Wow. What a Staggering book. I honestly wasn't sure what I was getting myself into because I don't know anyone that's read this.

It's an autobiographical novel about dSE's experiences in the French armed forces in France 1940. He basically condenses all of his experiences down into a single flight, with pre- and post-sortie thoughts. The military aspects of it are of course interesting, tense, and an excellent insight into some of the minutiae of concerns flight crews have. However Flight to Arras is so much more than that.

It's an exploration of a number of philosophical topics including sacrifice, civilization, duty, love, death, war, ignorance, brotherhood, and religion. Honestly, chapter XI was one of the greatest essays I've ever read. Philosophy is often very dry, academic, and hard to approach, but not here.

I read somewhere that this book was a wonderful window into a part of the journey that lead to dSE's most popular book; The Little Prince. His survival gave him a few more years in which he wrote that and as such it was a valuable work. However, this novel easily stands on it's own and straddles two of my areas of interest: History and Philosophy. It may well not be for everyone, but that doesn't mean that I don't think everyone shouldn't read it.

This is the kind of book to put you into a reading slump, because how can the next book be as good?