Koshur Samachar

A Book That I Read
Suman K Sharma
s2m2nr@gmail.com

Tastefully brought out, Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a book out of the ordinary.  It is a novella about a flock of seabirds, and a fable of relentless pursuit of perfection. More than half of the pages of the slim volume carry no text but black-and-white photographs depicting seagulls flying in the sky, or in various other postures. The three-part book became a fad soon after its publication in 1970.  Director Hall Bartlett went on to make it into an US Academy award-winning film in 1973.  The author added a fourth part to his magnum opus in 2013.

Richard David Bach, (born 1936, Illinois, USA) has 13 books to his credit, both in fiction and non-fiction genres.  A former fighter pilot, he was flying sea-planes till 2012, when he suffered a serious plane crash while flying solo in San Juan islands. He has been a barnstormer too – a pilot performing daring aerobatics.  The present book amply reflects his spirit.

Richard Bach lives in Ashland, Oregon. USA, with his wife, Melinda.

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Bach dedicates Jonathan Livingston Seagull ‘To the real Jonathan Seagull who lives in all of us.’

 Seagulls are white and grey birds that abound on sea-shores.  They use complex methods of communication.  Resourceful, inquisitive and intelligent, theirs is a highly developed social structure.    Gulls can walk, swim or fly with equal ease.  Highly efficient seagulls are known to fly at 40 miles (64 kilometres) an hour.  They are not picky eaters.  They eat whatever land, sea or air has to offer – from little creatures of the soil, to fish in the sea, or even small birds flying in the air.  Hungry gulls wont spurn even human waste.

Jonathan Seagull of the story was unlike other gulls of his flock.  He wanted to attain perfection in flying above all. During his practice though he had his share of disappointments. He failed several times to check his speed and fell down to the ground.  The failures taught him to improve upon his manoeuvres.  He could stay longer in air and fly higher with less effort.  In time he became adept at performing loops, rolls and other feats of spectacular flying.

That made Jonathan unpopular in the Flock.  They thought that food should be the first priority of a seagull.  Even his parents chided him for his unusual preference to flying rather than feeding himself properly.  ‘…Why don’t you eat? Son, you’re bone and feathers,’ protested his mother.  His father cautioned him about the approaching winter when food would be scarce.  Jonathan seemed to heed his parents, but not for long.   It was not for him to dive and screech for carrion and crumbs like common gulls, who lived only to eat.

He resumed his practice with renewed vigour, flying even at night.  At seventy miles an hour, he would soar to thousands of feet above sea and then dive straight down at speeds far exceeding any of his fellow gulls could achieve.  Then came the proud moment of his life.  Jonathan flew to a height of five thousand feet and dived vertically at the terminal speed of two hundred and fourteen miles an hour. Adding to his triumph was his success in breaking his speed at a fraction of the height he had achieved, and making a life-saving smooth curve on landing.  Contrary to his expectation of being lionised for his singular achievement, he was chastened by the Elder of the Flock and cast out for ‘his irresponsibility.’

Yet, Jonathan did not let up his practice.  His persistence brought him the advantages of success. Diving ten feet deep into the sea, he fed now on fresh fish.  He could sleep undisturbed in the air, setting for himself a hundred-mile course from sunset to sunrise.  While fog and mist thwarted poor land-struck gulls, Jonathan ‘climbed above them into dazzling clear skies.’  And on one peaceful night, ripe of age, he saw two angelic gulls come to take him ‘higher, take him home.’

Jonathan thought he had come to heaven. ‘His feathers glowed brilliant white now, and his wings were smooth and perfect as sheets of polished silver.  He began, delightedly, to learn about them, to press power into these new wings.’  Seeking affirmation, he asked Chiang, the Elder Gull, whether he was in heaven.  And Chiang responded, ‘No, Jonathan, there is no such place.  Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time.  Heaven is being perfect.’  Chiang trained Jonathan to overcome the barriers of time and space. He could be anywhere he wished to be at any time.   Before disappearing into a daze of brightness, Chiang counselled Jonathan that he should now ‘work on’ love.  Jonathan returned to Earth, only to find young Fletcher Lynd Seagull, another Outcast like him, despising the Flock.  Jonathan advised the youngster to forgive the Flock if he wanted to pursue his passion for flying.

Fletcher became Jonathan’s foremost student.  Other seagulls, who had been cast out by the Flock, also joined them.  On one occasion, an overenthusiastic Fletcher crashed against a rock during the training and dropped seemingly dead to the ground.  Jonathan revived him miraculously.  That happened before the eyes of the entire Flock.  They denounced Jonathan as Devil and moved forward to kill him.  Jonathan, however, vanished from the scene, leaving behind Fletcher to train yet another generation of students.

That is how Richard Bach had ended his book in 1970.  It made an intense fable of self-actualisation for the ‘Me Generation’ (post-World War II born Americans who came of age in the 1970s – they are also called the ‘Baby Boomers’).  Bach’s words and phrases such as ‘freedom’, and ‘no limits’ reflected the narcissism of that generation. Donald Trump, born in 1946, fittingly exemplifies the ‘Me Generation’.

 Bach was criticised for his facile promotion of the self-over-society, of individualism over co-existence.  The 4th part of the book, that he wrote in 2013 appears to disavow his earlier message. ‘…the last part of the book,’ he writes, ‘believed in itself when I didn’t.  It knew what I refused: the forces of rulers and rituals will kill our freedom to live as we choose’ (p.126).