Author | Richard Bach |
---|---|
Illustrator | Russell Munson (black-and-white photographs) |
Language | English |
Subject | The life of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull. |
Genre | Spiritual, self-help, novella |
Publisher | Macmillan Publishers (United States) |
Publication date | 1970, 2014 |
Media type | Print (paperback) |
Pages | 144 (The Complete Edition) |
ISBN | 978-1-4767-9331-3 (2014 paperback edition) |
OCLC | 6158608 |
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an allegorical fable in novella form written by American author Richard Bach and illustrated with black-and-white photographs shot by Russell Munson. It is about a seagull who is trying to learn about flying, personal reflection, freedom, and self-realization. It was first published in book form in 1970 with little advertising or expectations; by the end of 1972, over a million copies were in print, the book having reached the number-one spot on bestseller lists mostly through word of mouth recommendations.
In 2014, the book was reissued as Jonathan Livingston Seagull: The Complete Edition, which added a 17-page fourth part to the story.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an independent thinker frustrated with the daily squabbles over meager food and sheer survival within his flock of seagulls who have no deeper sense of purpose. Unlike his peers, he is seized with a passion for flight of all kinds, and his soul soars as he aerially experiments and learns more about the nature of his own body and the environment in achieving faster and faster flights. Eventually, his lack of conformity within the Flock causes them to officially banish him with the label "Outcast". Undeterred, Jonathan continues his efforts to reach ever-greater flight goals, finding that he is often successful. He lives a long happy life and is sad not due to his loneliness but only due to the fact that the rest of the Flock will never know the full glories of flying, like him. In his old age, he is met by two radiantly-bright seagulls who share his abilities, explaining to him that he has learned much, but that they have come to take him "home" where he will go "higher".
Jonathan transcends into a reality, which he assumes is heaven, where all the gulls enjoy practicing incredible maneuvers and speeds, like him. His instructor, Sullivan, explains that a few gulls progress to this higher existence, but most others live through the same world over and over again. The Elder Gull of the community, Chiang, admits that this reality is not heaven, but that heaven is the achieving of perfection itself: an ability beyond any particular time or place. Suddenly, Chiang disappears, then reappears a moment later, displaying his attainment of perfect speed. When Jonathan begs to learn Chiang's skills, Chiang explains that the secret to true flight is to recognize that one's nature exists across all time and space. Jon begins successfully following Chiang's teachings. One day, Chiang slowly transforms into a blindingly luminous being and, just before disappearing for the last time, he gives Jonathan one last tip: "keep working on love." Jonathan ponders Chiang's words and, in a discussion with Sullivan, decides to go back to his own home planet, to teach his original Flock all that he has learned. Returning there, he finds a fellow lover of flying, Fletcher Lynd Seagull, who is angry at recently being "Outcast" by the Flock. Jonathan takes on Fletcher as his first pupil.
Jonathan has now amassed a small group of Outcasts as flying students, with Fletcher the star pupil, and tells them that "each of us is in truth... an unlimited idea of freedom". The deeper nature of his words is not yet understood by his pupils, who believe they are just getting basic flying lessons. For a month, Jonathan boldly takes them to perform aerial stunts in front of the bewildered Flock. Some of the Flock slowly join the Outcasts, while others label him a messiah or a devil; Jonathan feels misunderstood. One day, Fletcher dies in a flying collision. Awaking in another reality, he hears Jonathan's voice teasing him that the trick to transcending the limitations of time and space is to take it step by step — not so quickly. Fletcher is resurrected in the very midst of the flabbergasted Flock, some of whom fear and decry his supernatural reappearance, but Jonathan insists that he must learn to love the ignorant Flock. Jonathan's body suddenly begins to fade away, he requests that Fletcher stop others from thinking of him as anything silly like a god, and he gives a final piece of advice: "find out what you already know". Soon, Fletcher faces a group of eager new students of his own. He passes on Jonathan's sentiments that seagulls are limitless ideas of freedom and their bodies nothing more than thought itself, but this only baffles the young gulls. He realizes now why Jonathan taught him to take lessons slowly, step by step. Privately musing on Jonathan's idea that there are no limits, Fletcher smiles at the implication of this: that he will see Jonathan again, one day soon.
