرم را خوار می دارد و سرِ آن دارد که مرغابی وحشی گردد....»
اگزوپری خود مرغ مهاجریست که از ما میخواهد چون مرغابیانِ کنج روستا نباشیم و بال بزنیم و خود را از کنج مرغدانیِ حقیرمان برهانیم ...
او که سال‌ها در خطوط هوایی پُست فعالیت کرده بود، به شغلش نگاهی بسیار مسئولانه و انسانی داشت و به آسمان و هواپیما عشق می‌ورزید. هوانوردی‌های طولانی و حوادث مختلفی که او در شغلش از سر گذراند، پایه‌ی نوشته‌های بسیار زیبای اوست.اگزوپری در این کتاب از جهان بینی خود پرده برمی دارد و نشان می دهد که در نظرش، چه چیزی باعث ارزشمند شدن زندگی می گردد....
«اگر حقیقت غزالان،چشیدن شرنگ ترس باشد که آنها را با تلاشی مافوق توانشان وادارَد و قدرت بلندترین جستنها را به آنها ببخشد، خطر شغالان کجا به حساب می آید ؟»
.

ترجمه بسیار زیبا و وفادارانه جناب سروش حبیبی ، لذت خواندن این کتاب را صدچندان کرده.
«زمین انسان ها »را باید خواند...

[Left Coast Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to rate this higher, I really did. A beautiful beginning and brilliant end were dragged down by a long, overwritten section in north Africa dripping will ill-disguised French Colonial contempt for the people there.

But let's get back to that beautiful beginning. I first heard of this book as a child, where a portion of it was anthologized in a book I had (details here). It described a flight he took to Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America, a cold, foggy volcanic landscape thinly peopled (as it remains.) He relayed with perfect grace the bane of travelers everywhere -- encountering interesting people whom you'll never see again, and never know how their stories turned out.

p. 27: We forget that there is no joy except in human relations. If I summon up those memories that have left with me an enduring savor, if I draw up the balance sheet of the hours in my life that have truly counted, surely I find only those that no wealth could have procured me. True riches cannot be bought.

p. 40: I remembered the death of a man. He was a gardener, and he was speaking on his deathbed: “You know, I used to sweat sometimes when I was digging. My rheumatism would pull at my leg, and I would damn myself for a slave. And now, do you know, I’d like to spade and spade. It’s beautiful work. A man is free when he is using a spade. And besides, who is going to prune my trees when I am gone?”

[Describing his airplane, and the minds of those who designed it] p. 42: If anything, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.

Exupery was a French nobleman, to the extent 'nobility' still had meaning after the storming of the Bastille. It's delightful that such an elevated personage, further exalted in his then-glamorous career as a pilot, found room in his heart to express genuine admiration for Argentinian fishermen and design engineers at aircraft companies. This was, after all, the man who wrote The Little Prince, the fourth-best-selling book in the world, widely and justly admired for the simple language in which deep and complex ideas are heartbreakingly expressed.

So why the contempt for Africans? And why the loss of control over his tone in the central 60% of the book? Let's address the second point first. A great deal of Exupery's appeal lies in the authority and credibility of his descriptive prose, the awakening that humans first started to undergo when viewing our planet from thousands of feet up. But the longest section of this book describes a crash he and his navigator had in the Libyan desert. (He neglects to mention they were in a race, trying to win a huge cash prize.) They survive the crash without major injury and the first glimmerings that we're hearing some major embellishments start to creep in, because smacking the earth at 170 mph as described is not actually survivable. Then they wander around in the desert for four days, walking forty to fifty miles per day with only an orange, a pint of water and a pint of wine between them.

There is a word for this, and that word is bullshit. Which unfortunately calls into question everything else he's written, even the good parts at the beginning and the end.

Regarding contempt for the natives, the less said the better. Here's a particularly gratuitous example, when they encounter a French sergeant in a remote oasis fortress:

p. 90:
The sergeant went on. “I asked the captain for leave to go to Tunis, seeing my cousin is there and all. He said…”
“What did the captain say, sergeant?”
“Said: ‘World’s full of cousins.’ Said: ‘Dakar’s nearer’ and sent me there.”
“Pretty girl, your cousin?”
“In Tunis? You bet! Blonde, she is.”
“No, I mean at Dakar.”
Sergeant, we could have hugged you for the wistful disappointed voice in which you answered, “She was a nigger.”

Perhaps you are of the opinion that allowances must be made for the times etc., but the passage above is just ugly and reflects poorly on anybody who would choose to include this in a book.

