Omar Msary Msary itibaren Texas
I confess to enjoying this book more than I like it. The writing is often heavy-handed, and the story is a generic hero epic. But who, if you dream of adventure, can deny it? Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an outcast member of his flock. Unlike other gulls, he is not content flapping around and squawking and scavenging for food. He wants to fly and hunt like hawks and eagles. He wants to break out of the static mould and old ways of the elder gulls. His brazenness earns him exile, and that is when his journey begins. Who wouldn’t want to be Jonathan Livingston Seagull, reaching terminal velocity in his dives, soaring effortlessly on the wind, climbing to astronomic heights, and eventually transcending the laws of physics? Bullish prose and formulaic characters can’t overshadow this flight. And so, even as part of me wanted to wince at clichés, another part of me stuffed those reactions under the pillow. Jonathan’s thirst for more is as familiar as the cast of supporting characters around him. He and they are archetypal figures in stories of transformation and revolution: the hero, the antagonist, the mentor, the student. It is right out of the pages of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Frequently perfectly predictable. But Jonathan’s adventure, if you’ve ever had flying dreams, is the adventure we all want to have. And it feeds that longing for freedom—or whatever the psychologists say flying dreams mean. Sign me up. Do I recommend it? Yes. It’s exhilarating. Would I teach it? No. Not enough stuff in the prose. Lasting impressions: Sometimes cumbersome writing offset by a tale that accesses a deep seated desire to fly.