ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY

Night Flight
by Radbod

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders.
Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
"As for the future, your task is not to forsee it, but to enable it."
- The Wisdom of the Sands

"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral."
- Flight to Arras

"You know you've achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away."
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye."
- The Little Prince
"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together."
- Wind, Sand, and Stars

"The machine does not isolate us from the great problems of nature but plunges us more deeply into them."

Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyons into an old family of provincial nobility. His father was an insurance company executive, who died of a stroke in 1904. His artistic talented widow, Marie de (Fonscolombe) Exupéry (1875-1972), moved with her children to Le Mans in 1909. At the castle of Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens, Saint-Exupéry spent his childhood years surrounded by sisters, aunts, cousins, nurses, and frauläins. He was educated at Jesuit schools in Montgré and Le Mans, and in Switzerland at a Catholic boarding school (1915-1917). After failing his final examination at a university preparatory school, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts to study architecture.

His greatest ambition was to be an officer in the Navy. After finishing schools at Sainte-Croix-du-Mans and Switzerland he tried to join the Navy, but he failed to get into the Naval Academy. So he dicided to become pilot since he had been obsessed with aviation from an early age. At this time, aviation was extremely dangerous. Danger, risk-- this is precisely for what Saint-Exupéry wished. The turning point in Saint-Exupéry's life came in 1921 when he started his military service, and was sent to Strasbourgh for training as a pilot. On July 9, 1921, he made his first flight alone with Sopwith F-CTEE. He obtained his pilot's licence in 1922, and settled then in Paris where he took up writing. The following years were unlucky. His engagement with Louise de Vilmorin broke, and he did not have success in his work and business - he had several jobs, including as a boookkeeper, and an automobile salesman. Saint-Exupéry's first tale, 'L'Aviateur' was published in 1926 in the literary magazine Le Navire d'argent. His true calling Saint-Exupéry then find in flying the mails for the commercial airline company Aéropostale. He flew the mails over North Africa for three years, escaping death several times. In 1928 he became the director of the remote Cap Juby airfield in Rio de Oro, Sahara. In the loneliness Saint-Exupéry learned to love the desert, and used its harsh beauty as basis in "The Little Prince" and "The Wisdom of the Sands" (1948). During there years Saint-Exupéry wrote his first novel, "Southern Mail" (1929), which celebrated the courage of the early pilots, flying at the limits of safety, to speed the mail and win commercial advantage over rail and steamship rivals. Another story line in the work depicted the author's failed love affair with the novelist Louise de Vilmorin. Southern Mail was filmed by Robert Bresseo in 1937.

"Over and done with. Thirty thousand letters come safely through. The airline company kept drilling it into you: the precious mail, more precious than life itself. Enough to keep thirty thousand lovers going... Lovers, be patient! In the sinking fire of sunset here we come. Behind Bernis the clouds are thick, chirned by the whirlwind in its mountain bowl. Before him lies a land decked out in sunlight, the tender muslin of the meadows, the rich tweed of the woods, the ruffled veil of the sea." (from Night Flight)

After his military service, he presented himself to the director of an airline company and expressed to him his desire to become a pilot. The director told him, "Do like everyone else. First, you must become a mechanic." Saint-Exupéry worked to become a mechanic. In 1927, he finally reached his goal. He was the pilot of a formation. He completed dangerous missions over the Mediterranean, over the Sahara. He had many accidents over the middle of th e desert. With the age of twenty-six that he became pilot of mail service from Toulouse to Dakar, and he was named a chef of Port Juby office.

In 1929 Saint-Exupéry moved to South America, flying post through the Andes. This experience gave basis for his second novel, Night Flight, which became an international bestseller, won Prix Femina, and was adapted into screen in 1933, starring Clark Gable and Lionel Barrymore. In the story Rivière, the hard-bitten airport chief, has left all thoughts of retirement and sees the work of flying the mails as his fate. 'We don't ask to be eternal', he thought. 'What we ask is not to see acts and objects abruptly lose their meaning. The void surrounding us then suddenly yawns on every side.' (from Night Flight)
Saint-Exupéry married in 1931 Consuelo Gomez Castillo, and started to work as a test pilot for Air France and other airline companies. He wrote for Paris-Soir and covered the May Day events in Moskow in 1936, and made a series of articles on the Spanish Civil War. Saint-Exupéry lived traveling, adventurous life: he bought Caudron Simoun (F-ANRY) airplane with his last money, and experienced an aviation accident in Libya, bought another Caudron Simoun in 1937 and was severely injured in Guatemala in a plane crash.
Exupery flew to many South African cities, as well at during Spanish Civil war, for several years until 1938. He wrote first novel, Courrier-Sud (1928 tr. Southern Mail 1933), based on these experiences. In Buenos Aires married a young widow, Consuelo Suncin (1931), and that year published second novel, Vol de Nuit (1931, tr. Night Flight 1932), which won French Academy's Grand Prix. Later, he was named the director of his own aviation company in South America. There also, he accomplished many dangerous missions over the Andes. His experiences during these flights and his numerous crashes in then still unstable planes are well described in Night Flight (Vol de Nuit, 1931), Southern Mail (Courrier Sud, 1929), Flight to Arras (Pilote de Guerre, 1942) Airman's Odyssey, Wisdoms of the Sands, Letter to a Hostage (Lettre à un Otage, 1943) and Wind, Sand and Stars (Terre des Hommes, 1939).
During his life in USA, he wrote several novels among them one of his best knowing one, The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince). That book written in New York City (1940) is, according to some sources, third most readed book in the world in this century. Holy Bible and muslim Ku'ran are first two.
In 1939, France went to war with Germany. Exupery moved back to France and immediately enlisted in the army to rejoin air force. Pilote de guerre (1942, tr. Flight to Arras 1942) is an account of his wartime experiences.

