The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Though I usually begin with a general feel of the novel, this time, I opted not to. Because this book’s outstanding quality, which practically made it a classic, is its subjectivity. How the reader reacts, defines this marvelous literary piece's substance.

French Title: Le Petit Prince

Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Translator: Katherine Woods

Released: 1943

Sold more than 80 million copies worldwide and considered as an all-time bestseller

Synopsis

No adult could appreciate the pilot’s drawing. They would often mistake his illustrations for something far from what it is. So he stopped, and decided to become a pilot. Little did he know that his chosen career path would let him meet someone who can fully understand his sketches.

The pilot crash-landed in the desert. This is where he meets the Little Prince. Their meeting ‘tamed’ the pilot. The Little Prince tells him first of his personal rose, whom he thought unique and singular in the entire universe. Then of his journey from asteroid to asteroid where he met impossible adults; the King who orders the sun to set at sunset, the Conceited Man who only hears compliments, the Drunkard who is embarrassed by his drinking problem, the Businessman who thinks he owns the stars and isn’t interested in anything else but in getting more stars, the Lamplighter who's the only adult that the Little Prince appreciates, and the Geographer who has never seen what he puts in his map, and who recommends visiting Earth.

In Earth, the Little Prince meets a fox who gave the book’s most famous line, “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” It was also the fox who taught him how a rose can be endlessly unique and differ from the other roses of the Earth, preventing it from being ‘ephemeral’ as what the Geographer said.

Unfortunately, the Little Prince had to leave Earth to return to his planet, and to his rose, and to his volcanoes. The Little Prince warned that it might appear that he has died when he left, for he would need to leave his body behind. The pilot grieved as it was what the Little Prince has foretold. Emitting much sadness, the pilot pleads to whoever meets a boy in the desert should call him immediately.

Reading Experience

(I intend to write a completely different post for my interpretation of The Little Prince.) 
The novel is a short read, but do take your time digesting each and every word, sentence, paragraph, and page that The Little Prince has to offer.

This book’s prowess is in its metaphors. Each one can be fully appreciated and perceived in ways more than one. And as early as ankle-deep into its pages, I already find it surprising that The Little Prince was stacked among the books in the children’s section of the bookstore. Its colorful illustrations may be one quality but the profound wisdom it imparts is far from the grasp of a child.

Then I thought, l don't have a full grasp as well, maybe no one has. Perhaps a friend’s high school teacher offered the greatest advice that any reader can give to another prospective reader of The Little Prince, that you have to read it more than once, and each time you do, you should be older than last time, because as we age, we may or will have different interpretations of whatever erudition the Little Prince has to offer.

In Conclusion

The Little Prince is an artwork in every page and in every time it is read.





Commentary Series Links:
> On Matters of Consequence
> On Talking Like a Grownup
> On Loving Figures
> On Grownups Part 1/2
> On Grownups Part 2/2
> On Visiting Earth
> Quotes from The Little Prince