Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #528042 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Customer Reviews

Crash landing in the Sahara desert...profound insight...
I know a man who sees beauty in everything around him - the expression on people's faces, the way the wind blows things round, in smells and everywhere else. For him too, "Wind, Sand and Stars" has been a guide his whole life.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery was one of the pioneers of flying aeroplanes, first with Aeropostale between France and Northern Africa, and later trans-Atlantic flights from South America. This book is a collection of wonderful tales and deep insights from that life.

In his time, aeroplane engines were far from reliable, and his experiences of crash landing in the Sahara desert, or the Chilean Andes, are astounding. Face to face with life and death, his mind has given birth to the most beautiful paragraphs of enlightened prose I have read.

[I am uncomfortable with the translation of William Rees. Maybe it is because I had read first an earlier translation by Lewis Galantiere (now unavailable). Galantiere had convinced de Saint-Exupery to include passages in the English version that had been left out of the French, and a few other changes. Maybe it is merely "familiarity breeds contempt", but I feel the Rees translation to be inferior. ]{****NOTE to AMAZON: this paragraph may be unsuitable as it refers to another edition.}

This book is my bible. The tenderness and beauty of his observations and view of what is essential is special. Fiercely exciting descriptive passages are blended perfectly with reflections and wisdom. This is my No.1 book of all time.

Aviator, Poet & Philosopher
Saint-Exupery disappeared in North Africa in 1943 while flying reconnaissance flights for the American forces. After reading Wind, Sand and Stars one has a sense that this writer/philosopher, who is probably most well known for his fable The Little Prince, was well prepared for his life to end in this way.

In the opening lines of the original French version Saint-Exupery writes:
"The earth teaches us more about ourselves than all the books.
Because it resists us. Man discovers himself when he measures
himself against the obstacle"

Wind, Sand and Stars is intensely autobiographical as it tells us of this man's adventures from his beginnings as a pilot with the air mail service over France, Spain and North Africa before World War I, through to his musings as an observer of the Spanish Civil War. But far more than an adventurer, Saint-Exupery writes like a poet and has the heart of a philosopher. This wonderful book (a credit to the translator from the original French) has incredibly rich descriptive passages in which he lays out for the reader the details observed in the natural world and the response that these evoke in his mind, heart and soul.

In one section of the book (which a reader familiar with The Little Prince cannot help but conclude was inspirational for that work) Saint-Exupery describes at length his near-death experience after crashing in the Libyan desert, and wandering for days without water or hope:
"Apart from your suffering, I have no regrets. All in all, it has been
a good life. If I got free of this I should start right in again. A man
cannot live a decent life in cities, and I need to feel myself live. I
am not thinking of aviation. The aeroplane 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 aeroplane is a means of getting
away from towns and their book-keeping and coming to grips with
reality."

Wind, Sand and Stars is not an easy read. But for those with patience and an interest (in a phrase from The Little Prince) in "listening with the heart", here is an insight to one man's struggle to understand and articulate the sacredness and greatness of human life.

Breathless
Having read hundreds of Amazon book reviews over the years, and getting through a varied array of works along the way, Saint-Exupery's novel (this is my first) is the only one that has compelled me to jot down my thoughts, and more importantly, give my whole-hearted recommendation.

I think that the other reviewers have done a fine job in summing up the man, his work, and how it can relate to us all on some level. I put the book down on finishing it and went off to do some chore, my mind elevated to some stratosphere it had never entertained before. Having returned in the evening I immediately lifted it off the side and whizzed through it again. This is far from common in terms of my reading habits.

The last chapter 'Men' will leave the enlightened soul breathless with its observation and insight. In these failing economic times the pitch and resonance of Saint-Exupery's words remain strong.

This book is accessible, wondrous, and timeless. I cannot recommend this novel enough.