quick Lit question; Antoine De Saint-Exupery - Wind, Sand and Stars

[wytchcroft]

Just finished reading the wonderful 'Wind, Sand and Stars'. What a book!

That Saint-Exupery manages to tell both an internal and external story so powerfully and vividly and yet straight-forwardly is quite staggering.

One question; during the crash chapter (my favourite) i found that the distances measured made no sense, especially if you try and plot them on a map of Libya, just impossible (surely) to walk the miles under those conditions?

Maybe it was the translation, or just the mens' delirium...

I'm going to do some research but does anyone know?

It didn't detract in any way from the book which i strongly recommend:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind,_Sand_and_Stars
 
My next book to read is The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov... 

Comments

[aliasse.livejournal.com]

Oh my GARD! You haven't read it! Oh my GARD! It's just so todally YOU! Now I want to post a chapter of Ploom Mountain (the children's novel that I haven't posted for ages) which has a black cat in it, so that you can see how utterly I have ripped off the black cat from TM&M.

Also this; have you read this? *hyperventilates with eagerness* Every time I pick it up I think of you. It's called 'The Pendragon Legend' by the author of my current fave nov ('Journey by Moonlight') Antal Szerb. It's just todally todally YOU! If I knew where you lived *not menacing* I'd send it to you. If I addressed it 'wytchcroft, oop north', would you get it?

Also, I'm ready for any movement towards the cigarette.

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

nope never read it - it's a gap, yes...

and i haven't read The Pendragon Legend either!

oh gosh!

*moves with surprising speed*...

[aliasse.livejournal.com]

*laughs as wytchcroft plunges down into Johnny-Weismuller-era-Tarzan-style pit (though hopes it was a reasonably soft landing)*

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

you are forgetting my deep friendship with cheeta.

*whistles*

oh - crap, i forgot cheeta smokes. damn...

got a light?

[aliasse.livejournal.com]

"Ungowa cheeta!"

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

language Timothy!

[stoshagownozad.livejournal.com]

AAAAAAAA! "Pendragon Legend" is a great thing tooo! Everything goes completely messy in five minutes... and this dark Hungarian humor!!!!

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

wow - i really need to read this! :))

[aliasse.livejournal.com]

This makes me laugh so much:
"Doctor, you're like the Encyclopaedia Britannica. You know everything.:
"I do know rather a lot," I replied nervously.
"I believe you even speak Sanskrit."
"Fluently," I replied. But she believed that too.
"And you must surely know the Russian novelists. Tell me something about Dostoevsky or Bela Bartok. I've a friend who never stops talking about them."
"I never met Bartok," I said untruthfully, shocked at her ignorance. "But I knew old Dostoevsky really well. He and my father were at primary school together, and he often came for supper."
"How lucky you are, to have known such famous people as a child. I'm sure you could even tell me why Aix-La-Chapelle is called Aachen in German."

I like to think that someone actually said some of these things in real life to Szerb.

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

well, i'm a private person - i don't like to brag you know.

[aliasse.livejournal.com]

Stop it. Szerb died in the 1940s. Unless you mean 'private' as in 'dead' and 'brag' as in 'make ghostly visitations via lj'. ooooooooooo!

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

ah you forget - i am everywhere and nowhere, spread across time itself like butter - no, PEANUT butter - no, wait, like humus! Or... toothpaste maybe or... a slug trail... no more of a - *wafts away into the aether*

[aliasse.livejournal.com]

THIS is why I thought you lived in the States...

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgGKSjiw0HQ

[aliasse.livejournal.com]

*Baldrick moment*

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

*to borrow cigarette*

puff - puff

that's better. Uh, i could send you my mailing address but i can probably order the book just as quickly.

puff - puff

i'll let you know (?)... and more Plume Mountain is only ever a good, good thing. :))

:P

[rebeccawilde.livejournal.com]

Re: :P

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

LMAO!!! :))