The end of the book changes gears entirely and describes his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, where he went on missions to extract Frenchmen thought to be at risk. The focus here is not on the action, but rather on the thought processes that allow people to go to war, and live with each other afterwards. As he says, "Civil war is not a war. It is a disease."

Others may, and apparently have, enjoyed this more than I did.

[Fatma Al Zahraa Yehia]

في خواطر متناثرة وغير مترابطة موضوعياً أو زمنياً-أو هكذا بدت لي-يحكي "أنطوان دو سانت أوكسبري" رحلته مع الطيران. وتلك نمط من الكتابة يختلف بشكلٍ ما عن أسلوب كتابة روايته الشهيرة "الأمير الصغير" التي كانت أكثر سلاسة في قراءتها، مما شكّل لي-مع الترجمة-عقبة خلال قراءتي لهذا الكتاب.

لن أُقيّمه لأنني في حاجة لقراءةٍ أخرى له. ولا أعرف هل ستُعطي الترجمة الجيدة-في حال توفرها-قراءة أكثر تيسيراً، أم أن النص واحد من النصوص التي لا تُقرأ إلا بلغتها الأصلية.

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course I know it is a mirage! Am I the sort of man who can be fooled? But what if I want to go after that mirage? Suppose I enjoy indulging my hope? Suppose it suits me to love that crenelated town all beflagged with sunlight? What if I choose to walk straight ahead on light feet - for you must know that I have dropped my weariness behind me, I am happy now. . . .

[Mehmet]

Kitap okuyorsam, beş bin yılın hikayesini; bir ömürde dinlemek, anlamak içindir.

Öyleyse şimdi sıra geldi "Yel, Kum ve Yıldızlar" kitabına. 2013 yılında ben de; hemen herkes gibi, Küçük Prens kitabıyla tanıştığım Antoine de Saint-Exupery'nin trajik yaşam öyküsünü de bilahare okuduktan sonra bu kitabı da okumaya karar kılmıştım.

Kitabın beni oldukça etkilediğini söyleyebilirim. Jack London'ın Yabanın Çağrısı'nda bahsettiği "Çağrı"yı yüreğinden işitip (yazar kitabında buna iççağrı demiş) kendini çöle, kuma ve uçsuz bucaksız yıldızlara atan yazarın; seyredip hissettiklerini okuyoruz bu kitapta.

"Sahra'm, Sahra'm benim, işte yün eğiren bir kadın, bir baştan bir başa büyüleyivermiş seni!" (s.58)

Çölde, kumda ve yıldızlarda; bir Fransız'ı Fransızlıktan, bir Bedeviyi Bedevilikten, Mağribiyi Mağripten; Meşrıkıyı Meşrıktan ayıran ve insanı yalnızca insan haline getiren şeyleri görmüş, anlamış ve anlatmış yazar. Susuzlukta, yalnızlıkta, açlıkta, merakta ve hürriyette bir olan şeyi; insançocuğunun ortak yazgısını.

Ve düş kurmayı da;
"Düşlerim bu kumullardan, bu aydan, bu varlıklardan daha gerçek." (s.57)

Mesleği pilotluk olan yazarımız için, dünya bir bahçedir aynı zamanda; çocukluğunda dizini kanattığı bahçenin belki biraz daha büyükçesi!

"Bahçenin öbür ucundan değil, dünyanın öbür ucundan dönüyordum, yalnızlıkların yakıcı kokusunu, kum yellerinin anaforunu, tropiklerin göz kamaştıran aylarını da kendimle birlikte getiriyordum!" (s.57)

Mağribinin fukaralığındaki sadelik ve estetikte olduğu kadar (aklıma Marakeş'te Sesler kitabını getirir bu noktada); çölün, kumun ve yıldızların manzarası da pek müthiştir.

