Jonathan Livingston Le Goeland
1970
- gaviotas
- gulls
- fiction
- ficción juvenil
- juvenile fiction
- goélands dans la littérature
- reading level-grade 7
- reading level-grade 9
- reading level-grade 8
- reading level-grade 11
The story
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, written by Richard Bach, is a fable in novella form about a seagull learning about life and flight, and a homily about self-perfection.
What it’s like
Spare, luminous prose with short numbered passages that read like a parable told aloud, and wide open sky and sea rendered in pale blue and white. The flying scenes are the heart of it: the gulls' bodies, the wind, the rush of speed are described with a calm, almost meditative attention, and the rest of the world, the shore and the flock's squabbling over scraps, sits in plain, flat relief. The voice is earnest and gently didactic, unhurried and quietly rousing, with a faintly spiritual cadence that suits a slow read in one sitting. It is a good choice for a rainy afternoon, a bedside book read a few pages at a time, or a reflective mood when you want something hopeful and simple. Intensity is very low: there is little conflict, no gore, and only brief, mild moments of sorrow. Readers who are young, or who want an uplifting fable about patience, discipline and self-belief rather than a story with plot tension, will find it most comfortable.
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