- Southern Mail. Night Flight

by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Paperback, 1989

Status

Available

Call number

813

Genres

General Fiction

Fiction

Collection

Wishlist

Publication

Penguin Books (1989), Paperback, 176 pages

Description

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, an intrepid and eccentric adventurer, transferred his passion for flying to the written word by writing several classics of aviation literature, including Southern Mail and Night Flight. Based on Saint-Exupery's trail-blazing flights for the French airmail service over the Sahara and later, the Andes, these two novels evoke the tragic courage and nobility of the airborne pioneers who took enormous risks, flying in open cock-pits in planes that were often fragile and unstable.

User reviews

LibraryThing member chan2182

Like Richard Bach's books - full of flying and philosophy and love. Only more french, less explicit, dark but more beautiful.

3 more

LibraryThing member SeriousGrace

Previously published as Courrier Sad, Southern Mail introduces us to love and loneliness. Bernis is a pilot caught in a tragic love affair. It complicates his entire psyche until he is in the air, delivering the mail. Flying is his true passion but it's also where he feels the loneliest. Woven

throughout the slim volume Saint-Exupery reveals a philosophical beauty about landscapes (lots of references to the ocean) as well as the people. But, much like Night Flight the emphasis is on the timely deliverance of the mail. Nowhere is that more apparent than at the very end of the story. While the plane had crashed and the pilot was lost they still managed to salvage the mail and it, if not the pilot, arrived on safely.

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LibraryThing member soylentgreen23

If you want to know what it was like to be an aviator in the early days of the field, these two novellas will tell you more than anything else I can think of.

LibraryThing member madepercy

These two works cover the pioneering era of airmail. The author's experience as a pilot is obvious yet it is combined with rich imagery amidst strong characters. Nothing is missed in detailing the victory, the bureaucracy, the heroes, the futility, the drive, the loved ones, and the tragedy of

flying the mail in North Africa and South America in the 1920s. A wonderful book where the magic of The Little Prince is not lost but transported to a completely different genre with relative ease.

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