An Inveterate Soloist Wartime Writings: 1939-1944

By Paul Gray

He was an intrepid pilot of the silk scarf and goggles school, the kind of man who could (and did) attempt to set a new speed record between Paris and Saigon, who could crash in the Sahara and survive, rescued by Bedouins. He was also the acclaimed author of such international best sellers as the novel Night Flight (1931) and the children's tale The Little Prince (1943). As if these achievements did not generate sufficient glamour, Antoine de Saint- Exupery also managed a death that was both heroic and mysterious. At 44, he had won permission to fly photoreconnaissance missions over his native France. On July 31, 1944, he took off from an Allied base in Corsica and never returned. He may have been forced down in the Mediterranean by two German fighter planes. No wreckage or remains were ever found.

Wartime Writings should add more luster to the Saint-Exupery legend, though the author might think otherwise. He was a perfectionist, accustomed to going through 25 or 30 drafts of his prose before submitting it for publication. He used language with extreme care and respect, all the while doubting its ability to communicate essential truths: "I've always thought that words were like love among tortoises -- something not well attuned as yet." This collection of letters and miscellaneous pieces would certainly strike Saint- Exupery as unpolished and riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It is all of that and something more: an urgent journal, composed haphazardly and under pressure, of a world in turmoil and a soul in torment.

Like millions of others during those dreadful years, Saint-Exupery had ample reason for anguish. His dream of defending his country from Nazi invaders was interrupted by the fall of France in 1940. The collaborationist Vichy government, hoping to appropriate some of his fame and prestige, named the writer-pilot to a post on its National Council. He scornfully refused from a self-imposed exile in the U.S., where he continued to write books and advocate American intervention in the war.

His activities proved controversial among his countrymen. His plea for French unity in the face of an implacable enemy outraged warring factions. He dared suggest that the Vichy regime, which he "hated," had nonetheless saved France from "utter extermination" at the hands of the Third Reich. He feared the recriminations that might follow once the war was over and refused to stir passions against those who had stayed home and labored under the Germans: "A Frenchman abroad should be his country's advocate rather than a witness for the prosecution." He had the temerity to criticize the Gaullists: "Because this group is taking part in the fight outside France and constitutes a normal 'foreign legion,' it claims the reward of ruling the France of tomorrow. It's absurd. The essential characteristic of sacrifice is that it claims no rights." In his politics as well as his piloting, Saint-Exupery proved an inveterate soloist.

He never seems to have doubted that the "religious war" against Hitler would be won. "Once the German problem has been dealt with," he wrote, "the real problems will become apparent." These haunted his dreams and letters: "For centuries, humanity has been descending an immense staircase whose top is hidden in the clouds and whose lowest steps are lost in a dark abyss. We could have ascended this staircase; instead we chose to descend it. Spiritual decay is terrible." The man who hurtled through the sky with the help of technology felt out of place in the 20th century ("I cannot stand this age"). He argued frequently that modern life had provided people with material comforts but no clear reason for continuing to live: "We can no longer survive on refrigerators, politics, card games, and crossword puzzles. We can no longer live without poetry, color, love."

He insisted that "there is one problem and only one in the world: to revive in people some sense of spiritual meaning." He also realized that such revivals are fraught with danger: "If the Germans are ready today to shed their blood for Hitler, you must understand that it is useless to blame Hitler. It is because Hitler gives the Germans something to be enthusiastic about." His vision of humanity revivified by passion and purpose was clouded by his view of history: "When the Spirit is aroused -- each time it is aroused -- it sheds blood."

Saint-Exupery was an odd mixture: public figure and recluse, mystic and skeptic, fighter and dreamer. He abandoned the Roman Catholicism of his childhood but not his religious yearnings. "It's strange that I can't believe, that I don't have faith. One loves God without hope: That would be ^ something that would suit me -- the monastery of Solesmes and Gregorian chant." He referred often to the monastic life, and seems to have thought seriously about taking up such an existence after the war. He did not get the chance. But his ad- mirers, knowing that the issues he agonized over remain spectacularly unresolved, may be pardoned for hoping that he did not crash but landed, finally, at peace.