Wind, Sand, and Stars book review
Wind, Sand, and Stars: A Book Review
American author John Green once gave some advice to an aspiring writer; “Don’t make stuff because you want money, it will never make you enough money. Don’t make stuff because you want to get famous because you will never feel famous enough. Make gifts for people, and work hard on those gifts in the hope that those people will notice. Maybe they will notice how hard you worked and maybe they won’t… Ultimately, that doesn’t change anything because your responsibility is not to the people you’re making the gift for, but to the gift itself”. Though Wind, Sand, and Stars was written well before Green’s time his views on being a writer reflect much of what author Antoine de Saint-Exupery felt and believed during his years flying as a postal and combat pilot for as it will come to be learned, Saint-Exupery’s exploits across the globe was done in the name of no man, but for mankind. Regardless of the amount of recognition he received or absence of a physical “gift” per say, he ventured on knowing full well that his purpose attributed to more than his own existence. The book is a part memoir, part adventure novel of his years spent as a French pilot reflecting upon many of his adventures in places like the Andes Mountains, the French Countryside, and the expanse of the Saharan Desert. In each of these stories, he recalls innate details and events pertaining to each tale and how revelations arising from them came to help him realize his place in the world and develop an underlying philosophy; one predicated on how aviation may forever alter man’s perception on concepts that existed long before the airplane. In this book, Saint-Exupery explains how the airplane was a necessity to globalization not only economically, but also culturally. The author emphasizes how these changes affected man’s relation with nature and with one another; through this he makes personal revelations on life and purpose while traveling across the world.
In
American author John Green once gave some advice to an aspiring writer; “Don’t make stuff because you want money, it will never make you enough money. Don’t make stuff because you want to get famous because you will never feel famous enough. Make gifts for people, and work hard on those gifts in the hope that those people will notice. Maybe they will notice how hard you worked and maybe they won’t… Ultimately, that doesn’t change anything because your responsibility is not to the people you’re making the gift for, but to the gift itself”. Though Wind, Sand, and Stars was written well before Green’s time his views on being a writer reflect much of what author Antoine de Saint-Exupery felt and believed during his years flying as a postal and combat pilot for as it will come to be learned, Saint-Exupery’s exploits across the globe was done in the name of no man, but for mankind. Regardless of the amount of recognition he received or absence of a physical “gift” per say, he ventured on knowing full well that his purpose attributed to more than his own existence. The book is a part memoir, part adventure novel of his years spent as a French pilot reflecting upon many of his adventures in places like the Andes Mountains, the French Countryside, and the expanse of the Saharan Desert. In each of these stories, he recalls innate details and events pertaining to each tale and how revelations arising from them came to help him realize his place in the world and develop an underlying philosophy; one predicated on how aviation may forever alter man’s perception on concepts that existed long before the airplane. In this book, Saint-Exupery explains how the airplane was a necessity to globalization not only economically, but also culturally. The author emphasizes how these changes affected man’s relation with nature and with one another; through this he makes personal revelations on life and purpose while traveling across the world.
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