The Little Prince
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Published: 1943
Genres: Childrens, Classic
Format: Paperback (83 pages)
Source: Library
Moral allegory and spiritual autobiography, The Little Prince is the most translated book in the French language. With a timeless charm it tells the story of a little boy who leaves the safety of his own tiny planet to travel the universe, learning the vagaries of adult behaviour through a series of extraordinary encounters. His personal odyssey culminates in a voyage to Earth and further adventures.
Reading The Little Prince was such a strange experience. It’s delightful. It’s funny. It’s adorable. The almost condescending attitude towards adults and the jokes at their expense makes this book appealing to kids since they can relate to being baffled by grown-ups. But as I’m laughing at the crazy adults and the crazy things they do, I had to stop for a second as it sank in that I do those crazy things, too. I found myself reflecting at the deeper story behind this prince and his cute travels to different planets. The little prince’s complete bewilderment at the behavior of adults challenged the way I think in so many ways. And boy do I love a story that challenges my thinking.
Here’s one that blew my mind – if sheep eat flowers with the thorns, then what good are thorns? I HAVE NO IDEA. My instinct is to explain evolution or genetics. But that’s not the question. The thorns don’t do any good and I hadn’t realized that. Maybe as adults we simply stop questioning things because now we know science and math and stuff and we assume there’s nothing left to learn. I do have a lot left to learn. I need to figure out why plants have thorns.
The little prince describes grown-ups as loving numbers and asking questions to get to know someone where the answers are numbers instead of questions about things that matter (like getting to know their personality). To prove the little prince is right, here’s a numbered list of the types of adults he meets on each planet:
- The King – talks about his control and power, but the little prince clearly sees that it’s just an illusion since he commands things under the “science of government, until conditions are favorable. (pg 31)” Or, when they were going to do it anyway.
- The Vain Man – wants nothing more than to be admired constantly. The little prince wonders “…what is there about my admiration that interests you so much? (pg 34).”
- The Drunkard – the vicious cycle of shame. He’s ashamed that he drinks so he drinks to forget his shame. The prince has literally nothing to say about that.
- The Business Man – endlessly counts all the stars and says he owns them and they make him rich. The little prince sees that work should be a two-way street. “But you’re not useful to the stars. (pg 40)”
- The Lamp Lighter – stuck in the endless cycle of chores. He is a hard worker and the little prince likes him since his job is useful to others, but the little prince doesn’t understand why he can’t rest and enjoy the many joys (like sunsets) that his planet has.
- The Geographer – never actually goes anywhere. He writes about places and discoveries that other people have made. He’s the kind of adult that never fully lives their life.
- Earth – the last planet he visits that has a combination of all these grown-ups (which he numbers to please the adults).
I think I relate the most to the lamp lighter. I get stuck in the daily grind of things. Who do you relate to the most?
My favorite thing about the little prince is his view of love. The time you spend caring for something is what makes it important to you. A huge rose garden is not as meaningful as the one rose you took care of. Like the fox said, don’t forget this truth:
“One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince pg 63
Book Review of The Little Prince on a Post-it
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We read The Little Prince for book club and out host gave out these roses with a quote from the book attached. I had to share it since it was such a clever and fitting gift for the book.
About Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyons on June 29, 1900. He flew for the first time at the age of twelve, at the Ambérieu airfield, and it was then that he became determined to be a pilot. He kept that ambition even after moving to a school in Switzerland and while spending summer vacations at the family's château at Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens, in eastern France. (The house at Saint-Maurice appears again and again in Saint-Exupéry's writing.)
Later, in Paris, he failed the entrance exams for the French naval academy and, instead, enrolled at the prestigious art school l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1921 Saint-Exupéry began serving in the military, and was stationed in Strasbourg. There he learned to be a pilot, and his career path was forever settled.
After leaving the service, in 1923, Saint-Exupéry worked in several professions, but in 1926 he went back to flying and signed on as a pilot for Aéropostale, a private airline that flew mail from Toulouse, France, to Dakar, Senegal. In 1927 Saint-Exupéry accepted the position of airfield chief for Cape Juby, in southern Morocco, and began writing his first book, a memoir called Southern Mail, which was published in 1929. He then moved briefly to Buenos Aires to oversee the establishment of an Argentinean mail service; when he returned to Paris in 1931, he published Night Flight, which won instant success and the prestigious Prix Femina.
Always daring, Saint-Exupéry tried in 1935 to break the speed record for flying from Paris to Saigon. Unfortunately, his plane crashed in the Libyan desert, and he and his copilot had to trudge through the sand for three days to find help. In 1938 he was seriously injured in a second plane crash, this time as he tried to fly between New York City and Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. The crash resulted in a long convalescence in New York.
Saint-Exupéry's next novel, Wind, Sand and Stars, was published in 1939. A great success, the book won the Académie Française's Grand Prix du Roman (Grand Prize for Novel Writing) and the National Book Award in the United States. At the beginning of the Second World War, Saint-Exupéry flew reconnaissance missions for France, but he went to New York to ask the United States for help when the Germans occupied his country. He drew on his wartime experiences to write Flight to Arras and Letter to a Hostage, both published in 1942. His classic The Little Prince appeared in 1943. Later in 1943 Saint-Exupéry rejoined his French air squadron in northern Africa. Despite being forbidden to fly (he was still suffering physically from his earlier plane crashes), Saint-Exupéry insisted on being given a mission. On July 31, 1944, he set out from Borgo, Corsica, to overfly occupied France. He never returned.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
My name is Jessica. I love to read Young Adult and classic literature. I’ve been a book blogger for six years and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. I’m a very curious reader. Writing about all the questions and thoughts I had while reading a book is the best hobby ever.
I read this a long time ago, but I remember really enjoying the wimzy. Maybe I should re-read.
I’ve read The Little Prince for the first time when I was in the elementary school and I remember the teacher advising us to read this story again in a few years because we would look at it from a completely different perspective… I have read it 3 times in my life and every time I interpret it in a different way, amazing book.