Contents
“When you let yourself be tamed, sometimes it happens to cry” … Continuing one of the phrases that have become aphorisms of the author of “The Little Prince”, it can be said without exaggeration that Antoine de Saint-Exupery “tamed” millions of readers around the world and they still mourn him .
A descendant of an old French family, one of the pioneers of aviation, a talented writer, humanist thinker, inventor and hero, Exupery belongs to the category of people who do not fit into the usual framework. He managed not only to fulfill all his dreams, but also created a unique code of morality, implemented in his work and destiny. His literary heritage is not too great, but it concentrates the main thing that worried the author all his life – faith in the unlimited possibilities of man. To this maxim he went straight and consistently all his life. Even in childhood, two of his main hobbies appeared: literature and aviation. From the age of six, he began to write poetry, and at the Lyceum he received the nickname “lunatic” for his dreamy appearance and an irresistible need to look at the sky for a long time. Later, he deliberately turns down many career opportunities and chooses aviation forever. The profession of a pilot gives Exupery a happy opportunity to see the world in a way that most people are not given, and at the same time test themselves in the most dangerous and difficult situations. “Before you write, you need to live,” says Exupery, and his books fully reflect this life experience.
His dates
- June 22, 1900: born in Lyon (the third of five children in the family).
- 1921: enrolls in a fighter aviation regiment in Strasbourg. n 1926: publishes the short story The Pilot.
- 1927: Starts working for a postal company; he is appointed head of the airfield in Morocco, where he writes the novel Southern Postal.
- 1930: Recipient of the Chevalier Order of the Legion of Honor. He writes “Night Flight” and meets Consuelo Sunsin.
- 1931: marries Consuelo.
- 1935: As a correspondent for the Paris Soir newspaper, he comes to the USSR. Crashes in the Libyan desert.
- 1936: On January 1, Exupery and his mechanic are rescued by Bedouins. First notes for the philosophical utopia “Citadel”.
- 1939: Land of the People is published. Receives the “Great Prize of the Novel” of the French Academy.
- 1942: writes The Little Prince.
- 1943: Joins his squadron in Algiers.
- 31 July 1944: last flight. His plane was shot down near Corsica.
Keys to Understanding
remember childhood
Not being a psychoanalyst, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry unmistakably understood the significance of childhood experiences for a person’s future life. The beginning of his own path was extremely happy. He wrote: “Where am I from? I am from my childhood. I came from childhood, as from a country.” Later, over time, from the height of great life experience, he admitted: “The world of childhood memories, our language and our games will always seem to me infinitely more real than any other … I’m not very sure that I lived after the past childhood”.
The cult of friendship
Dedicating The Little Prince to Leon Werth “when he was a little boy,” Exupery explains: “I have a good reason for this: this adult is my best friend.” The circle of his friends is vast and varied, and they all remembered Exupery as a person, any communication with whom became an event and for whom loyalty to his comrades was not a duty, but an internal need. His life credo: “True friendship cannot be preached, it is learned in action.”
Life as a symbol of faith
He confessed in a letter to his mother: “I have just been reading the Bible a little… What simplicity and power of style! And how much poetry! And the commandments, occupying a good twenty-five pages, are masterpieces of legislation and common sense. And everywhere moral laws are revealed in their inevitability and beauty: and this is magnificent!” All those around him are unanimous in their opinion about his moral impeccability, and meanwhile it is difficult for him to talk about his inner life: “it keeps some sense of shame.” But at the same time, he admits: “The inner life is the only thing that matters to me. I – such as I am – should be sought in what I write. And through the figurative structure of his works, and directly, Exupery literally affirms his creed: “I believe that the cult of the Universal inspires, brings individual values uXNUMXbuXNUMXbinto one knot, creates the only real order; this order is life itself.
Feast of overcoming
In order to come to work for the postal airline, Exupery had to overcome the inertia of a serene childhood, a well-to-do youth, and class habits. And his whole life will be a chain of overcoming. In literature, he will abandon romantic beauties for the sake of the truth of life, and in life he will choose the most difficult routes. Even in mortal danger, he continued to observe the world around him and, overcoming fear and despair, asserted: “Life is a holiday.”
Books by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- “Southern postal and others.” AST, 2003.
- “Little Prince”. Eksmo, 2006.
- “Citadel”. AST, 2006.
- “The Little Prince”, audiobook, mp3. 1C Publishing, Melody, 2006.