The Little Prince

Second reading, after everything's changed

I changed my rating from "I don't get it" to "I needed this book."

My first reading was a year ago almost to the day. I thought then it was a kids book with simplified messages for children trying to make sense of the adult world in a highly imaginative way.

Now I realize this is a book of coping for any one, any age. It uses metaphors that are best understood when, for whatever reason, your mechanisms are outnumbered or have been humbled. That's when symbolic metaphors best percolate up from the deep, lending you a hand.

A mere year later, my world, my country is fiercely not OK. I now see that planet four (lamplighters) are being abused and exhausted with ever increasing speed, while planet show more five (star counters) are very busy trying to convince themselves and others they can claim and own the universe, without caring for even one ordinary rose out of the millions.

It's a way to cope, to ask questions like the little prince, to clearly distinguish the meaningless from the personally meaningful.

Here is a most helpful review to better grasp this classic:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6693977069 show less

I didn't quite know what to expect from a story about a prince who is small enough to fit on a rose-covered asteroid. But as I journeyed through this enchanting tale, I discovered a treasure trove of wisdom wrapped in whimsy.

The story begins with a pilot stranded in the Sahara Desert, where he encounters a young prince who appears out of nowhere. As the prince shares his tales of visiting various asteroids and meeting quirky inhabitants like the conceited man and the king with no subjects, I found myself captivated by the innocence and curiosity that radiated from his character.

Saint-Exupéry's writing is deceptively simple yet profound. He weaves a narrative that touches on themes of love, friendship, and the importance of seeing with show more the heart rather than the eyes. Through the prince's interactions with a fox who teaches him about taming and the responsibility that comes with forming connections, the story gently nudges readers to reconsider what truly matters in life.

The illustrations, drawn by the author himself, add a delightful layer to the storytelling. They capture the whimsical essence of the prince's adventures and bring to life the fantastical worlds he visits, from the asteroid with its demanding rose to the vast expanse of the desert under a starry sky.

What struck me most about "The Little Prince" is its ability to evoke a sense of nostalgia and wonder, even in adult readers. It reminds us of the importance of holding onto our inner child, of seeing the world through fresh eyes, and of cherishing the fleeting moments that shape our lives.

In conclusion, "The Little Prince" is not just a children's book; it's a timeless fable that transcends age and culture. It's a gentle reminder to slow down, to appreciate the beauty of simplicity, and to embrace the bonds that make us human. So, if you haven't yet embarked on the journey with the little prince and his rose, I highly recommend you do. You might just find yourself enchanted by its magic and moved by its wisdom, much like I was.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, through his little prince, has gifted us a story that sparkles with sincerity and speaks to the child within all of us. show less

Read The Little Prince many years ago. It was time to read it again. Glad I did; found so many gems of wisdom. A type of moral tale The Little Prince is not a superficial read. Includes many nuances leading to the potential of different interpretations.

One way I saw it was that downed pilot was telling his own story. As a child he was disappointed his parents (and adults in general) did not take the time to understand him, and dismissed his drawings and deep feelings.The adults were too busy with business - described in the Little Prince as counting stars - and sadly in need for others to praise them. Like the lamplighter, they were ludicrously too busy to relax, enjoy life, and have fun with their son. They simply could not discern show more what was truly meaningful in life. "...the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart..."

The pilot loved the Little Prince because he recognized his younger self. But once the pilot repaired his plane and found water it was time for him to return to adulthood and the real world. The Little Prince needed to return to his world. But the pilot was sad and having a hard time letting go of that lost, precious boy.

Another possible interpretation is religious. This involves the Little Prince requiring the help of the snake to return home. Perhaps a reference to living and dying; the cycle of life, or reincarnation.

Read it for yourself and discover your own viewpoint. show less

This books touches anyone who reads it----and rereads it over the years as is my case. With every reading, my older, not so mature mind, finds different messages within it. I've given the Japanese-translated version of it to one my relatives in Japan. And I've given it to a dear person whom has cancer (I hope he can beat it !). It speaks frankly to the heart, while giving enough metaphorical, allegorical, and philosophical nuggets that all readers may treasure & remember them. And by reading it through our lifetimes---we approach, interpret, and hopefully accept it's messages in a different manner, each time. It's wonderous and timeless. And yes, a bit sad, too.

Levei 33 anos pra ler O Pequeno Príncipe, não entendida o apelo, a devoção, as citações em todo canto... Hoje li e estou destruído. Chorei. E finalmente entendi. O que é essencial é realmente invisível aos olhos.