In 2013, Richard Bach took up a non-published fourth part of the book which he had written contemporaneously with the original. He edited and polished it, and then sent the result to a publisher. Bach reported that he was inspired to finish the fourth part of the novella by a near-death experience which had occurred in relation to a nearly fatal plane crash in August 2012. [1] In February 2014, the 138-page Bach work Illusions II: The Adventures of a Reluctant Student was published as a booklet by Kindle Direct Publishing. Illusions II also contains allusions to and insights regarding the same near-death experience. In October 2014, Jonathan Livingston Seagull: The Complete Edition, was published, and this edition includes Part Four of the story.
Part Four focuses on the period several hundred years after Jonathan and his students have left the Flock and their teachings become venerated rather than practiced. The birds spend all their time extolling the virtues of Jonathan and his students and spend no time flying for flying's sake. The seagulls practice strange rituals and use demonstrations of their respect for Jonathan and his students as status symbols. Eventually some birds reject the ceremony and rituals and just start flying. Eventually one bird named Anthony Gull questions the value of living since "...life is pointless and since pointless is by definition meaningless then the only proper act is to dive into the ocean and drown. Better not to exist at all than to exist like a seaweed, without meaning or joy [...] He had to die sooner or later anyway, and he saw no reason to prolong the painful boredom of living." As Anthony makes a dive-bomb to the sea, at a speed and from an altitude which would kill him, a white blur flashes alongside him. Anthony catches up to the blur, which turns out to be a seagull, and asks what the bird was doing.
Bach initially wrote it as a series of short stories that were published in Flying magazine in the late 1960s.[ citation needed ]
Bach, who said the book came to him as "a visionesque spooky thing," stopped after he wrote 10 pages and didn't pick it up again for a few years. [2]
The book was rejected by several publishers before coming to the attention of Eleanor Friede at Macmillan in 1969. "I think it has a chance of growing into a long-lasting standard book for readers of all ages," she wrote presciently in her acquisition memo. She convinced Macmillan to buy it and Bach received a $2,000 advance ($15,000 in 2022 dollars). [2] [3]
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is named after John H. Livingston, [4] a Waco Aircraft Company test pilot. Livingston died of a heart attack in 1974, at the age of 76, just after he had test-flown an acrobatic home-built Pitts Special.
In the book 'The Nature of Personal Reality' by Jane Roberts/Seth, page 55 of the paperback edition, Richard Bach was visiting Jane Roberts and stated that in 1959 he was walking beside a canal and heard a voice say 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull'. This puts into question the idea that the book was named after a particular person.
The book was a sleeper hit; the first edition in 1970 was only 3,000 copies and it would take two years before reaching number one on the New York Times Bestseller List. [2] "Not a single magazine or newspaper — including The New York Times Book Review — so much as mentioned" the book when it first came out, The Times reported in 1972. [2] Macmillan failed to secure any advance publicity for Bach, but he personally took out two very small ads in The New York Times Book Review and Publishers Weekly . [2] The first printing sold out by the end of 1970, and in 1971 an additional 140,000 copies were printed. Mostly a word of mouth phenomenon, it entered the NYT Bestseller List on April 20, 1972, where it remained for 37 weeks, and by July 1972 it had 440,000 copies in print. [2] Reader's Digest published a condensed version. In 1972 and 1973, the book topped the Publishers Weekly list of bestselling novels in the United States.[ citation needed ]
Book sellers didn't know how to classify it. "Some put it under nature, some under religion, some under photography, some under children’s books." Friede's advice was, "put it next to the cash register." [2]
Several early commentators, emphasizing the first part of the book, see it as part of the US self-help and positive thinking culture, epitomized by Norman Vincent Peale and by the New Thought movement. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote [5] that the book was "so banal that it had to be sold to adults; kids would have seen through it."
The book is listed as one of fifty "timeless spiritual classics" in a book by Tom Butler-Bowdon, [6] who noted that "it is easy now, thirty-five years on, to overlook the originality of the book's concept, and though some find it rather naïve, in fact it expresses timeless ideas about human potential."
