Jun 25, 2007 03:37 PM
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(Updated Jun 25, 2007 03:39 PM)
Seagulls are marvelous creatures. They glide over the sandy shores and soar over crests of waves. But what would it be like to be such a bird? We always see them in the air, flying. Yet, where does their enthusiasm for flying come from? Why don't they fly high, like eagles and falcons?
This book attempts to answer such questions. ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’, Richard Bach's fourth book, is a fable in novella form about a seagull learning about life and flight. With seagull has the metaphor this story of the life of a particular seagull is divided into 3 parts.
Book begins by introducing the reader to Jonathan Livingston Seagull, one of many gulls belonging to Breakfast Flock, a particular gull colony. Every day, the Flock spends their time fighting for food. But not Jonathan Seagull. He forgoes the social demands of scavenging to pursue his bliss, attaining higher and higher speeds of descent. This passion gets him outcaste by the flock.
Part Two is comprised of Jonathan's humble acceptance of the teaching of his elders in the new realm. Jonathan transcends into another society where all the gulls enjoy flying. Eventually he becomes the first gull to reach terminal velocity at 214 m.p.h. and later flies the first acrobatics of any seagull on earth.
In the third part Jonathan returns to the Breakfast Flock to share his newly discovered ideals. His desire to share this sends him back down to the flock which originally outcasted him. He begins taking on students and giving lectures and lessons to an increasingly large portion of his former flock, until he passes leadership of the school to his best student.
At only 96 pages, a third of which are photographs of seagulls in flight, Jonathan Livingston Seagull take less than one hour to read. I completed it at Bangalore airport waiting for Jet airways flight! Everytime you read this book you find a different theme. One theme is to not let others worry about you. Another theme is if you could put your mind to it, you could achieve anything. If you don’t stop believing, anything is possible. Don’t be limited by anything. If there is a plateau blocking your path, push through it.
Its amazing that so many things that Jonathan learns are so applicable in human life: resilience, tenacity, situations where you have to take a path no one around you has taken before, persuading the entire group about your idea, ability to fight back, sharing your learnings with others and more than anything pursuing your passion.
I recommend this book to anyone in need of some inspiration. Read it, embody it. Its also a great book to gift. The person will surely keep this book for a long time and remember you everytime he/she reads that book. The author dedicate this parable "To the Real Jonathan Seagull, who lives within us all."
