188 of 201 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A short book with great meaning, April 27, 2005
It's really amazing that this book, published in 1970, got onto the top sellers of all time list. It is barely 127 pages long - and that includes many pages of seagull photos, with very few words per page. The margins are very large :) It's a story about a seagull who, unlike his comrades, is not happy yelling "Mine! Mine! Mine!" for food. He loves to soar, and fly. He faces rejection and ridicule for his quest for greater heights. And of course, he inspires all of us to reach for our goals.
So first, obviously this book is REALLY short. I just re-read it and, without racing at all, I was done in 16 minutes. It's very short. There aren't long, drawn out characterizations here. Jonathan learns to fly well in about 2 pages, and by page 31 he is fully aware of all of his skills. By page 57 he in "Heaven" - or at least in another stage of life in with like-minded seagulls, speaking with telepathy. Chiang is the elder there who tells Jonathan that there actually is no Heaven - that Heaven is the state of being perfect. Jonathan decides to return to Earth and help others. He spends a few pages teaching Fletcher his skills, and then vanishes, leaving Fletcher to teach the new seagull students how to fly. The story ends.
Really, the story here is that Jonathan and Fletcher were not "special" in any way. The point is made many times that they were seagulls like any others. The difference is that they chose to strive to better themselves. They were not content to merely eat and sleep. They wanted to become really good at what they could do - fly. The elders explain that for many people, this process takes many lifetimes. If you do well in a given life, you graduate to a "higher" life where you can then work with people on your next stage of progress. If you just get by in your current life, then you get reborn into that same level, to have another chance to strive.
So it's very interesting how different people have interpreted this book to be a religious tome. Christians often say that Jonathan stands for Jesus. He was born "with men" - he learns his special skills, and then he returns to earth to help guide mankind to be better. There's even a mob scene where the "normal seagulls" try to kill Jonathan for being different. On the other hand, the story clearly says there is no Heaven - that the point of life is to keep trying and trying until you figure out your own path to perfection. The reincarnation and perfection-from-within is very Buddhist. It's not an external God that gives you this perfection. You are born with the innate ability to attain perfection - but it is up to you to find the desire and take the steps to reach it.
I've owned this book for many years and do enjoy it. But I do have to say that it is REALLY short and really basic. The whole Jonathan evolution is barely touched on. You don't get much sense of growth as he instantly goes from normal seagull to glowing Special Seagull. This is sort of a theological primer for those who don't normally read books on philosophy. There are many, many books out there that get into these sorts of topics in a far more meaningful way. But on the other hand, much as the Matrix series got many non-philosophy students to learn about some pretty basic philosophical ideas, this book also opened the door for many people on the ideas of striving for inner perfection. If you handed all of these people a complex tome on the topic, they probably wouldn't have read it. But maybe by getting that door opened, and that interest piqued, they then went forward and learned more. You have to get that interest started somewhere. If the interest came from a super-short, super easy to read, picture-filled booklet, does it really matter?
On a personal note, I really do feel that people need to sit back and consider what they spend their hours each day doing. We only have one life - and most of us who can afford to buy books have an amazing wealth of luck that 90% of the world's population dreams of having. We have clothes, we have places to sleep, we have access to healthy food and water. It would be a wonderful thing if each of us spent even a portion of our day reaching out to help others, to help the world become a better place for us all to live in. We don't need to watch TV - there are other far more important things to do in life.
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212 of 238 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book, April 26, 2001
By A Customer
Jonathan I loved this book. Jonathan when he came back to help the birds on a lower level of spiritual development, is like, Michael in the book An Encounter With A Prophet, coming back to help Nathaniel. Their statements of truth seem rather hard to accept at first, even by those high flyers who want more than the "herd" or "the flock" are willing to blindly accept as truth.
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53 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
DON'T ABANDON YOUR DREAMS ..., March 2, 2005
"Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight--how to get from shore to food and back again". "For most gulls it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight." That is what the author of this book says about the "hero" of this story, a seagull named Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is different to the other gulls in his flock. He doesn't live to eat, but eats to live and pursue his passion: flight. But his search for perfection and speed doesn't endear him to the other seagulls, that eventually expel him from the flock for daring to be different. To know what happens afterwards, you will need to read this book, because I don't want to spoil the ending.
The real question here, I guess, is whether you want to read a story about gulls... I mean, there are so many good books out there, why read a book about a bird?. The answer is simple: the story in "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" is a metaphor about things that can happen to you in real life. Have you ever felt tempted to do the same that everybody else, just for the sake of conformism?. Have you often felt like given up when something you really want to do demands too much work?. Just think about it...
I believe that many of us are sometimes like most of the gulls in this book, and we need to learn the lessons that "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" gives us: the most important thing is to believe in ourselves, and always do our best without giving up.
I would like to point out that some people say that this book is full of New Age ideas. I really don't think so. Okay, I certainly don't know much about those ideas, and I'm not interested enough to learn more about them. But in my opinion, we often find in a book what we want to find in it.
For me, this is only a charming allegory with a very pertinent message: DON'T ABANDON YOUR DREAMS... For that reason, I recommend this book to you. And whether you read "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" (English edition) or "Juan Salvador Gaviota" (Spanish edition), enjoy it !!!
Belen Alcat
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