Check out my Jonathan Livingston Seagull book summary and review that I created to help you understand the basics of this great book. Juan Salvador Gaviota (in English: Jonathan Livingston Seagull) is a fable in the form of a novel written by Richard Bach, American, about a seagull and his learning about life and flight.
First published in 1970 as Jonathan Livingston Seagull: A History, it soon became a favorite on American college campuses. By the end of 1972, more than a million copies had been printed; Reader's Digest had published an abridged version, and the book reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list, where it stayed for 38 weeks.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull book summary
A seagull named Jonathan Livingston is discouraged from a young age by the meaninglessness and narrowness of the existence of seagulls, busy only with the daily struggle for food. Fascinated by perfection, Jonathan dedicates himself entirely to the study of flight as an art and a way of being,
rather than as a way to travel in space for food. At some point, he cannot come to terms with the rules of the primitive existence of a society of seagulls. Exiled from the pack, Jonathan leads an idyllic life of a hermit and does not suffer from loneliness, devoting himself entirely to improving his flying skills.
One day, Jonathan meets two shining seagulls who transport him to a "more perfect reality" - to Heaven, to the next, better world achievable through his own self-improvement. This world is inhabited by seagulls who have dedicated themselves to the art of flight.
Jonathan is surprised to learn that his perseverance and all-consuming desire for learning allowed him to follow the path of evolutionary development, which claims thousands, tens of thousands of lives from common gulls.
In the new world, Jonathan meets Chang, a wise elder seagull. Chang becomes Jonathan's mentor and teaches him to move at the speed of thought through space and time. According to Chang, the secret of success lies in the deep realization that the true "I" lives simultaneously at any point in space at any moment in time and is not a prisoner of a body with a limited set of pre-programmed possibilities.
Chan leaves for the next, even more perfect world. His last words were: “Try to understand what Love is!” After some time, Jonathan decides to return to Earth to pass on his knowledge to the same seagulls as he once was, to share his passion for flying and striving for excellence.
Jonathan gathers a small team of seagulls chased by a flock and begins to teach them the art of flight. Having achieved impressive success, the entire team, led by Jonathan, returns to the pack. Despite the efforts of the elders, they have more and more supporters and adherents. Soon, Jonathan passes the role of mentor to one of his first students, Fletcher, and he leaves the earthly world, continuing the path of improvement.
In the last part, which was published quite recently, Fletcher continues the work of his teacher, but it is given to him with difficulty,
since the students are increasingly paying attention to the personality and even the appearance of Jonathan, and not to his teaching, and at the same time they almost stop workout. Eventually Fletcher disappears, and for a couple of hundred years, Jonathan Seagull's art is nothing more than a thoughtless cult of his veneration and a complete lack of flying skills.
More and more honest young gulls are moving away from these beliefs, distrusting stories of super-fast flight. One of them, disillusioned and wanting to commit suicide, meets a shining seagull flying like no one else in her life.
Post a Comment