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Saint-Exupéry is best known for his children's classic The Little Prince. He is also known for a classical account of peacetime aviation - of flying in the days when it was both fun, and quite dangerous - rendered in Wind, Sand and Stars. Jules Roy, a pied-noir (an Algerian of French extraction), and fellow pilot, wrote a portrait of the author in the eponymous Saint-Exupery (Les Classiques de la Manufacture French Edition). The present book is another facet of the writer, when he flew in combat for the French air force.
Arras is the capital of Pas-de-Calais, in the far northeastern part of France. The month is May, 1940, when France suffered its catastrophic defeat at the hands of the German army. The author is ordered to perform a reconnaissance mission over Arras, which has already fallen to the Germans, and the town is in flames. Only one in three "routine" missions (sorties) of his squadron return to base. His assignment is much more dangerous. In many ways, it is a suicide mission. He survives though, and this is his account, a brilliant one that combines the adrenaline-rush of being shot at, and having the bullets miss, with a philosophical mind that is attuned to the particulars of a bullet's trajectory as well as the macro picture of a great nation experiencing defeat.
It is a short book (and in my opinion, would have been better if it was 15 pages shorter), but Saint-Exupéry packs a lot it.Read more ›
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Was written in defense of the French fight against the Nazi invasion, as part of a campaign to get the USA into WWII. Thus, French heroism in a hopeless cause is celebrated, to contrast with perceptions that France didn't put up a fight.
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Until I started reading these other less-known writings of Exupery, I had no idea who this wonderful, courageous aviator was. He fought valiantly to keep France from becoming Socialist at the hands of Charles De Gaulle, and it probably cost him his life. This is another great example of his amazing gift with the written word. I wish there was more. Each and everyone who reads his work can't but come away awed at his brilliant understanding of the blessings of freedom and the nature of agency.
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I'm such a fan of A. de S-Exupery he could have written any story and I would have followed it. This work is an extraordinary "overview" of the French situation in WW II, maybe the best history can be written by a non-historian. I thought I knew something about France's "giving up" in that war of wars, but Saint-Exupery gave me hope that my ancestors played a vital role in defining the world to come out of WWII. I will say his concluding chapters left me swimming in the eddy of the Sargasso Sea, but he had something to say to us about his spirituality and he came at it with his tail-gunner burning up both barrels.
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I read this because it was the monthly selection of www.HoustonBookClub.com, but did not find it too interesting. It was worth reading for the writing, and the author does have a distinct and engaging style.
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To much suffering of a good pilot kbowing his country has lost the war, it kind of gives me the knowledge of why France was defeated, else very good poetry but not much of an action book.
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Arras is a heavy tapestry, especially one hung as a curtain concealing an alcove. "Quick, behind the arras" is a common command in Shakespearean plays to conceal one or more players. Hamlet stabs someone hidden behind an arras. The town, Arras, over which Saint-Exupéry is destined to fly in this story, is where the heavy curtains were first made, and now it appears it will be curtains for Saint-Exupéry, his navigator and gunner, because hardly any planes returned from missions over Arras.
There is no safe route to Arras. If one flies high, the German Messerschmidts will come down from above and strafe one's plane to destruction. If one flies lower down, the ack-ack of the anti-craft will tear one's plane to shreds. Any minute Saint-Exupéry will get his orders and be off on a mission from which he does not expect to return, heading behind the curtain of death. The remainder of my review can be found in DIGESTWORLD ISSUE#096 by Bobby Matherne
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