John Clute, for The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997), wrote: "an animal fantasy about a philosophical gull who is profoundly affected by flying, but who demands too much of his community and is cast out by it. He becomes an extremely well-behaved accursed wanderer, then dies, and in posthumous fantasy sequences--though he is too wise really to question the fact of death, and too calmly confident to have doubts about his continuing upward mobility--he learns greater wisdom. Back on Earth, he continues to preach and heal and finally returns to heaven, where he belongs." [7]
Jonathan Livingston Seagull has been translated into over thirty languages. Here is a partial list of editions and translations: [8]
Title | Year | Publisher | ISBN | Language |
---|---|---|---|---|
Ջոնաթան Լիվինգսթոն ճայը | 2017 | Անտարես | 978-9939-76-139-8 | Armenian |
Xuan Salvador Gaviota | 1991 | Uviéu : Conseyería d’Educación | Asturian | |
D’Möwe Jonathan | 2007 | Kreuzlingen | 978-3-7205-3028-6 | Bernese German (Bärndütsch) |
Джонатан Ливингстън Чайката (Dzhonatan Livingstyn Chaikata) | 2002 | Кибеа | 978-954-474-065-8 | Bulgarian |
Joan Salvador Gavina | Biblioteca de Bolsil | 978-84-406-8825-5 | Catalan | |
海鸥乔纳森 | 2004 | 978-7-5442-2840-4 | Chinese | |
天地一沙鷗 | 2020 | 978-986-361-916-1 | Chinese | |
Galeb Jonathan Livingston | 1997 | V.B.Z. | 978-953-6216-64-2 | Croatian |
Jonathan Livingston Racek | 1999 | Synergie | 978-80-86099-23-1 | Czech |
Jonathan Livingston Havmåge | 2006 | Lindhardt og Ringhof | 978-87-7560-587-3 | Danish |
Jonathan Livingston Zeemeeuw | 1991 | Strengholt | 978-90-6010-272-5 | Dutch |
Jonathan Livingston Seagull | 1970 | Macmillan | 978-0-684-84684-2 | English |
Jonathan Livingston Seagull: The Complete Edition | 2014 | Scribner | 978-1-4767-9331-3 | English |
Jonathan Livingston Seagull: A Story | 2003 | HarperCollins | English | |
Jonathan Livingston Merikajakas | 2003 | Pegasus | 978-9949-409-10-5 | Estonian |
جوناتان، مرغ دريايي (Jonatan, Morghe Daryayee) | 978-964-175-033-8 | Farsi | ||
Lokki Joonatan | 2010 | Gummerus | 978-951-20-7993-3 | Finnish |
Jonathan Livingston, Le Goéland | 1981 | Flamarrion | 978-2-08-010985-9 | French |
Jonathan Livingston, Le Goéland | 2000 | Editions 84 | 978-2-290-21562-3 | French |
თოლია ჯონათან ლივინგსტონ (Tolia Jonatan Livingston) | 2009 | Nectar Publishing | 978-9941-0-0166-6 | Georgian |
Die Möwe Jonathan | 2003 | Ullstein Tb | 978-3-548-25658-0 | German |
Ο γλάρος Ιωνάθαν Λίβινγκστον | 1992 | Ξένη πεζογραφί | 978-960-364-067-7 | Greek |
ג’ונתן ליווינגסטון השחף | 2017 | Hebrew | ||
A Sirály | 2005 | Édesvíz Kft. Nagykereskedés | 978-963-528-880-9 | Hungarian |
Jónatan Livingston Mávur | 1973 | Örn og Örlygur | Icelandic | |
Il Gabbiano Jonathan Livingston | 1995 | Rizzoli | 978-88-17-13162-9 | Italian |
かもめのジョナサン | 1977 | 978-4-10-215901-9 | Japanese | |
갈매기의 꿈 | 2003 | 978-89-89929-40-6 | Korean | |
Qaqlibaz | 1994 | Fırat Yayınları | Kurdish | |
Kaija vārdā Džonatans Livingstons | 2004 | Zvaigzne ABC | 978-9984-36-505-3 | Latvian |
Džonatanas Livingstonas Žuvėdra | 2000 | Trigrama | 978-9986-9253-4-7 | Lithuanian |
Галебот Џонатан Ливингстон (Galebot Dzonatan Livingston) | 2005 | Табернакул | 978-9989-171-17-8 | Macedonian |
Måken Jonathan | 1986 | Cappelen | 978-82-02-10651-5 | Norwegian |
Jonathan Livingston Meuchi | 1985 | Willemstad, Curaçao | 978-90-6010-591-7 | Papiamento |
Mewa | Twarda | 978-83-7510-380-9 | Polish | |
Fernão Capelo Gaivota | 1997 | Europa-América | 978-972-1-03003-9 | Portuguese |
Fernão Capelo Gaivota | 2015 | Record | 978-85-01-10612-4 | Portuguese |
Pescărușul Jonathan Livingston | 2008 | Humanitas | 978-973-50-0364-7 | Romanian |
Чайка по имени Джонатан Ливингстон (Chaika po imeni Dzhonatan Livingston) | 2003 | азбука | 978-5-352-00509-5 | Russian |
Čajka Jonathan Livingston | 1999 | Gardenia | 978-80-85662-29-0 | Slovak |