"Ama en güzeli, burada gezegenin yuvarlak sırtı üzerinde, bu mıknatıslı örtüyle bu yıldızlar arasında, bu yağmuru bir ayna gibi yansıtabilecek bir insan bilincinin durmasıydı. Bir maden kitlesi üzerinde bir düş mucizesidir. Benim anımsadığım bir düş..." (s.54)

Yıldızların arasında uçan bir gemide, yazar yerkürenin o sonsuz küçüklüğündeki güzelliği de görmektedir kitabında; hani Nazım da şöyle anlatmıştı:

yıldızların arasında bir yıldız,
hem de en ufacıklarından,
mavi kadifede bir yaldız zerresi yani,
yani bu koskocaman dünyamız. (Nazım Hikmet Ran, Yaşamaya Dair)

Bu manzarayı, bu büyülü güzelliği göremeyen, göremeyecek hale gelmiş; artık kabuk bağlamış ruhlara da sitem etmeyi unutmaz:

"Sen, emektar memur, yanı başımdaki arkadaşım, hiçbir şey bu hapishaneden firar etmeni sağlamadı, ve bu durumdan sen sorumlu değilsin. Tıpkı termitler gibi, ışığa açılan her deliği betonla kapatarak kurdun rahatlığını. Burjuva güvenliğinin, gündelik işlerinin, taşra yaşayışının kuralları içinde bir bilye gibi yuvarlandın, yeller, gelgitler, yıldızlar karşısında bu alçakgönüllü suru yükselttin. [...] Başıboş bir gezegenin yerlisi değilsin sen, yanıtı olmayan sorular sormazsın hiç kendi kendine: [...] İş işten geçmeden önce seni omuzlarından kavrayacak hiç kimse çıkmadı. Şimdi, seni oluşturan balçık kuruyup sertleşti, benliğinde uyuyan müzisyeni ya da ozanı, ya da belki bir zamanlar benliğinde yaşamış olan gökbilimciyi kimse uyandıramaz artık. " (s.18)

Savaşı, kanı ve gözyaşını görmüş yazarı; bütün bunca ölüm arasında en çok üzen şeyin insanda yok olan Pascal'ı, Voltaire'i, Mozart'ı, Beethoven'ı görüşü, seyredişi olduğunu anladım. Bence yazar, kitabın insançocuğuna tavsiyeler niteliğindeki son bölümünde bu üzüntüsünü dile getirmiş;

Burada durmamacasına yeniden açılan yara olarak bahsettiği, Prometheus'un da hikayesinde özetlenen; insançocuğunun ekin başakları gibi hep yükselip hep çöken başı; trajedisidir. Belki de Prometheus'un hikayesinde de özetlenen buydu.
Ve dahi, yazarın uğruna döktüğü gözyaşı, tıpkı; kitabı okuyanlar bilir, çöldeki sahnede "kendime mi ağlıyorum sanıyorsun?" sorusunda olduğu gibi; insançocuğunun hikayesinedir belki.

Bu, varlık içindeki yoksunluk.

"İyi hazırlanmış bir şenlik ortasında duyulan coşkuyu tadıyorduk. Oysa alabildiğine yoksulduk. Yel, kum, bir de yıldızlar." (s.32)

https://agacingovdesi.com/2021/04/01/...

[ميّ.. قارئة كتب · Rating 4 out of 5]

من أجمل الكتب التي ستحلق معها في الأجواء بصحبة طيار يكتب مذكراته بنَفَس شاعر.

لم أكن أعرف أن أنطوان دو سانت اكسوبيري طيار! وهذا ما يفسر مغامرته الرائعة مع "الأمير الصغير".

إنه يسرد كل ما يتعلق بمهنته الرائعة تلك فيذكر زملاءه وبطولاتهم، ويستحضر ذكرياته عندما تحطمت طائرته في الصحراء الليبية، ويبوح بحبه للنجوم والكواكب، ويشرح طبيعة علاقته مع الصحراء ورمالها وكائناتها، ولا ينسى أخيراً أن يحكي عن البشر الذين صادفهم وتركوا لديه ذكريات تستحق أن تروى.

كل ذلك بأسلوب رقيق جذاب كأنه شاعر ينظم قصيدة أو حكيم يدون خلاصة فلسفته في الحياة.

لا أدري لماذا جذبني غلاف الكتاب مذ صادفته على مواقع الانترنت، وغالبت فضولي عدة مرات ممنية نفسي بالحصول على نسخة ورقية منه.

لكن الفضول غلبني هذه المرة ولم أستطع التوقف عن القراءة.
ولن أيأس من العثور في المستقبل القريب على نسخة أثري بها مكتبتي فمذكرات صديق "الأمير الصغير" عذبة ولطيفة كالأمير وزهرته وكوكبه، وتستحق أن تقرأ مرات عديدة.

