Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard BachMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
During the early 1970s, it seemed everyone read Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. I had read it several times, and had fond memories of it.
Several years ago, I received a copy of this slim book from two different people and decided to reread it to see how it stood up over the intervening years. Since then, I've reread it several times.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull tells of a seagull who doesn't quit fit in and is banned from his flock as a misfit. Jonathan's misdeed? He loves to fly, loves learning how to improve on flight, how to fly faster, and knows that such learning is, itself, what makes life worth living. The flock, however, has come to the understanding that flight should be merely to be used for food-gathering. Thus, since Jonathan can't comply with living beneath what he is capable of, he is labeled a misfit and cast out of the flock.
It doesn't take long for him to reach a higher consciousness, learning from those who have gone on before him. However, those gulls who teach him soon admit that Jonathan is higher than they are, and that the student has become a teacher.
Soon Jonathan realizes that he must go back to his previous flock and start teaching the newer out-casts, several of whom call him the Son of the Great Gull.
This novella, with its photos of seagulls, can be considered spiritual in nature without being preachy. It shows the reader that we all need to be the best we can be, that we should be our truest self, and while we are learning from those more knowledgeable than we are, we are also to teach those coming up after us.
This is one book that I feel has held up well over the years.
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