Such a funny one, for me. It starts out pitch-perfect, the Prince's (that capital P just came out, but perhaps we could one day see the LP well rendered as a childlike version of the Purple One?) surprising and whimsical home planet, and gently nuanced relationship with his flower (someone I care about very much calls her loves "flower" and I don't think it has much to do with this but they go together now, for me), and adventures with different silly types of grownups all nestled within the stony backdrop of the Aviator's lip-cracked efforts to get his engine up and running and get away from death in the Sahara--a striking and singular kind of "et in Arcadia ego" that makes the fabulistic power of the space narrative crisper and show more cleaner like some kind of palate cleanser, a bleached bone. (It also intersects the Prince with The Sheltering Sky in a weird way, or makes him a strong riposte to The Stranger--other works in which Europeans are reduced to their basic materials in the desert, and the world simultaneously narrowed to a pinhole moment and expanded intolerably, wonderfully.)

And then this contrapuntal thing is maintained so brilliantly as the Prince falls to Earth; where many, many other modern fables stumble as they try to transfer to a kind of de rigueur social allegory, this one skips those trappings and sticks to commenting directly on our relationships (of which, the extensive efforts of sociologists notwithstanding, society in meaningful ways still makes up merely the aggregate), even as the Prince's symbolic encounters with foxes and flowers and humans become smaller and harder and more dislocated--it all reaches its apotheosis in the fox's three dialectically balanced maxims (A, but on the other hand B, via C), which somehow against the odds (I don't understand quite how myself) manage to resonate with an authority: "One sees clearly only with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eye." "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." "It is the time you have lost for your rose that makes your rose so important."

And then it kind of fractures, turns into a desert double image, the kind that might be seen through tears, but instead here gets this dehydrated mind-body-dual treatment: the Prince doesn't know how to leave the flesh behind, but instead of Gethsemane tears and an athlete-on-the-cross or Mel Gibson–style mortification of the flesh Passion, with its ructions of torment, we get, like, a powdered lachrymosity. The prince's spirit leaves his flesh behind: what is essential is invisible to the eye. And he does it knowing the Aviator will weep (like he conspicuously does not for his lost France, the daily interactions and tastes and folkways that he has gone away from in American exile, from the sensory experience of which he is left out of joint as he never can be from the cool, refracted comfort of their Platonic forms--and so this then also places Saint-Exupéry somewhere in the garden or food court of postwar European exiles between the dusty, nervous Apollonian pedantry of the late Mann, alluding with gentle, tasteless insistence to what has been lost, and the--do I need to do the one hand/other hand thing here and mention "Dionysian"? It seems so pat--but the auto-da-fé of Walter Benjamin, whose suicide on the Spanish border to avoid falling into the hands of the Nazis is also in some way a spectacular self-immolation in the face of (what to us, if sadly not to him, remains the alternative plot line, the escape foreclosed) having to drink "that swill Americans call coffee").

And he does it knowing the Aviator will weep, I was saying, and preferring not to weep himself, like a little wise Bartleby (like what you'd get if you took out Bartleby's stuffing and crammed him with wonders). But--and anyone will understand this who's loved a little (okay, blond) child (okay, boy) with a penchant for scarves (with a penchant for scarves), and who imagines tearing their beard in a wild adoration of their exquisite enfant's terrible corpse, the "worst day" avoided so far but perhaps not forever ((my son's mum is a paediatric palliative nurse and such imaginings are sort of inevitable, from time to time, for us; and in the face of the arbitrary mutation of cells or slip of the wrist as the preschooler strains to run to that playground cross path of mean machines), and knowing the wild oscillation that would result between that insanity that's grief and the conscious choice in moments to zoom out and focus in and weep with gratitude at the bigness of the universe and what the beautiful son gave (because to do otherwise would be an obviation of him)--the prince leaves behind not a fleshly mangle to be placed on the tongue and worshipped in fragments by religionists still, let me suggest (I'm thinking of the Catholic Church here) vexed by our status as worm-food, even though all may be saved. No, what the Aviator's left hugging is merely a pupa--calmly, insistently, now: what is essential is invisible to the eye. Bye, Little Prince! Hope your flower's okay! Though we know that flowers die too, and like, in no time.

I started writing this review feeling like the way things get sad and sublimate at the end was a bit of an aesthetic failing and then I thought it out (through writing it out--thank you for being understanding of my process), and, the Little Prince as Cartesian Jesus? I can get behind that. show less

Beautiful, fascinating, dazzling, precious. It’s simply The little prince! A book that can send the adult you've become to sleep – blame it on time - and wake up the child within you.

I opened my eyes and saw this gold light shining in my direction; shining through my soul. I thought it was a star and it did. This one was particular though. I felt like I've seen it before, talked to it, loved it… And that's when I heard a giggle coming from this blinding glow that seemed to be approaching me. It came closer, and closer, and closer so much that I had to cover my eyes. As far as I remember, the laughing grew louder when I felt a warm little hand touching my face. “Hello, I’m back”, a soft voice whispered to me. So I slowly show more opened my eyes and caught the sight of him, my old dear friend the little prince. The one who's always been able to put a smile on my face when I'm sad, to make me feel like a princess when no one does, but mostly to give me hope despite all these wars! And thus our journey started again with a world of beauty, wit, joy and tears.

As far as I know, I never woke up and the child lived forever.. show less