Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

“In time, the rites and ceremonies that were planted around the name of Jonathan Seagull became obsessive.” Jonathan’s lessons have been distorted, reduced to “the ceremony and superstition of those who preferred excuses for failure instead of hard work and greatness.” Once again, Bach offers reductive dichotomies in the place of real insights or wisdom. “In less than two hundred years nearly every element of Jonathan’s teaching was taken out of daily practice by the simple pronouncement that it was Holy, and beyond the aspiration of common gulls, lower-than-sandfleas,” Bach writes. Part 4 of Bach’s book, which decries religion’s status symbols and idol worship, feels like a logical extension of the author’s original clumsy, overbroad message. This, after all, is the allure and the danger of simpleton wisdom: It bypasses the challenges of coexisting with others in a diverse community in favor of pretty pictures, facile promises, and magic.

The fact that such “no limits!” individualist psychobabble has been co-opted not just by rock climbers and ultramarathon runners and marketing gurus and Presbyterian pastors but also by corrupt politicians, corporate thieves, hedge fund managers, and the NSA should come as no surprise.

Remember, Jonathan, heaven isn’t a place or a time, because place and time are so very meaningless.” This is spiritual gobbledygook for the Tao of Pooh crowd, the flat rejection of all that is accepted and known for the supermystical, groovy promise of the murky unknown. I’ve gone everywhere and everywhen I can think of.” The gull explains that, in addition to inventing brand new words, those who pursue perfection “go anywhere, instantly. Jonathan keeps perfecting his flying techniques, and eventually ascends to heaven, at which point an elder gull tells him, “You can go to any place and to any time that you wish to go. The flock laughs, calls him names, never lets him join in any seagull games, etc. The book is Tuesdays With Morrie meets The Celestine Prophecy-except with even less complexity, character development, plot, or concrete lessons to offer.Ī quick précis.

In this way, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was always way ahead of its time, appealing to regular folks and new-age self-actualization types alike. Bach’s brand new fourth section, written long ago but revised after Bach nearly died in a plane crash in 2012, mines the same unholy common ground between folksy wisdom and Eastern-tinged mysticism found in the original. Nonetheless, Jonathan Livingston Seagull is one of the best-selling books of all time, and it’s just been reincarnated as an e-book by Scribner.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach