WOw this is one of my favourites from childhood (you read it in french though! it's only a kids book afterall!). I used to be so obsessed and take it everywhere, i lost so many copies. It's not great literature, but somehow has very strange depth and wisdom. My favourite chapter is always 21. The prince is best friends with a rose on his star and he thinks she's the only flower in the galaxy and it's meaningfulness and specialness of life. THen when he visits earth he sees thousands and thousands of other roses which are all exactly the same. He realises his rose is not unique and it's just another flower, something very common, and suddenly all the colour fades from his life. THen luckily chapter 21 he meets a fox. They make friends and the fox teaches him that it is not what the other person has to offer you, but the time and effort that you spend on them, or on each other, which creates all colour and meaning in the world. THe relatedness itself is what conjures value out of nothing. Fox says: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly - what is essential is invisible to the eye". "It is the time you spent with your rose, and the responsibility you have for each other, which makes you both unique in the universe".
BUt somehow it all goes wrong. So weird how in the end the prince commits suicide. And saint-exupery killer himself a few years later. |