Sagittarius rising (Wings of war) [Unknown Binding]

Cecil Lewis (Author)

Book Description

Series: Wings of war | Publication Date: 1991

Sent to France with the Royal Flying Corps at just 17, and later a member of the famous 56 Squadron, Cecil Lewis was an illustrious and passionate fighter pilot of World War I, described by Bernard Shaw in 1935 as "a thinker, a master of words, and a bit of a poet." In this vivid and spirited account the author evocatively sets his love of the skies and flying against his bitter experience of the horrors of war, as we follow his progress from France and the battlefields of the Somme, to his pioneering defense of London against deadly nighttime raids.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Aero, January 2007

“I have read a number of different accounts of aviators in the First World War, but the world that Cecil Lewis unveils in Sagittarius Rising is unlike any other I have previously read about … What makes this book so special is not only Cecil Lewis’s story, but the way in which he shares his life experiences. He writes so eloquently, painting an amazingly detailed picture with his words ... If I had to pick the one book that I could own on the personal accounts of aviators from the First World War, this book would be it … [Lewis’s] ability to captivate your imagination with his words makes for a book that is very difficult to put down once you start reading it.”

Aviation History, November 2007

“This beautiful work evokes the air war of 1914-1918 in an unusual and moving way. It was written by a sensitive artist who, unlike so many of his comrades, had his life preserved by a series of fortunate assignments during his career as a combat pilot. He thus acquired the skill to match his love of flying, and so survived the war … Given that Cecil Lewis left school at 17, lying about his age to get into the Royal Flying Corps, his ability with words is astounding. Even more remarkable is that much of his 1936 Sagittarius Rising is written with passionate, embracing enthusiasm of youth. His foreword wryly acknowledges this, asking the reader’s forgiveness for his inclusion of some tentative romantic encounters … a book that everyone who loves aviation should read.”

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Publisher

8 1.5-hour cassettes --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Unknown Binding: 331 pages
• Publisher: Time-Life Books (1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809496011
• ISBN-13: 978-0809496013
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,014,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The Right Stuff - generation ONE", April 3, 2003

By 

M J Heilbron Jr. "Dr. Mo" (Long Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sagittarius Rising (Paperback)

What a lovely, poetic book. We are lucky to have had someone so gifted in prose be able to witness, and hence document, those giddy and terrifying experiences being an airman in WW I.
Those wonderful primitive planes, flown by men who clearly "pushed the envelope" decades before our test pilots made that a well-known expression.
This is memoir as literature; it is beautifully written with haunting and evocative phrasing. He knows how to write thrilling action pieces, as the dogfights have a "you are there" quality most authors fail to achieve.
Lewis sprinkles in some philosophy (his father's influence), and the parts about technology and warfare are particularly striking given what's happening in the world today.
The book straddles pro-war and anti-war sentiments so fairly and soberly, it should be required reading for everyone. I mean everyone.
Junior high kids to college students to grandparents.
It's one of those books so well written, it reads effortlessly. I can't recommend this more highly.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A most unlikely book about war, April 1, 2000

By 

Owen Hughes (Montreal, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sagittarius Rising (Paperback)

This uplifting, sometimes vain, sometimes extraordinarily poetic book, is a most unlikely book about war. For a start, Lewis had no right to survive the war over which he flew so many times, let alone live until 1993 or so, and a very advanced age. Nor is it about the war we think we know ourselves, down there in the awful trenches of the Somme. It is a silvery, unreal sort of war, much of the time. A thread-like clinging to existence pervades the story at times, as though Lewis knows, even years afterwards, that he had been asking for too much, and having won it, should now keep a low profile lest the fates remember him suddenly and deal him a mortal blow. Just as our own knowledge of what really happened in that faraway war is fairly murky (in spite of the immense amount of documentation), so Lewis, coming back to it via his log books many years later, has no clear memory of particular events. Just of flying, flying ever onwards, one sortie after another, with the occasional scare marking the passing of months, but little else. Except for the empty seats in the Mess, one suspects that it was all fairly dreamy for this 18 or 19-year-old lad, of whom much was indeed being asked too soon.

I enjoyed the book. I liked its ups and downs. I was very impressed about finding such writing coming from one who had every reason to shut up altogether, as so many of his contemporaries did. It has been called (by whom? - Shaw perhaps) one of the six best books to come out of World War I. I haven't read them all, but I'd have to agree that it is a fine book, even though it shudders at times, on the wing. It scarcely matters - what is good about it is in fact remarkable - the poetry of the air, particularly. I'm just grateful that one who had that very unique viewpoint, at a time when aircraft were going slow enough for their human passengers to be able to think, survived to share it with us. It couldn't have been written about any other period and, probably, by any other writer. That may just make it unique.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing story from the early years of flight, January 7, 2004

By 

David W. Nicholas (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sagittarius rising (Wings of war)

The English are a wonderfully fascinating race. You learn about the characters that people their recent history, and you wonder how they ever won a war, let alone participate in the defeat of Germany twice. Their soldiers seem somewhat daffy and confused, not to say muddled, and they can't design a good tank or airplane (with a few exceptions) to save their lives. One thing they can do, however, is write books about their experiences afterwards. From Lawrence of Arabia to Robert Graves to Stanley Moss and Cecil Lewis, these accounts are invariably intelligently written and almost poetic in their content.

Cecil Lewis lived a very long and full life. He was still around to write the forward for the 50th anniversary edition of his 1936 memoir of his World War I service, the present volume titled Sagittarius Rising. He survived until 1997 (when he was 98) living in the Meditterranean. However, his early life was fraught with danger, and the odds were against him surviving that long. He joined the Royal Flying Corps just short of 17 in 1915, and served through two years of combat on the Western front. He piloted a Morane Parasol (a type of plane, so called because it looked like a parasol from the side) as an observation plane over the Battle of the Somme, then was part of Albert Ball's squadron of SE5's during 1917, and was there when Ball was killed. He then served in a squadron defending Britain from German bombers, flying a Sopwith Camel, and transferred back to France again, just as the war ended, flying that same Camel.

The book then does lose focus slightly, as the author has determined to tell you of his experiences flying. He flew planes (intermittently) for several years after the war, mostly in the Far East, where he taught Chinese pilots how to pilot airplanes. Between language problems and the lack of a need for airplane service in China, the whole project was a failure, and he returned home at the end of 1921 and retired from flying airplanes.

My edition of this book is from the Folio Society, and came with some pencil drawings of the air war that were appropriate. It also included a forward that filled you in on the author's life after the book a little bit (he was in the RAF during WW2, and commanded an airbase in England). I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the First World War or aviation.