70 years of The Little Prince

The Little Prince, written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, was published in 1943.

There was no time warp here. Fairy tales are timeless, and this book is rather a fairy tale. If it does not have all of the usual trappings, the symbolism and the magic are still there.

I think I first encountered it in 3rd or 4th grade, with a movie that led to reading the book. I thought it was very beautiful then, with the part with the fox standing out the most to me. That is really the heart of the book. The fox teaches the prince to understand his relationship with the rose, and it makes it possible for the prince to pass that lesson on to the narrator. That lesson of love is the salve for all of the ache.

I read it next in high school, in French. I thought some things came across more deeply in the original language, but it could also be that I was reading it as someone older, who had seen more, so I understood it on a different level. "S'il te plaît... apprivoise-moi" does get me more than "Please tame me", and yet, it does get me, in both languages, and I would not be able to refuse either request.

Re-reading it as an adult, I had not realized how harsh it is on grown-ups. Of course, I seem to be regressing quite a bit lately, so perhaps I shouldn't be too offended. There were a few other things that stuck out.

As the prince was visiting the small planets, he was perceived as a subject by the king, and an admirer by the vain man, because to them everyone is respectively subjects and admirers. There is not that type of explanation when the geographer sees the prince as an explorer. Not everyone is an explorer, and later conversation with the geographer shows that not everyone would make a good explorer, especially the drunkard. He shows good judgment though; the little prince is an explorer, and I want to be one too.

This was the part that hit me hardest though, and it is lengthy but it is important, so I am just going to give you three paragraphs and let you read them:

"For I do not want any one to read my book carelessly. I have suffered too much grief in setting down these memories. Six years have already passed since my friend went away from me, with his sheep. If I try to describe him here, it is to make sure that I shall not forget him. To forget a friend is sad. Not every one has had a friend. And I may become like the grown-ups who are no longer interested in anything but numbers...

It is for that purpose, again, that I have bought a box of paints and some pencils. It is hard to take up drawing again at my age, when I have never made any pictures except those of the boa constrictor from the outside and the boa constrictor from the inside, since I was six! I shall certainly try to make portraits as true to life as possible. But I am not at all sure of success. One drawing goes along all right, and another has no resemblance to its subject. I make some errors, too, in the little prince's height: in one place he is too tall and in another too short. And I feel some doubts about the color of his costume. So I fumble along as best I can, now good, now bad, and I hope generally fair-to-middling.

In certain more important details, I shall make mistakes, also. But that is something that will not be my fault. My friend never explained anything to me. He thought, perhaps, that I was like himself. But I, alas, do not know how to see sheeps through the walls of boxes. Perhaps I am a little like the grown-ups. I have had to grow old."

I too have bought some pencils, and started drawing again, and telling stories for longer, and I am only two years younger than Saint-Exupéry when The Little Prince was published. I feel different things about it now than I did before. I still find it one of the most beautiful books ever. That part hasn't changed.

There is one other thing about this week's reviews too. The Little Prince was published in 1943. Saint-Exupéry's plane went down and he was presumed dead in 1944. Rachel Carson died about two years after Silent Spring was published from a heart attack after her body had been weakened by cancer. Sylvia Plath killed herself a month after The Bell Jar was published in England.

I don't know that any of them thought that these were their swan songs. Carson may have felt that she was not going to make it, but if she had she was not old. Plath was working on other things, and Saint-Exupéry was relatively young. So, there could have been more, or perhaps it was a close call that we even got these works, and that is important. All three books have beautiful prose, passion, and sincerity, and they have taught me things.

So it has been a reminder also to tell your story. If you have something to say, say it. It may end up taking longer than you expect, but that would only get worse the longer you waited to start.

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