In Wind, Sand and
Stars Antoine De Saint-Exupery takes readers back to the days when pilots
were still venturing into the unknown world between the earth and sky.
“A pilot’s business is
with the wind, with the stars, with night, with sand, with sea. He strives to
outwit the forces of nature. He stares in expectancy for the coming 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.”
One thing I enjoyed about this book was that the pilots and
their planes were still very much at the mercy of nature. Their planes were
small and not very powerful, unlike planes today. They could not just shoot
through the sky, guided by computers and powered by twin jet engines. When
there was a storm they had to fly through it, not over it. At one point the
author describes an amazing storm that one of his friends had to fly through of
the coast of South Africa, a storm where water tornadoes were shooting up out
of the sea all around him.
“Great black
waterspouts had reared themselves seemingly in the immobility of temple
pillars. Swollen at their tops, they were supporting the squat and lowering
each 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 toward the exit from
the temple.”
For me, the best part of this book is the chapter in which
the author describes his survival experience in the Sahara desert. He and his
copilot were stranded for over 3 days with less than a pint of water. After
walking in the desert for 100 miles with nothing to drink, Antoine lays down in
the sand and buries himself, expecting to die by morning. Throughout this
experience he had seen numerous mirages and hallucinations and it tore at my
heart every time he was filled with elation that he had been saved, only to
realize that the images before him were only in his mind. Through amazing
endurance and sheer luck the two men were saved, after coming within hours of
literally shriveling up like raisins. The story is too good for me to summarize
here. It’s chapter 8… you should read it.
Lastly, I enjoyed the author’s poetic view on life. He was
very philosophical and often paused to reflect on the world around him. I loved
the following passage, though it left me with a sense of sadness:
“Gazing at this
transfigured desert I remember the games of my childhood—the dark and golden
park we peopled with gods; the limitless kingdom we made of this square mile
never thoroughly explored, never thoroughly charted. We created a secret
civilization where footfalls had a meaning and things a savor known in no other
world.”
“And when we grow to be men and live
under other laws, what remains of that park filled with the shadows of
childhood, magical, freezing, burning? What do we learn when we return to it
and stroll with a sort of despair along the outside of its little wall of gray
stone, marveling that within a space so small we should have founded a kingdom
that seemed to us infinite—what do we learn except that in this infinity we
shall never again set foot, and that it is into the game and not the park that
we have lost the power to enter?”
My rating: 6 out of 10
