Ms. Hen reviews Wind, Sand and Stars

 

Wind, Sand and Stars

Antoine de Saint Exupery

Harcourt, Inc.

1939

Translated from the French by Lewis Galantiere

Ms. Hen read this memoir because her rooster friend recommended it to her, since she likes Amelia Earhart, and is interested in flying. This book is by the same author as THE LITTLE PRINCE, which Ms. Hen read many years ago, and has always loved, as everyone has. Ms. Hen took this out of the library, and got ready to fly.

This book is about a young man learning to fly and work as an air mail pilot in France, first traveling to Morocco, and then South America, and attempting to fly to Asia. He describes the fear of his first job flying, whether or not he would cross the Pyrenees safely. He talks about one time when he was caught in a funnel, and the plane flew up, and he had no control, and thought he would die. He writes that when children die, it's more tragic than what he experienced.

Saint Expurey talks about how he almost perished of thirst when his plane crashed in the Sahara. He was with his navigator, and they walked in circles, trying to find someone to save them. He also describes the devastation of the Spanish Civil War, and how men turned into savages whose lives were expendable, killing innocent civilians, and putting their lives on the line for something they didn't quite understand.

He talks about how technology is supposed to bring people together, but it doesn't. When he discusses technology, he means air mail, and Hollywood movies of the 1930s, and he has no idea what technological advanced lie ahead, what we possess in our time. Ms. Hen had a discussion about this with some chickens recently, and some said that technology does bring people together, because we can communicate with people far away through Zoom. But Ms. Hen thinks that social media pulls people further apart. Everyone thinks they're communicating online, but that's not actually happening. A hen can have 500 friends on Facebook, but feel like she's alone in the world.

This book is beautifully written. Every sentence is like poetry, similar to THE LITTLE PRINCE. Reading this makes Ms. Hen wonder what Saint Exupery thought of Amelia Earhart, since they were contemporaries. She was one of the most famous people in the world when she was alive, and she did things that women didn't do in those days. July 24 would have been her 125th birthday.

Like Amelia Earhart, Saint Exupery disappeared on a flight; he went down over the Mediterranean. But he left behind books that exquisitely portray flying and the world as he saw it. To be a writer is to be able to see and hear, the same skills necessary for a pilot. He described the world in a unique, beautiful way.