Hello, dear readers! This week’s book is The Little Prince by Anoine de Saint-Exupéry, a novella with playful illustrations and thought-provoking themes. The story follows a French pilot (Exupéry himself) who crashes in a desert. He meets the little prince, who takes him on adventures to different planets where they meet some interesting characters. This little book is innocent and whimsical, and has inspired much of my writing over the past several years.
What Grown-Ups Care About
On the first planet, the little prince talks with a “universal monarch” reigning over his tiny asteroid. The king insists that he has command over the stars themselves and every man he meets. However, he says he only commands his subjects within their abilities, like a reasonable king should. The little prince is fascinated. He asks, “I’d like to see a sunset…Do me a favor, your majesty…Command the sun to set” (30). The king replies, “You shall have your sunset. I shall command it. But I shall wait, according to my science of government, until conditions are favorable” (31). He wants to wait until 7:40pm to command the sun to set because he doesn’t want it to disobey. The king claims leadership, yet has no real authority over things and people. “Grown-ups are so strange” says the little prince as he leaves the first planet.
Grown-ups also really like numbers. “When you tell [grown-ups] about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters” (10). Here, the story’s narrator explains by saying that adults never ask things like, “What does his voice sound like?” or “What games does he like best?” Adults ask, “”How old is he?”…”How much money does his father make?” Only then do they think they know him” (10). Later, the speaker and the little prince meet a businessman on the fourth planet who fixates on counting and cataloguing the stars. He does not look up to admire them or stop to take a rest. He calculates their number and claims to “own” them for no purpose other than being rich and buying more stars (38).
Friendship
The Little Prince has some interesting illustrations of what friendship is. On his tiny planet, the little prince dutifully takes care of a rose. She is entirely dependent on the little prince, and quite selfish of his care. He feels a great deal of responsibility for this flower. While visiting an explorer, he has a brief pang of regret over leaving her defenseless on his planet. During his travels, he soon learns she is not the only one of her kind, however. He encounters a rose garden on earth. At first, he feels downtrodden when he learns that his rose is not the only one of her kind (for that’s what she told him).
Gradually, the little prince learns more about the effort and uniqueness of friendship when he meets the fox. The fox says he isn’t tamed, which he defines as “to create ties” (59). Taming becomes synonymous with friendship. It’s spending time, building relationship, and being happy to see the other person. It’s not being lonely. The fox remarks, “For me you’re only a little boy just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you have no need of me, either…But if you tame me, we’ll need each other. You’ll be the only boy in the world for me.” Of course, the little prince thinks of his flower. When he visits the rose garden again, he realizes none of them could replace his own rose back home, which he realizes has tamed him.
Childlike Perception
I think Exupéry wrote the novella to call attention to the way a child views the world. They see things deeper and from a completely different perspective. One great first example given is the drawing on the right. The narrative explains that, contrary to what grown-ups would think, it is not a hat. The author says he drew it at a young age while learning about how boa constrictors eat large animals and digest them. When he asked a grown-up if the drawing made them scared, they looked confused.
“It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. Then I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so the grown-ups could understand. They always need explanations” (2).
The drawing of the elephant inside the boa constrictor (not a hat) is an illustration of the more meaningful and fascinating world in which children live. The trick is that adults and children live in the same world…they just view it differently. What I have taken from reading this little book is motivation to try and see a little beauty in everything. I want to admire the stars, not try to own and catalogue them. I want to look up from my busy life and put time and effort into friendships. I want to look at a drawing of a hat and say, “Boa constrictors sure are terrifying.”
Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de. The Little Prince. Harcourt, Inc. New York, 2000.
Book Babble 