000			03336nam a22002777a 4500
008			161214b xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780241261644
037			_cPurchased _nPrism Books,Kochi
041			_aEnglish
082			_aF _bSAI/WI
100			_aSaint-Exupery,Antoine de
245			_aWIND,SAND AND STARS _cSaint-Exupéry, Antoine de, 1900-1944.
250			_a1
260			_aUK _bPenguin _c2016/01/01
300			_g142
500			_aIt was a dark night, with only occasional scattered lights glittering like stars on the plain' The aviator and author of The Little Prince describes vast, otherworldly landscapes, crash landings and magical encounters in his transcendent account of flying over the Sahara and the Andes. Ten new titles in the colourful, small-format, portable new Pocket Penguins series Review 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.
650			_aFiction
650			_aAuthors, French
650			_aSaint-Exupéry, Antoine de, 1900-1944
650			_aAir pilots
650			_aFrance
700			_aRees,William (tr.)
942			_cLEN
942			_2ddc
942			_2ddc
999			_c147549 _d147549