Reading Those Classics #10

Classic War Memoir. Today is Memorial Day, a day of remembrance and mourning. This is a day to honor the men and women who died for our country while serving in the U.S. military. War memoirs by Americans are Toward the Flame: A Memoir of World War I (Hervey Allen): With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa (Eugene B. Sledge); and The Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien).

Flight to Arras – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

On May 10, 1940 at 4:30 A.M. Guderian led the 1st Panzer Division across the Luxemburg border followed by Rommel and his 7th Panzers across the Belgian frontier.  France had to fight for its life.

In this memoir, Saint-Exupéry recounts his experience as a pilot of Air Group 2/33 during the invasion. Crews are sacrificed and villages are burned in the momentum of war. The air reconnaissance crews are aware of the absurdity of war and feel miserable in the face of defeat but do their duty. Carrying out orders in the best way they can is the only thing left to do.

Faced with an imminent death, de Saint-Exupéry reflects on life, humankind and our relationships with others. He conveys through his writing important life lessons: “Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.” “Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas.” “To live is to be born slowly.” “Not a single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us” “For love is greater than any wind of words.” Saint-Exupéry advocates unity, fraternity, equality and tolerance.

The author never returned from a reconnaissance flight in the south of France in 1943. He was only 44 years of age. This book forces you to think about how people see service to their country during unthinkable circumstances.

Click on the title to go to the review.

Prize Winning Classic: The Moviegoer – Walker Percy

Classic Novella: Old Man – William Faulkner

Classic Epistolary Novel: Augustus – John Williams

Classic Comic Novel: Thank you, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse

Classic Short Stories: New York Stories – John O’Hara

Classic Air Pilot Memoir: Wind, Sand, and Stars - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Classic Set in the Big Apple: Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos

Classic 19th Century Novel: Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite – Anthony Trollope

Classic Police Procedural: Wolf to Slaughter – Ruth Rendell

Classic War Memoir: Flight to Arras - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry