Springcleaning – Book 1 “The Flight of the Phoenix” by Elleston Trevor

The first book I have picked off my to-be-read piles for this current challenge is The Flight of the Phoenix by Elleston Trevor. The copy I have is a battered 1960s paperback which is well worn. I cannot remember where I got it but I think it was a charity shop and I know that it didn’t cost much. I remember taking it home because I have very vague memories of the film of the book which was one of those which were often on our televisions on Sunday afternoons when I was a child – stories of brave men, and some women, often very British and winning through despite the odds. I associate it in my mind with The African Queen, Ice Cold in Alex, A Town Like Alice, Reach for the Sky and Where Eagles Dare. The film of this book starred James Stewart and Richard Attenborough.

This is an adventure story and was written in the early 1960s. An aeroplane carrying fourteen men who work in the oilfields of Libya, together with some crates of equipment, crashes in the desert in a sandstorm. The survivors are stranded with little water, less food and no chance of surviving if they walk out. They are not where they should be owing to an impetuous decision by the pilot and the radio was lost some time before they crashed, so there is little chance of rescue. In desperation, and encouraged by an aircraft designer among the passengers, they remodel the wreckage and attempt to make another plane which can fly using the one remaining engine.

You are pretty sure from the beginning of the story that the survivors will succeed but the strength of this book is the characterisation and how the author shows each person facing up to their predicament, working with the others, trusting others with their lives, finding ways to obtain enough water to live and dealing with the hostile environment. It’s carefully and brilliantly written so that you come to care for each one of the passengers and you see them change and adapt and make decisions about the future. It is amazing that the author can create such tension about a group of men stuck in a desert but you will them all to survive.

I really enjoyed this book. It reminded me of the best of Nevil Shute, another author who liked writing about aeroplanes and ordinary people in difficult predicaments. It is a book of its time. All the characters are white and references to people who are not sometimes use words and expressions that are no longer acceptable. Much of the interaction and relationships between the characters are also very dependent on status and class, which probably hasn’t changed a lot. All the characters are men and there are no women in this book at all except one or two fleeting references – a book with a character list like this is unlikely to be published today but it definitely reflected the working situation at the time. One character is described in a way which the modern reader will take to mean that they are autistic but the characters think he is mad and mentally unstable and describe him in very uncomplimentary terms. The characterisation and plot together with the description of the desert and how the men feel is, however, brilliant irrespective of how long ago the book was written and some outdated elements.

I am pleased that I picked up this book and brought it home and that I have finally read it (I have no idea how long I have had it). My copy is a little bit more worn now so I will pop it on the book table at Sainsbury’s and hope that someone else picks it up and enjoys it as much as I did.