20th June 2015. I was saddened to hear on the lunchtime news today of the death of that great American writer James Salter. I discovered his work only a few years ago and I wish I'd found it sooner. I greatly envied his ability in his first book ("The Hunters") to nail all the disparate elements that combine to form military aviation. If you're unfamiliar with his work, I would suggest that "The Hunters" would make a good starting point. His later books repay reading slowly as they're densely written. I found I missed the richness of his prose by my usual speed-reading and I had to learn to pace myself. He had the knack of being able to paint pictures with the minimum of words, his imagery was memorable and, perhaps most importantly, he had the uncanny ability to articulate our unexpressed thoughts - well, mine anyway. No-one else wrote quite like him.
"Once in a great while, a talented writer
survives combat to produce a work of
literature. Rarest of all is a literary novel
written by a blooded fighter pilot. In the
English language, perhaps two works truly
qualify. One is Winged Victory by Victor
Yeates, who flew Sopwith Camels and
brought down five Germans in the First
World War. The other is The Hunters by
James Salter.
Salter tells the story of Captain Cleve
Connell who arrives in Korea with a single
goal: to become an ace, one of that elite
fraternity of jet pilots who have downed
five MIGs. But as his fellow airmen rack
up kill after kill—sometimes under dubious
circumstances — Cleve’s luck runs bad.
Other pilots question his guts. Cleve
comes to question himself. And then in
one icy instant 40,000 feet above the Yalu
River, his luck changes forever. Filled with
courage and despair, eerie beauty and
corrosive rivalry, James Salter’s luminous
first novel is a landmark masterpiece in
the literature of war."
If military aviation isn't for you, try "Burning the Days".. He wrote beautifully about France as the NY Times explains: "And for the evocations of places, and especially of France, "the incomparable taste of France, given then so I would always remember it. I know that taste, the yellow headlights flowing along the road at night, the towns by a river, the misty mornings." And Paris: "Early morning. Its cool breath astonishingly fresh. Its elegance and ancient streets, its always staggering price. The sound of early traffic. The sky blemishless and wide." This the expatriate's France: Salter knows that the secret is never to pretend you belong there."
Some James Salter quotes.
10th June 2015. Busy catching up with life after a week away in the Massif de l'Esterel. This is another of those blessed and much-visited corners of France and it's situated between the Mediterranean and Provence. We stayed at a hilltop hotel (with views to die for) near Les Adrets-de-l'Esterel to the north of Saint Raphaël. I'll get around to posting a few photographs one day..
