The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is one of my favorite books of all time. It’s the first book that made me cry. I was 18 years old. I sobbed as I read it until I couldn’t even make out the words. I wasn’t sure what had just occurred. What was it about the little Prince that made me have such a strong emotional reaction?
It’s presented as a children’s book. It’s sold in the children’s section of Barnes & Noble. The illustrations are childlike. But it’s not just for children. It’s so much deeper and every time I read it I learn something new.
It teaches me about love and personal growth and reminds me that we were all once children. Children who have now lost their innocent curiosity and naiveté; those who forget to learn and to ask questions. I was never a child. Just like the little Prince I was always an old soul trapped in a little body. He’s so small yet so brave, and naïve yet so much more thoughtful than the grown ups.
One day, the little Prince feels compelled to leave his planet and explore the other planets. In doing so, he leaves behind everything he knows and loves—most importantly his flower. It just appeared one day—bloomed and blossomed—and the little Prince loved her. Until…one day he didn’t. He began to find her vanity and indifference towards him annoying and he resented having to tend to her. (This of course, was not her fault since she was only a flower and didn’t know any better. She was too proud to tell him how much she loved and appreciated him. When he leaves, she pretends not to care but turns so he doesn’t see her cry.)
He claims several times throughout the story “I was too young to know how to love her”, which is a rather advanced self-reflection for a little Prince with limited interactions with other people. Anyway, towards the end of his travels, he comes across a rose garden full of thousands of identical flowers that looked just like his. He eventually realizes (with the help of the fox) that his flower is nothing like them. Physically she is, but she’s much more special than they are because HE loves her. He learns from the fox that, “it’s the time you spend on your rose that makes your rose so important”. He learns, but he learns a bit too late. He’s already millions of miles away from her and he spends the last part of the story trying to figure out how to go home. How to get to his flower.
Think about your favorite toy as a child. Chances are your friends had the exact same thing. But that didn’t make you love yours any less. Because it was different. Because you saw it differently. And that made you love it even more. That’s what we forget. We forget to see the things that are right in front of us. There’s no particular formula for figuring out why we love the things we do. We just do. Because WE think they’re special.
Maybe I’m not so much the little prince as I am the flower who aspires to be like him.
My goal is to read The Little Prince in as many languages as I possibly can. 3 down. I have 2 more in the works. What’s so awesome about this book is that the lessons and feelings are transferred through the translations. That's pretty amazing. I have at least 2 more times of late night crying to do….
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