[Ghazale · Rating 3 out of 5]

فعلا به دلیل ترجمه سنگین کتاب خیلی کند پیش میرم .... به حدی که بعضی جاها منظور نویسنده رو متوجه نمیشم و اینکه باید چند بار بخونم

16 تیر 1395
بالاخره تونستم این کتاب را تمام کنم
از بخش 7 کتاب( که دست و پنجه نرم کردن نویسنده برای زنده موندنه) تونستم باهاش ارتباط برقرار کنم و برای همین فکر میکنم یک بار دیگه باید برگردم و کتاب را مجددا از ابتدا بخونم ..

دوسنت اگزوپری تو این کتاب نقش همان شازده کوچولو را بازی میکند ( و شاید شازده کوچولو از خودش متولد شده و همون موتسارتی است که نمیخواد در بچه ای بمیرد و از بین برود ) و سعی میکند نگاه کنجکاوی به پدیده های دور و برش داشته باشه
نویسنده در عین اینکه در تلاشه تا با زمین و پدیده های طبیعی اخت بگیره و کمی با انها خلوت کنه از انسان غافل نیست و انتهای کتاب را خیلی زیبا تمام میکند ...
" ... وقتی به دنبال تحولی، جهشی در باغی ، گل سرخ نوظهوری پدید اید باغبانها همه به جنب و جوش می ایند. ان را جدا میکنند و کشت میدهند و زمینه را برای رشد سریع ان مهیا میکنند. اما برای انسان ها باغبانی نیست. "

" مرا دردی عذاب میدهد که با انفاق به مستمندان و اطعام مساکین دوا نمیشود . سوز دل من نه از این قوز و گره های پیکر این کارگران و نه از زشتی این محنت بلکه از انست که در هر یک از این انسان ها موتسارت است که کشته میشود .
تنها نفس خداوند است که اگر بر گِل دمیده شود انسان می افریند. "

[Stephanie Ricker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find that reading books about plane crashes while physically in a plane really enhances the flying experience. I told my mother that and she thought I was being facetious, but I was just being honest. I read Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (author of The Little Prince) on the way to Michigan and Wind, Sand, and Stars by the same author on the way back, both of which include plane disasters. Both were exquisite, though not at all in the same way as The Little Prince, and both are about Saint-Exupery’s experiences as a pilot for the night-mails in South America and Africa during the 1920s and 1930s. Flying was still a perilous business then, and reading about the sort of men who chose that career was utterly fascinating. Perhaps there’s a bit of the philosopher in all pilots, or perhaps Antoine was just of a particularly thoughtful bent, but either way his musings on humanity and life and death were all very thought-provoking.

[Soledad · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5/5 ⭐

[Rojin · Rating 4 out of 5]

باد و شن و ستارگان✨☄️
روحیه ی حساس و دقیق اگزوپری، باعث میشه که توصیفاتی که از م��قعیت ها،آدمها و حس و حال صحرا و آسمان شب میکنه جون بگیرن. به طرز عجیبی خوندن این کتاب آرامشبخشه. شاید بخاطر همین تصویرهای قشنگیه که تو ذهن ایجاد میکنه.
***
"نمی دانم در من چه میگذرد. این گرانی مرا به زمین بسته حال آنکه جاذبه ی مغناطیسی آن همه ستاره را بالای سر دارم.سنگینی دیگری مرا به خود می آورد.وزن خود را حس میکنم که مرا به سوی این همه چیزها بازمی گرداند. رویاهای من از این تلماسه ها و این ماه و آنچه در پیرامون من است واقعی ترند.لطف شگفت انگیز خانه در آن نیست که ما را پناه می دهد و گرم میکند و بنایش از آن ماست. بلکه در آن است که این ذخیره ی خاطرات شیرین را کم کم در ما برجا گذاشته است. در آن است که در اعماق دل ما این کوه تاریک را پدید می آورد که رویاها همچون آب چشمه از آب چشمه از آن جاری می شوند."

"دوری به فاصله نیست. دیوار یک باغ شهر خود ما ممکن است بیش از دیوار چین پرده ی رازها باشد. و روح دخترکی در حصار سکوت او ایمنتر است تا واحه های صحرا در ورای ستبرای ریگزارها."

"صحرا اگر در آغاز جز خلوت و سکوت چیزی نیست از آنجاست که خود را به عاشقان یک روزه تسلیم نمی کند. صحرا که سهل است یک دهکده ی بی رنگ و رونق ما نیز چهره می پوشاند. اگر به خاطر آن از باقی جهان چشم نپوشیم، اگر به ساحت سنتها و رسوم و رقابتهایش وارد نشویم هیچ نخواهیم دانست که چگونه برای برخی مهابتی میهنی می یابد."

