jankp's Full Review: Antoine De Saint-Exupery and Bonifacio Del Carril ...
Atheists, God-haters and Doubting Thomases, beware! Adults who are challenged to remember their idyllic childhoods, also beware! You may find the following review of Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s children’s novel, The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince), to be exceedingly illogical and a real bore. However, I will try my best to amuse you in spite of your misgivings, for there’s a very real chance that this enchanting little book, originally written in French, will overcome all of them.
Ifif1938 at least should be an easy audience, though. Right, Barbara? This review is for you in honor of your illustrious achievement of 400 reviews lovingly written.
I don’t know how long ago I first read The Little Prince, but with a second reading (and the motivation of reviewing it), I think I understand it so much better. You see, not only children will gloss over the deeper implications of the book, but anyone can. It tells the story of a pilot who crashes in the desert and, while he’s attempting to repair the craft, he meets a little, golden-haired boy who comes from, it turns out, a distant star.
The mysterious boy, soon referred to as the little prince, is most likely a product of the pilot’s imagination, the man reverting to his child’s mind when confronted by the possibility of dying thousands of miles from civilization and a week’s supply of water. He dreams of being asked to draw, which he gave up as a child when no adult understood what he was drawing for they had no imagination. They were only concerned with matters of consequence and told him he should be as well. Now, fearing death, he feels the loss of the gloriously uninhibited boy he used to be who never feared death. (I may be reading more into his thoughts than I should, but I don’t think so.)
So the pilot tries to draw a sheep for the princely boy and only succeeds to please him when the sheep is hidden inside a box with holes, a picture requiring imagination. This is how he used to draw (an elephant eaten by a boa constrictor from the outside), seeing more than is really there to make the world full of beauty and magic.
As he listens to the boy’s story of the vain flower on his tiny planet that he’s trying to take care of, along with clearing his world of baobabs that a sheep could help him by eating them, he realizes that he’s forgotten what is of most consequence. The prince becomes livid with rage until he does through further listening to the boy’s journey, prior to arriving on Earth, to several other planets inhabited with men caught up in pride, perfection, power, alcohol and work.
Littered with charming, colorful drawings by the author, sometimes small, sometimes filling a page, The Little Prince is about 93 pages that ends as mysteriously as it began. The boy leads the pilot to a well with bucket and asks for water, calling to my mind how Jesus asked for water at the well and implied that he could give eternal life with this water. The pilot drinks and finishes repairing his plane, saved from death, but the prince, having learned what he needed to learn from talking to a wise rose and a fox and wanting to go home, cannot return the way he came. He is very tired and weak. He meets a poisonous snake and…well, it’s the Jesus story without the gore.
Are you atheists still with me? I did warn you. It’s spiritual message of believing in Jesus so we may be saved, to be in touch with our soul where imagination and the love of beauty and friendship are nurtured like a rose, and to find this a matter of more consequence than your worldly affairs and desires, may be quite disagreeable to you. I understand. But put yourself in the pilot’s shoes for a moment. If you thought you were about to die a long, lonely death with no hope in sight, might you not do the same?
Le Petit Prince will give you something to reflect on. It may, as well, amuse you with it’s spiritual story and wise or very odd characters, not to forget the child-like drawings. It has certainly amused me and enchanted me with the lyrical, mystical writing.
An example:
“One only understands the things that one tames,” said the fox. “Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends anymore. If you want a friend, tame me…”
“What must I do, to tame you?” asked the little prince.
“You must be very patient,” replied the fox. “First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day…” (pp 67)
Interesting, isn’t it, that silence is encouraged while De Saint-Exupery writing as the fox imparts words of wisdom? That’s because these words are really encouraging meditation and great compassion towards the world, and not simply our personal world, mind you, but whatever we don‘t understand and may fear and judge. I hope you shall enjoy this encouragement as much as I do. Let the book provoke a rebirth in you of your child-self, even if it isn’t a Christian one.
Congratulations, Barbara, on your milestone. This has been an entry in your French write-off and a sublime experience for me. See more entries here: http://www.epinions.com/user-ifif1938
This Spanish language edition of the classic story features the format of the bestselling 100th anniversary edition of The Little Prince , published i...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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