The Life and Times of an Ordinary Captain : Forty Years of Flying
62: FinPro, 1994. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Text in English. 185 pp. Slightly bumped bottom corners.
The author is right in not calling this book an autobiography, but an account of what he has learned and experienced over the years. Rather than a chronology of events; we are given the highlights of a life-experience, with occasional reflections on their meaning.
Like many Finnish writers, the author is reluctant to abstract one strand from the complex weave of reality. This is not a typical story about the romance and adventure of flying, although it does have that aspect. It also tells us much about planes and the men who fly them, as well as about human conflicts and frustrations.
A part of this book reads as if it were arguing a case, but it is not just a matter of taking sides in a union-management dispute. The argument is based on principle, which makes a world of the difference. What are the reciprocal obligations and duties of a company, its employees, and the public they serve?
The outcome of the trial near the end of the book is an ironic comment on the fate of principle in a world of expediency. Justice triumphs — through a technicality — while the main issues are unresolved. One has the feeling that the real defense, which was ignored by the media and stifled in the legalism of a trial, is fully presented in the pages of this book. Near Fine. Item #5154
ISBN: 1880474085
Price: $30.00