و یکی از بخشایی که خیلی مورد علاقم بود:
"در برابر این بیابان مسخ شده به یاد بازی های کودکیم میفتم، به یاد پارکی پر سایه و بس زیبا که برای ما جایگاه خدایان بسیار بود. قلمروی بود که هرگز به تمامی نشناخته و به کمال نکاویده بودیم. ما جامعه ای در بسته بودیم که در آن هر قدم طعمی و هرچیزی معنایی داشت که در هیچ جامعه ی دیگری چشیده نمیشد و روا نبود. اکنون که بزرگ شده ایم و قوانین دیگری بر زندگیمان حاکم شده است از این باغ بزرگ کودکی که پر از سایه بود و افسون، و سرد بود و سوزان چه مانده است؟ امروز چون به این باغ باز میگردی و از بیرون،از کنار دیوار کوتاه سنگی خاکستری رنگ آن میگذری حیرت میکنی که حیطه ای را که بیکران خود پنداشته بودی در حصاری چنین حقیر محصور میابی. درمیابی که دیگر در این بیکران راهی نداری.زیرا بیکرانی در بازی نهفته بود نه در بزرگی باغ."

"همه احتیاج به زاده شدن را با کم و بیش ابهام احساس می کنند. اما راه حلهایی وجود دارند که گمراه کننده است. البته می توان به انسان ها اونیفورم پوشاند و شور در دلشان بیدار کرد. آن ها سرود جنگی خواهند خواند و نان خود را رفیق وار باهم قسمت خواهند کرد. آنها آنچه را می جویند باز خواهند یافت. آنها طعم کل را خواهند چشید، اما نانی که به آنها داده شده است کشنده خواهد بود."

[Dar vieną puslapį · Rating 3 out of 5]

Koks bendras aviacijos ir rašymo vardiklis? Antoine de Saint - Exupery. Apie "Mažąjį princą" tikriausiai žino kiekvienas, o ką dar šis talentingas rašytojas parašė? Metas susipažinti su jo kūryba plačiau.

Nežinau šimtu procentų ar tiesa, bet esu skaičiusi - kad pradžioje "Mažasis princas" tebuvo knygos "Žemė, žmonių planeta" dalis. Intriguoja, tiesa? Kitas įdomus dalykas yra originalus kūrinio pavadinimas. O jis yra "Vėjas, smėlis ir žvaigždės". Kuris Jums gražesnis? Teko skaityti, kad originaliame pavadinime užšifruota knygos tematika - aviacija, egzistenciniai apmąstymai ir gyvenimas. Gražu. Ką čia bepridursi.

Viskas, pasakoju apie ką šis kūrinys. O čia yra Antoine memuarai. Ne nuo gimimo iki brandos ar senatvės. Čia labiau esė. Autorius gana fragmentiškai pasakoja apie savo egzistencinius pamąstymus pilotavimo kontekste. Gamtos grožis autorių be galo jaudina ir priverčia susimąstyti apie draugystę, mirtį, meilę, vertybes. Taigi čia ne nuoseklus pasakojimas, o keliolikos ar keliasdešimties puslapių pamąstymai jam svarbiomis temomis. Autorius be galo jautrus, inteligentiškas ir mąslus, o jo žodyno turtingumas pribloškia. Pirmuosius puslapius skaičiau su didžiule nuostaba kaip taip nuostabiai galima rašyti - žodžių parinkimas toks rafinuotas, skoningas, kalba be galo vaizdinga. Galima apsvaigti kaip gražu.

Jeigu "Mažasis princas" yra tarsi vaikiškas pasakojimas suaugusiems vaikams, tai ši knyga nebus kupina tokių akivaizdžių metaforų. Čia poetiška ir vaizdinga kalba autorius visko taip ant lėkštutės nepaduos. Greičiau apsups savo nuostabios kalbos šydų ir sūpuos sūpuos sūpuos. Turiu pripažinti paskutiniu dviejų skyrių galėjo ir nebūti, nes šiek tiek užsupo. Pasidarė per ilgu ir gana monotoniška.

Labai gražus kūrinys. Išskirtinio grožio kalba. Tikiu, kad literatūros gurmanai įvertins. Kūrinyje veiksmo nėra daug, bet citatų išsirašymui ar pagalvojimui - apstu. De Saint - Exupery yra ta puiki prancūziška rainuota literatūra iš didžiosios raidės. Gražu, tiesiog labai gražu.

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