Jonatan Livingston Galeb | 2010 | Mladinska knjiga | 978-961-01-1407-9 | Slovenian |
Juan Salvador Gaviota | 1970 | Pomaire | 978-84-286-0659-2 | Spanish |
Juan Salvador Gaviota | 2005 | Ediciones B | 978-84-666-1249-4 | Spanish |
Måsen, berättelsen om Jonathan Livingston Seagull | 2008 | Norstedts | 978-91-1-301725-9 | Swedish |
Martı Jonathan Livingston | 1994 | Ocak | 978-975-331-008-6 | Turkish |
In 1980, a Spanish edition was published by Pomaire (Barcelona) featuring illustrations by photographer Jordi Olavarrieta, translated by Carol and Frederick Howell. [9] In 1981, a French edition was published by Flammarion (Paris) featuring illustrations by photographer Jordi Olavarrieta, translated by Pierre Clostermann. [10]
This section needs additional citations for verification .(August 2015) |
Richard David Bach is an American writer. He has written numerous flight-related works of fiction and non-fiction. His works include Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970) and Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977), both of which were among the 1970s' biggest sellers.
Neil Leslie Diamond is an American singer-songwriter. He has sold more than 130 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has had ten No. 1 singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts: "Cracklin' Rosie", "Song Sung Blue", "Longfellow Serenade", "I've Been This Way Before", "If You Know What I Mean", "Desirée", "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", "America", "Yesterday's Songs", and "Heartlight". Thirty-eight songs by Diamond have reached the top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts, including "Sweet Caroline". He has also acted in films, making his screen debut in the 1980 musical drama film The Jazz Singer.
The 16th Annual Grammy Awards were held March 2, 1974, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognised accomplishments by musicians from the year 1973.
Seagulls are a grouping of sea birds in the family Laridae.
Leslie Parrish is an American actress, activist, environmentalist, writer, and producer. She worked under her birth name for six years before changing it in 1959.
Flock, flocks or flocking may refer to:
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah is a novel by writer and pilot Richard Bach. First published in 1977, the story questions the reader's view of reality, proposing that what we call reality is merely an illusion we create for learning and enjoyment. Illusions was the author's follow-up to 1970's Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
The Jazz Singer is an album by Neil Diamond from 1980, which served as the soundtrack album to the 1980 remake of the film The Jazz Singer. The soundtrack was released in November 1980 originally on Capitol Records, instead of his then-usual Columbia Records, because the film was produced by EMI Films, owned by the parent company of the label for which the soundtrack was released. The soundtrack was re-released in February 1996 on Columbia Records in the United States and Sony elsewhere. After Diamond signed with Capitol Records, this album was reissued by Capitol globally in 2014.
Love at the Greek is a live double album by Neil Diamond which was released in 1977. It was Diamond's second live album recorded from a concert at The Greek Theater in Los Angeles, and Neil's second album produced by Robbie Robertson of The Band.
Time Honoured Ghosts is the sixth studio album released by the English rock group, Barclay James Harvest in October 1975. The title was suggested by the wife of Harvey Lisberg, the band's manager at the time, though it is believed that she was quoting from another unknown source. It was recorded between May and July 1975 at the "His Masters Wheels" studio in San Francisco. It was produced by Elliot Mazer and released in October on the Polydor Records label.
