I happened to read this book by Richard Bach from my colleague who bought this book from a book fair and bought it to office. Within 2 hours I had finished it. I just could not put it down.
This is simple story of a Seagull ( kind of sea bird) called "Jonathan Livingston Seagull". Normally seagull’s life is spent searching for food like pieces of stale bread or fishes from fish boats. And it flies only for food. But this story of Seagull Jonathan is different.
Story :
Jonathan is unlike his other Seagull flock . He Flies for the joy of flying. For him flying itself is life .And so he is busy practising different skills of flying apart from his flock. On such occasion he breaks a record for diving down at 150 miles per hour. But this act makes him an outcast from his flock. He tries to reason but he is forced to leave the flock.
And so he flies away from his flock and starts practising his flight skills.He soon acquires flying skills like spped flying, slow flying, rolls , dives , pull outs etc that other seagulls can just dream of.
And one day he meets two other seagulls while practising who like hime he founds out are exceptional fliers. So impressed by them and burning with a desire to learn their flying skills he joins them to a different world where seagulls like him are flying just for the joy of flying. He settles down and soon masters their skills as well . And there he meets an elder gull who is a master at thought flying. He accepts him as his mentor and starts learning advanced flying skills from him.
But as days pass he remembers about his old flock who are living miserably only for food. He wants to teach themhis skills . And so he returns back. And starts teaching flying to the outcasts seagulls first and then with their aid comes back to his flock . After some initial hitches he starts gaining popularity there in his flock. And his dream starts coming true. And one day he vanishes after training them enough and telling them how to train others.
Analysis:-
Through this simple story Richard Bach who is an Air Force pilot himself takes us to the skies and makes us realize that we are leading an ordinary life. He inspires us to lift ourself to find out our real potential. That there is no limit to what we can achieve. That if there is a limit, its there to our imagination and belief.If we believe in ourselves and work hard towards finding and honing our skills then we can achieve everything in life.
This is a marvellous piece of work by Bach.More philosophical . It makes us think and put ourselves into Jonathan’s place.It’s not jonathan who is the hero there. While reading the book we become the hero and we live his life. That of complete freedom.
This book is very short but considering the message it wants to convey this is a literary treasure.