Le Petit Prince

"On ne voit bien qu'avec le Coeur. L'essential est invisible pour les yeux", the fox told the little prince his secret. It means "it is only with the heart that one can see clearly; what is essential is invisible to the eye".

Antoine Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince was introduced to me by a friend in year 2000. I cannot believe I spent 30 years of my life oblivious to this gem of a literature!

Since the discovery, I have spent many hours reading and re-reading the book, surfing the net for little trivia and facts and collecting Little Prince memorabilia. I've got books in different languages; the original French version, a Chinese edition and 3 different English editions. Oh! not forgetting I've also got an abbreviated version for Zerlynde.

My favourite character in the book apart from the little prince, is the flower; proud, vain, strong and haughty. She reminds me a little of Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind. There are two whole chapters touching on the complex nature of the little prince's feelings towards the flower. You can tell just by looking at the following quotes:

"One never ought to listen to the flowers. One should simply look at them and breathe their fragrance. Mine perfumed all my planet. But I did not know how to take pleasure in all her grace."

"The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her ... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little statagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her... "

And when the little prince declares, "If some one loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars", now isn't that something?

My other favourite part is the conversation between the little prince and the fox. Apart from the infamous quote written in my first paragraph above, consider the following:

• The fox : Are you looking for chickens?The little prince : No, I am looking for friends. What does that mean - tame?The fox : It is an act too often neglected. It means to establish ties.
• You have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat.
• One only understands the things that one tames. Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me.
• But in herself alone she (the little prince's rose) is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses..… Because she is my rose.
• It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.
• You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose....

Oh! And do you know there's a The Little Prince Musuem in Tokyo? Can anyone beat the Japanese?