Hall Bartlett was an American film producer, director, and screenwriter.
The Light at the End of the World is the fifth studio album by A Flock of Seagulls, released by Big Shot Records in 1995. It was the band's first album since 1986's Dream Come True and was released in the US only.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is the soundtrack album to the 1973 American film Jonathan Livingston Seagull, recorded by singer-songwriter Neil Diamond and produced by Tom Catalano. The album marked Diamond's return to Columbia Records, and grossed more than the film itself. It is Diamond's ninth studio album, and his first album after his successful 1972 live album Hot August Night. It won the 1974 Grammy as Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special.
"Flying Machine" is a song by British singer Cliff Richard, released as a single in June 1971. It peaked at number 37 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Richard's first UK single to not make the Top 30.
Jack Craig Couffer A.S.C. was an American cinematographer, film and television director, and author. Couffer specialized in documentary films, often involving nature and animal cinematography. Couffer was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on the film version of the novel Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1974).
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a 1973 American drama film directed by Hall Bartlett, adapted from the 1970 novella of the same name by Richard Bach. The film tells the story of a young seabird who, after being cast out by his stern flock, goes on an odyssey to discover how to break the limits of his own flying speed. The film was produced by filming actual seagulls, then superimposing human dialogue over it. The film's voice actors included James Franciscus in the title role, and Philip Ahn as his mentor, Chiang.
Lee Elwood Holdridge is a Haitian-born American composer, conductor, and orchestrator. An 18-time Emmy Award nominee, he has won two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Daytime Emmy Awards, two News and Documentary Emmy Awards, and one Sports Emmy Award. He has also been nominated for two Grammy Awards.
John Livingston, or John Livingstone, may refer to:
Radio Dinner is the debut album by the creators of the American satirical magazine National Lampoon. It was released on Blue Thumb Records in 1972 after RCA Records had declined to issue the record. The humor on the album is steeped in the pop culture and politics of the era. It includes "Deteriorata", a parody of Les Crane's hit rendition of the poem "Desiderata", and commentary on the 1972 presidential race. Among several pieces satirizing the former Beatles, "Magical Misery Tour" is a parody of John Lennon's primal therapy-inspired songwriting and his 1970 Rolling Stone interview, later published in book form as Lennon Remembers.
Eleanor Friede was an American book editor and literary agent, best known for bringing the 1970 novella Jonathan Livingston Seagull to publication.
The novella inspired the production of a film of the same title in 1973. The film was made by Hall Bartlett many years before computer-generated effects were available. In order to make seagulls act on cue and perform aerobatics, Mark Smith of Escondido, California built radio-controlled gliders that looked like real seagulls from a few feet away. This footage was not used in the final cut of the film. [18]
Bach had written the film's original screenplay, but he sued Paramount Pictures before the film's release because he felt that there were too many discrepancies between the film and the book. Director Bartlett had allegedly violated a term in his contract with Bach which stated that no changes could be made to the film's adaptation without Bach's consent. [19] Bach took offense to scenes Bartlett had filmed which were not present in the book, most notably the sequence in which Jonathan is suddenly attacked by a wild hawk, which was voiced by Bartlett himself. Ultimately, the court ruled that Bach's name would be taken off the screenplay credits, and that the film would be released with a card indicating that Bach disapproved of the final cut. Bach's attorney claimed, "It took tremendous courage to say this motion picture had to come out of theaters unless it was changed. Paramount was stunned." [20]
The Grammy Award-winning soundtrack album was composed and performed by Neil Diamond and produced by Tom Catalano. It won the 1974 Grammy Award as Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special. The album apparently also made more money than the film, selling two million copies in the United States, [21] 400,000 in France, [22] 250,000 in Germany, [23] 200,000 in Canada [24] and 100,000 in the United Kingdom. [25]
The Irish actor Richard Harris won a Grammy in 1973 for the Audiobook LP Jonathan Livingston Seagull. [26] To date, Harris's reading has not been released on any other format. Versions read by the author, Richard Bach, have been released on LP, cassette, and CD. [27] [28] [29]
John Livingston was an inspiration for the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull — 'to Johnny Livingston who has known all along what this book is all about.' — Richard Bach 1970