Exupery soon felt compelled to return to his old squadron in North Africa, and left U.S. (1943).

Defeat came soon. France was occupied by German troops. Saint-Exupéry didn't accept the defeat. He decided to leave France. He settled in the United States, where he continued to write. It was in New York that he published The Little Prince, one of his most celebrated books.

Saint-Exupéry decided to join the American army, when in 1942 American troops landed in North Africa. Grounded at first because of age and previous injuries, he served as instructor, then began making reconnaissance flight over southern France (1944). He accomplished many missions over occupied France. On the 31st of July, 1944, Saint-Exupéry left for his last mission. De Saint-Exupéry took off from an airstrip in Sardinia on a flight over southern France. His airplane was destroyed by German airplanes over the Mediterranean. On that day, Saint-Exupéry didn't return... in the open sky, he found risk, death, and glory.
His Citadelle was published posthumously (1948, tr. The Wisdom of the Sands 1950).
Saint-Exupery's writings celebrate his faith in man and life, are philosophical, even mystical. His prose is at once poetic and incisive.
Saint-Exupéry can be called a real life hero who looked adventure and danger with poet's eyes. For Saint-Exupéry, flying wasn't just piloting an airplane. It was also meditating, reflecting. During his missions, Saint-Exupéry thought deeply about solitude, friendship, the meaning of life, the human condition, and liberty. He published his reflections. His books had immediate success.

Encouraged by his friend André Gide, Saint-Exupéry wrote a book about pilot's profession. Wind, Sand and Stars, which appeared in 1939, won the French Academy's 1939 Grand Prix du Roman and the National Book Award in the United States. The director Jean Renoir (1894-1979) wanted to shoot the film and had conversations with the author, mostly about literary subjects which he recorded. At that time Renoir worked in Hollywood where everyone shot on sets. Renoir idea was to make the film at the locations described in the book. It had gained success in the.U.S. but nobody wanted to produce the film.

After the fall of France in World War II Saint-Exupéry joined the army, and made several flights, although he was considered unable to fly military planes because of his several injures. However, Saint-Exupéry was awarded with Croix de Guerre.

In 1940 he escaped to the United States, and was criticized by his countrymen not to support de Gaulle's Free France forces in London. Flight to Arras (1942) depicts his hopeless flight over the enemy lines, when France was already beaten. In 1943 he rejoined French air force in North Africa and published his best-known work, The Little Prince (1943), a children's fable for adults. The book has been translated into near fifty languages.

Le Petit Prince (1943, The Little Prince) - illustrated by the author. The narrator is a pilot who has crash-landed in a desert. He meet a boy, who turns out to be a prince from another planet. The prince tell about his adventures on Earth and about his precious rose on his planet. He is disapointed when he discovers that roses are common on Earth. A desert fox convinces him, that the prince should love his own rare rose and finding thus meaning to his life, the prince returns back to home.

His plane disappeared - he was shot down over Mediterranean, or perhaps there was an accident, or it was a suicide. Saint-Exupéry left behind the unfinished manuscript of La Citadelle (Wisdom of the Sands) and some notebooks, which were published posthumously. "Freedom and constraint are two aspects of the same necessity, which is to be what one is and no other." (from La Citadelle, 1948) The book reflects Saint-Exupéry's increasing interest in politics, and his later paternalistic ideals.  

Selected works:

L'AVIATEUR, 1926
COURRIER-SUD, 1929 - Southern Mail - film 1937, dir. by Robert Bresseo
VOLE DE NUIT, 1931 - Night Flight - Yölento - film 1933, dir. by Clarence Brown, starring John Barrymore, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Myrna Loy, Lionel Barrymore
TERRE DES HOMMES, 1939 - Wind, Sand, and Stars - Siipien sankarit
PILOTE DE GUERRE, 1942 - Flight to Arras
LETTRE Á UN OTAGE, 1943 - Letter to a Hostage
LE PETIT PRINCE, 1943 (illust. by Saint-Exupéry) - The Little Prince - Pikku prinssi
LA CITADELLE, 1948 - The Wisdom of the Sands
ŒUVRES COMPLÈTES, 1950 (7 vols.)
ŒUVRES, 1953
LETTRES DE JEUNESSE, 1923-31, 1953
CARNETS, 1953
LETTRES À SA MÈRE, 1955
UN SENS À LA VIE, 1956 - A Sense of Life
LETTERS DE SAINT EXUPÉRY, 1960
LETTRES AUX AMÉRICAINS, 1960
ECRITS DE GUERRE, 1939-1944, 1982 - Wartime Writings
 

BACK