Antoine St.-Exupery’s plane disappeared on July 31, 1944 – and nobody knew what had happened – until now. He vanished off the face of the earth, leaving not a trace of himself behind. (They still don’t know why, exactly, his plane went down – but at the time, it was as though the author of Le Petit Prince had flown off through our outer atmosphere, and into the galaxy – not too difficult to imagine, considering the interests of the author. The melancholy and yearning of the author – encapsulated in his little book Le Petit Prince.)
The strange thing for me (and for others) about his disappearance was its correspondence to what happened to The Little Prince in the book.
The Prince appears, randomly, from outer space, from his teeny little planet which he shares with one rose. He appears in the middle of the Sahara Desert and befriends a pilot, sitting beside his plane in the desert. And then – after a relationship develops, the Prince disappeared again – after being bitten by a serpent. Obviously allegorical. But heart-wrenching and simply told. It is not idealogical, or brow-beatingly obvious. It’s a fairy tale.
The last line of the book – (I first read it in the original French in high school, and am so grateful that I did – it’s meant to be read in French):
“Ne me laissez pas tellement triste: écrivez-moi vite qu’il est revenu… ”
“If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back.”
Send me word that he has come back.
St.-Exupery’s missing plane has been found, missing for all of these years.
I read about this yesterday, and when I got home, the first thing I did was pull Le Petit Prince off the shelf. It was the first book I ever read in French.
It was my first French-book experience too – I still have both versions at home.
That famous moment with the fox – where the fox says:
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
It just sounds so much better in French – you can’t even compare:
“Adieu, dit le renard. Voici mon secret. Il est très simple : on ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.”
Random Linkage
Eco-groovy nuclear missiles (with thanks to Mr. Bingley). ‘I get my heroin on the NHS’. A good reason to emigrate; in which direction depends on your view of these things. Get really good at bouncing a ball on your knee,…
I am occasionally annoyed with myself that I cannot read French.
Great story, though. Excellent find. Maybe Saint-Ex beamed out and only the P-38 went down….
Ken Hall –
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he had beamed out!! There was always something a little bit otherworldly about the man.
Anne Lindbergh has a tremendous recollection of meeting him in her journal. He spoke no English, she barely spoke French – yet they had this whole conversation on some other plane of human communication – they understood each other. He disappeared about a month later.
Thanks for posting this. St-Ex wrote a great deal in addition to “The Little Prince.” Two of my favorites are:
1)”Flight to Arras”…this is an account of the author’s thoughts during a very dangerous reconnaissance mission that he flew as part of the French Air Force in 1940, while the French armies were collapsing. He is trying to come to terms with his expected death in a war that he knows is already lost.
2)”Wisdom of the Sands” (sounds much better under the French title, “Citadelle”)…the fictional musings of a desert ruler on the art of governing and creating a society. Unfinished, since he was killed first..
I have his entire oeuvre on my shelf. :) Tryin’ out my long-unused French there.
I went through a huge “airplane-literature” phase – brought on by Richard Bach’s work (of Jonathan Livingston Seagull fame) – and Bach continuously references St.-Exupery as the best writer of the genre – so I picked up all his other stuff, besides Le Petit Prince.
Wind, Sand and Stars was my favorite, I believe – but Le Petit Prince will always hold a special place in mon coeur.
You can see why people almost make a religion out of being able to fly, when you read his words.
I really hope we find out why he went down – I have my suspicions but would like to know what happened. It’s fascinating that there’s no sign of him in the wreck.
St-Ex is sort of the “patron saint” for those people for whom flying is a spiritual experience. There are many pilots, including good ones, for whom it is just a job, but for some it is everything. His story reminds me of one of my buddies from when I was test-piloting in California. The project we were working on was pretty uncertain – my buddy had been on it a lot longer than me, and had seen it through many ups and downs. We were sitting in the bar (Pancho’s, actually, if that means anything to anybody) talking about what we would do if the program didn’t work out and we were without flying jobs. He said he didn’t care. He was going to fly no matter what, if he had to spend his last nickel to go down to the local civilian airport and rent a Cessna 152. He said he’d just go hungry before he stayed on the ground. I thought that pretty much summed it up.
CW –
What are your suspicions of what happened to him?
I think he overboosted the superchargers and blew out the engines on the P-38. It is easy to do and St-Ex didn’t have all that much experience flying something with more power than could be safely used. Lots of people did it.
CW – Will they be able to discover that from the wreckage of the plane?
“Pancho’s, actually, if that means anything to anybody…”
Indeed it does, CW. THere’s no way to say this without it sounding cliched and cheesy, but wow, that’s very cool.
A German pilot said that he shot down a P-38 in roughly the place, and at the time, that St-Ex was there. Ironically, he had all of St-Ex’s books at home….
Wow, I thought I was the only one who noticed that as a news item. My introduction to St. Exupery was not through his writing, but through reading Eddie Rickenbacker and about the P-38 Lightning. I look forward to the film which will be written about him!
Popskull:
Maybe you should write the film about him hmmmmmm??
That’s the big question – did the Germans shoot him down or not. They should be able to tell from the wreckage if he was shot down. If they recover the airplane they might be able to tell if the engines were blown out.
Both could be true – St-Ex could have overboosted the motors trying to get away from the Germans. If I remember correctly he was actually flying what was later called an F-4 – the unarmed photoreconnaissance version of the P-38. So all he had for defense was speed.
I was introduced to this wonderful frenchman by a wonderful friemd..Incidently the p-38 was the inspiaration for tailfins on the cadillac..anyway
she taught me how to tame a fox..
as unengaging as Bachs writing is, his intriduction to Wind, Sand and Stars is rivetting. He is sitting on alert in Europe with and armed tactical nuclear weapon in his jet and wondering why.
Random Linkage
Eco-groovy nuclear missiles (with thanks to Mr. Bingley). ‘I get my heroin on the NHS’. A good reason to emigrate; in which direction depends on your view of these things. Get really good at bouncing a ball on your knee,…