Night flight (Exupéry)

Nachtflug is a novel by the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , published in December 1931 .

action

The mail pilot Fabien must in one night during a thunderstorm over Argentina in his machine for his life fighting. On the ground, Rivière, his superior who ultimately prompted him to undertake this risky flight, follows the radio traffic and realizes his responsibility as a superior. Fabien's wife is also following her husband's flight with concern. The situation for Fabien becomes more and more hopeless, in the end he flies with an almost empty gas tank over the storm that covers the entire South American continent. At some point, radio contact with the ground breaks off, and at the control center Rivière can only calculate when Fabien is likely to crash. This flight calls into question the worldview of Rivières, who had previously believed in the " Réglement ", the strict adherence to the flight plan. The fate of Fabien is not told, but the plot leaves no doubt that Fabien will die.

interpretation

The central theme of the work is the question of whether there is an instance (the “ Réglement ”, the flight plan) that is worth more than a human life.

At the time of its origins, the pioneering days of aviation, airlines became more and more willing to take risks and tried to outdo competing modes of transport such as railways and shipping with night flights. However, the technology was far from being fully developed for night flights and so every flight posed an incalculable risk. The pilot's survival often only depended on favorable weather conditions.

Saint-Exupéry was a mail aviator himself and in this novel has processed his experiences and doubts about the meaning of this deadly competition.

These doubts are most evident in the person of the flight director Rivière, who initially firmly believes that Fabien has to arrive on time in order not to endanger the punctuality of the connecting flight, and then sees his worldview collapse when he realizes that he is Fabien in sent death: “ We don't want to live forever, but we don't want to see everything being done and all things suddenly lose their meaning. Then the emptiness that surrounds us shows itself. "

In general, the reader learns most about the inner workings of Rivière, who repeatedly raises philosophical considerations that night. Examples for this are:

“ There are no solutions in life. There are forces in motion that have to be created, the solutions follow. "
“ What is going by in the crowd? Perhaps there are some who do not even notice you and who still carry news of the unusual. And without even knowing it. "

In contrast, Fabien, the pilot, endures the situation with calm, almost stoic serenity, and even enjoys the light of the stars as he breaks through the thick cloud cover and flies over the storm, although doomed to die but still temporarily escaped the storm . He always maintains his composure and endures his fate with dignity. So he corresponds to a common idea of a hero.

Public echo

The work, the second novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry after Südkurier (1929), was a great success. In 1931 it was awarded the Prix Femina .

The novel was in 1933 with, among others, with Clark Gable and Helen Hayes filmed .

Nevertheless, there was criticism, especially from pilot circles, who discussed their role and that of the director, for whose character Didier Daurat the director of the French airline had served as a model. For many, the portrayal seemed too tragic and heroic. This criticism plunged Saint-Exupéry, who was very sensitive in this regard, into a nine-year literary crisis. It was not until 1939 that he published another book ( Wind, Sand and Stars ).

German editions

Transl. Hans Reisiger , foreword by André Gide . S. Fischer, Berlin 1932 and 1939 and 1943 in the Aryanized S. Fischer Verlag, which at that time was called Suhrkamp Verlag. Numerous new editions by S. Fischer Verlag in the Federal Republic, most recently in 2015 as a paperback with ISBN 978-3-596-90594-2
- GDR edition: Translated by Henrik Becker . Verlag Volk und Welt , Berlin 1985
New edition with translation by Annette Lallemand. Karl Rauch, Düsseldorf 2017 ISBN 978-3-7920-0072-4

Web links

Content, development and background to the novel Nachtflug

notes

↑ The preface in excerpts from Verena von der Heyden-Rynsch ed .: Vive la littérature! Contemporary French literature. Hanser, Munich 1989, pp. 168f.
↑ Lallemand in the translator database of the VdÜ , 2019. Lallemand, born in 1938, was named "Chevalier" des Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in the category "Non-French" by the French government in 2014 , together with Walter Heun and Markus Wörl.

[1] The preface in excerpts from Verena von der Heyden-Rynsch ed .: Vive la littérature! Contemporary French literature. Hanser, Munich 1989, pp. 168f.

[2] Lallemand in the translator database of the VdÜ , 2019. Lallemand, born in 1938, was named "Chevalier" des Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in the category "Non-French" by the French government in 2014 , together with Walter Heun and Markus Wörl.