Our »Time travel through literature« now takes us to the year 1943 in which Antoine de Saint-Exupéry published his book »The Little Prince«. The novella is both the most-read and 3rd most-translated book in the world, and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France. Therefore it has to be in our »Time travel through literature«!
The French author, who lived some time in New York because of World War II, became a cult author of the post-war period. Although he saw himself as a pilot who only wrote books alongside, he was very successful. He died in 1944 during his last regular surveillance flight.
»And now here is my secret, a very simple secret:
It is only with the
heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the
eye.«
»It is such a mysterious place, the land of tears.«
»You - you alone will have the stars as
no one else has them...
In one of
the stars I shall be living.
In one of them I shall be laughing.
And so
it will be as if all the stars were laughing,
when you look at the sky
at night...
You - only you - will have stars that can laugh.«
The narrator of the book is a pilot and one day his plane crashes in the Sahara Desert, far from civilization. There, he meets a young boy whom he calls »the little prince«. They become friends and the little prince tells the narrator the story of his life. He begins by describing his life on the small planet where he lived. There he fell in love with a beautiful rose that suddenly began growing on the planet. The prince did everything for the plant, he talked to her, nourished her and protected her. But one day he realized that the rose was taking advantage of him and decided to leave the planet and to explore the rest of the universe. The rose apologized to him and encouraged him to go on this journey and since then, the little prince has travelled to six different planets to find friends. Each of them was inhabited by one silly blinkered adult, for example a king with no subjects, an alcoholic who drank to forget the shame of being an alcoholic and a vain man, who thought that he was the most admirable person on his otherwise uninhabited planet. On earth, the little prince met many different creatures, the most important for him was the fox who taught him a lot about life, relationships, friendship and love. The prince learns many things about life on earth during his journey and recounts it all for the narrator. But by and by he begins to miss his rose and wants to go home again.
The little prince is a very interesting character. In some ways he is childlike and innocent but sometimes he acts very maturely. Together with him the reader gets to know the human nature from another point of view. The prince criticises the lack of creativity of adults and their egoism. He thinks that they don't value the important things of life such as friendship and love. These are all things that the fox taught him and his quotations are probably the most famous of the book.
We liked »The Little Prince« because it is a heart-warming story which made us think about the things we consider as important in our lives. In a few days we will start reading it for French class and we are really looking forward to read the book in the original language.
I will dream now. ~Liv
And I'm going to visit Gideon. ~Gwen
The little prince is a very interesting character. In some ways he is childlike and innocent but sometimes he acts very maturely. Together with him the reader gets to know the human nature from another point of view. The prince criticises the lack of creativity of adults and their egoism. He thinks that they don't value the important things of life such as friendship and love. These are all things that the fox taught him and his quotations are probably the most famous of the book.
We liked »The Little Prince« because it is a heart-warming story which made us think about the things we consider as important in our lives. In a few days we will start reading it for French class and we are really looking forward to read the book in the original language.
I will dream now. ~Liv
And I'm going to visit Gideon. ~Gwen