These two works cover the pioneering era of airmail. The author's experience as a pilot is obvious yet it is combined with rich imagery amidst strong characters. Nothing is missed in detailing the victory, the bureaucracy, the heroes, the futility, the drive, the loved ones, and the tragedy of flying the mail in North Africa and South America in the 1920s. A wonderful book where the magic of The Little Prince is not lost but transported to a completely different genre with relative ease. ( )

If you want to know what it was like to be an aviator in the early days of the field, these two novellas will tell you more than anything else I can think of. ( )

Previously published as Courrier Sad, Southern Mail introduces us to love and loneliness. Bernis is a pilot caught in a tragic love affair. It complicates his entire psyche until he is in the air, delivering the mail. Flying is his true passion but it's also where he feels the loneliest. Woven throughout the slim volume Saint-Exupery reveals a philosophical beauty about landscapes (lots of references to the ocean) as well as the people. But, much like Night Flight the emphasis is on the timely deliverance of the mail. Nowhere is that more apparent than at the very end of the story. While the plane had crashed and the pilot was lost they still managed to salvage the mail and it, if not the pilot, arrived on safely. ( )

Like Richard Bach's books - full of flying and philosophy and love. Only more french, less explicit, dark but more beautiful. ( )