EPEOLATRY

BOOK 5

The Little Prince (1943)

by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“We must cultivate our own Garden. . . . When man was put in the ‘Garden of Eden’ he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest.” - A line from the acclaimed French author Voltaire’s untimely classic ‘Candide’. This metaphor of gardening recurs around the entire novel.

Drawings are a way of imparting ambiguous knowledge depending on how an observer interprets it and which suits the abstract thinking of a kid. Thus author uses his sketches as illustrations to make the narrator feel like a child. It’s also narrated that how adults in their so pragmatic worlds with dogmas and notions can’t understand the mysterious beauty in the abstract art of a child.

We see from the dialogues of little prince and his spirit of exploration that questions are more important than the answers. He also influences us on how much our contribution in sustaining our environment and little philosophical speculations are more important in everyday life than all our selfish goals and capitalistic matters, that the most significantly true meaning of a thing can be uncovered only when one explores it by himself putting individual effort. One can only realise the true worth of a thing if only one does hard-work in finding that thing, the experiences are only rewarding when invested with time and work.

We often see how lonesome adults the prince visits in different planets are immersed in their own worlds of strange self-fulfilment and are so reluctant to any companionship despite of being so isolated.

This story teaches children that one must be vigilant and disciplined to take care of our planet by setting the example of overgrown baobabs.

The love story of Prince and the rose foreshadows a relationship which is misunderstood by the immature prince and how his wanderlust spirits makes him leave his rose alone but soon he realizes the distance that makes him worry and to feel deep love towards that rose. As the prince actually explores the wide universe (the earth especially) he like a frog who’s got out of his well for the first time finds his surrounding world to be so big and himself an individual so tiny - a harsh myriad reality when he explores the garden of rose but is soon enlightened by a fox that the rose that the prince has tamed is special for him and thus most important than all the roses in the world.

This book is so Sublime! My new favourite. Every kid must read this book and highly recommended to adults as well.