Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Like Starsky and Hutch, Jaws and flared jeans, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was one of the hits of the 1970s. It was even made into a movie. But what exactly is this book, and is it still worth reading?
Bach's bestseller is an uplifting fable of a seagull, Jonathan, who decides he is much more than just a seagull, who wants something else out of life. It consists of fewer than 100 pages, including many dreamy photographs of gulls in action.
The book is now a symbol of the alternative or New Age spirituality that emerged at this time - yet as many have noted, Jonathan's experience in the story is an allegory for the life of Jesus Christ.
Flying into the unknown
Jonathan is different to other birds in his flock: "For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight." His father tells him that "The reason you fly is to eat", and that flying for the sake of it is not done.
Still, Jonathan spends his days experimenting with high-speed dives and flying very low over the water. He wants to push his limits, to find out what is possible. Often, it ends in desperate failure. He resigns himself to just being part of the flock, doing things the way they had always been done.
But one day he tries a dive, and is able to accelerate to a hundred and forty miles per hour, "a gray cannonball under the moon". The next day, he goes even beyond this, over two hundred miles per hour, the fastest a gull had ever flown.
In his celebration Jonathan flies down from the heights and flies right through his own flock, luckily not killing anyone. He realizes he has taken his species to a new level. Once he teaches them what he knows, he thinks, they will no longer have a tired life of going from one fishing boat to another, picking up fish heads just to survive. He will show them a higher level of existence.
Genius banished
Yet the next day, Jonathan is summoned to stand before the gull Council. For his 'reckless
Bach's bestseller is an uplifting fable of a seagull, Jonathan, who decides he is much more than just a seagull, who wants something else out of life. It consists of fewer than 100 pages, including many dreamy photographs of gulls in action.
The book is now a symbol of the alternative or New Age spirituality that emerged at this time - yet as many have noted, Jonathan's experience in the story is an allegory for the life of Jesus Christ.
Flying into the unknown
Jonathan is different to other birds in his flock: "For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight." His father tells him that "The reason you fly is to eat", and that flying for the sake of it is not done.
Still, Jonathan spends his days experimenting with high-speed dives and flying very low over the water. He wants to push his limits, to find out what is possible. Often, it ends in desperate failure. He resigns himself to just being part of the flock, doing things the way they had always been done.
But one day he tries a dive, and is able to accelerate to a hundred and forty miles per hour, "a gray cannonball under the moon". The next day, he goes even beyond this, over two hundred miles per hour, the fastest a gull had ever flown.
In his celebration Jonathan flies down from the heights and flies right through his own flock, luckily not killing anyone. He realizes he has taken his species to a new level. Once he teaches them what he knows, he thinks, they will no longer have a tired life of going from one fishing boat to another, picking up fish heads just to survive. He will show them a higher level of existence.
Genius banished
Yet the next day, Jonathan is summoned to stand before the gull Council. For his 'reckless