The Parable of The Little Prince.

This New Year, I’d start to make reviews from movies, books, or anything. Uhh, read at your own risk. There are lots of details in this post which you can’t really relate (except if you read the book).

At first, I thought that The Little Prince of Antoine De Saint-Exupery would simply lull me to sleep while unravelling its first page. For one, the book cover illustrates an unprofessional drawing by the author himself: a kid standing in a gray planet with three volcanoes. (Heck, one of it is even used by the Prince for cooking!) Another would be the appearance of the book: the glossy pages, the informal approach of the author to its reader. The drawings inside somehow induced me to consider it a children’s book to be donated elsewhere.

But then, I remember a chatmate last December (her name was Gale) throwing me a quote of this French aviator and author: Saint-Exupery, a name still unknown for me.

“What’s essential is invisible to the eye.”

It could have been derived in this book, so I bought it.

Sure, you find the book weird. (A volcano as a gas stove?) But the content was really heart-warming. I threw away Joseph Kanon’s The Good German for this book, since I could easily digest its content. (As for Kanon, his words were too collegiate.) The first four chapters compelled me to wake up and read more. It’s not the usual book wherein you’d stare in the ceiling for moments and tell yourself that you’re giving up and sleep right away.

The conversation between the pilot in the Sahara Desert (whom I believe, depicts Antoine) and the Little Prince, I thought, would be corny. Similar to those fairytale stories wherein you have no choice but to read the first sentence: once upon a time. But this one’s different.

–

Somehow, children see things we do not see.

In the book, the Little Prince was begging for the pilot to draw a sheep for him. The pilot have tried to, but he sucks at drawing. Instead, he drew a box with holes. With his amazement, the Little Prince bursted with laughter and contentment because inside the box was a sheep, sleeping. They see what’s invisible.

“Grown-ups love figures. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters like what does his voice like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies? Instead, they demand: how old is he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?” Only from those figures do they think they have learned anything about your friend.”

The concept of the book (though I’m not yet finished reading it) includes the difference between grown-ups and children. And so on.

A must read for me.

~ by utakgago on December 31, 2006.