by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, 1943
This book has been translated from the original French into 505 different languages, second only to the Bible. I was intrigued by it so checked it out from the library. It’s about a “little prince” from a tiny planet who makes his way to earth, where he meets the narrator in the desert. The narrator is a pilot who has crash-landed. The illustrations were also done by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. The Little Prince has traveled from planet to planet. He left his tiny planet where he tended three little volcanoes, kept the baobab trees from growing, and fell in love with a lovely rose. The rose hurt him so he decided to leave. He meets different men on the planets he goes to: a king who rules over no one, a businessman who spends all his days counting his money, and a geographer who never actually goes anywhere, a drunk who drinks to forget the shame of his drinking. When he finally makes it to Earth and meets the pilot, he learns how he loved the rose and should not have taken her vanity and comments to heart. He fell in love with her because he cared for her – watered her, sheltered her from the wind. There’s a passage in the book:
“THE LITTLE PRINCE went to look at the roses again.
“You’re not at all like my rose. You’re nothing at all yet,” he told them. “No one has tamed you and you haven’t tamed anyone. You’re the way my fox was. He was just a fox like a hundred thousand others. But I’ve made him my friend, and now he’s the only fox in all the world.”
‘And the roses were humbled.
“You’re lovely, but you’re empty,” he went on. “One couldn’t die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she’s the one I’ve watered. Since she’s the one I put under glass. Since she’s the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she’s the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three for butterflies). Since she’s the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she’s my rose.”
‘AND HE WENT back to the fox.
“Good-bye,” he said.
“Good-bye,” said the fox. “Here is my secret. It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”
The way the book ends, the Little Prince was told by a snake that whenever he wanted to go home, to come find him and he would make it so he could go home. The pilot and the little prince find their way through the desert to water and the little prince decides he wants to go home. The snake bites him, he falls to the ground, and the next day, his body is nowhere to be found. Here are the last paragraphs of the book, written next to a page with a single star drawn above a plain hill:
“For me, this is the loveliest and the saddest landscape in the world. It’s the same landscape as the one on the preceding page, but I’ve drawn it one more time in order to be sure you see it clearly. It’s here that the little prince appeared on Earth, then disappeared.
“Look at this landscape carefully to be sure of recognizing it, if you should travel to Africa someday, in the desert. And if you happen to pass by here, I beg you not to hurry past. Wait a little, just under the star! Then if a child comes to you, if he laughs, if he has golden hair, if he doesn’t answer your questions, you’ll know who he is. If this should happen, be kind! Don’t let me go on being so sad: Send word immediately that he’s come back….”
Wayne read this book while we were camping and he can’t figure out what the big deal is about it, either.