Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince is a delightful figment of the writer’s imagination. When we read it as children, it was just a book, like Alice in Wonderland, which took us on a voyage to different worlds – inhabited by people and plants and animals. And suddenly, the planets held a different meaning.
First published in 1943, it made news because only a year later the writer-pilot Saint-Exupéry’s Lockheed P-38 vanished over the Mediterranean during a reconnaissance mission. It is believed the Germans shot down the plane. Flying and writing were the Frenchman’s passions.
Almost six decades later, this fable of meetings and strange encounters, touched by a deep understanding of human nature, has lost none of its dynamism. The narrator of the ‘voyage’ is a pilot who has been downed in the Sahara Desert, and is trying to repair his wrecked plane. He introduces himself, in a flash back, as a six-year old that finds adults very odd because they can’t understand his drawing of a boa constrictor that had swallowed an elephant. They see it simply as a hat. And when he insists on describing what it is, they advise him to stop drawing. Deciding on a career change at that young age, when he grows up he trains to become a pilot.
Back in the desert, while repairing his plane, one morning he is woken by a voice asking him to draw a sheep. It is the Little Prince. "When a mystery is overwhelming, you don't dare to question it,” the narrator says. "Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket." And so begins an unlikely friendship between the two.
The Little Prince describes the planet he lives on and his journey from planet to planet, each tiny world populated by a single adult. And each gives an insight into a kind of human being that inhabits our own world. For example, the first planet he reaches, is inhabited by a king in a magnificent purple-and-ermine cloak. An eye opener for the prince is that for kings the world is very simple: all men are subjects. And what the king fundamentally insists upon is that his authority be respected. He would not tolerate disobedience.
The second planet has a conceited man living on it. In the course of their conversation, the man only responds to what suits him. At which the prince remarks ‘Conceited men only ever hear praise’. His encounter with different types of people further affirms his childhood thought that “grown-ups are decidedly very, very odd”. This is in reference to a drinker who justifies his drinking thus: I’m drinking to forget…that I’m ashamed…of drinking”.
The author then, thorough the prince as his spokesman similarly points out the idiosyncrasies of a businessman, a lamplighter and a geographer all of that manifest some trivial aspect of adulthood.
The prince then visits the seventh planet – Earth. He describes the magnitude of this planet in terms of the number of people inhabiting it – such as “… one-hundred-and –eleven kings…three hundred and eleven-million conceited men… In other words, approximately two billion grown-ups.” Remember, this book was written in 1943! His encounters on Earth include one with the fox who says wisely: “… words are the source of misunderstandings.” And, “I shall be discovering that happiness has its price!” And when the little prince is saying goodbye, the fox tells him: “you can only see things clearly with your heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye”.
The thin (under 100 pages) book continues in the same vein and is interspersed by interesting drawings by the author. They visualise all that the prince comes across, interacts with and experiences. Yet his tale is ultimately a tender one – a heartfelt commentary of sadness and solitude – and understanding human nature.
The book is written – and can be read – on two levels. It is great for children, because of its simplistic style and vivid imagination that transports the reader into a make-believe world. At the same time, it holds a deeper meaning and underlying messages for the adult reader.
I hear the original English translation (from French), by Katherine Woods, is a classic. I don’t remember the difference. This version is a Penguin Books’ publication translated by T. V. F. Cuffe. |
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