A new Little Prince museum has opened its doors in Switzerland
lepetitprince.com110 points by gnabgib 3 days ago
110 points by gnabgib 3 days ago
Very surprised and sad to see so many dismissive comments of the book. It's a really popular one in France for a very good reason. It's so creative, poetic and touching that I doubt you can read it and stay indifferent.
If you've never read it, do yourself a favor and do so! It's quite short, and I hope you'll like it.
The book has been extremely transformative for me at multiple points in my life as I've aged. If I could only recommend a single piece of fiction, it would probably be The Little Prince.
I also highly recommend the 2015 animated film adaptation. It has a rock-solid cast, and presents the classic story within entirely new layers of interpretation that speak to multiple generations at once. It's a real tearjerker that only gets more potent with age.
I'm also not sure why so many commenters here seem confused or negative towards The Little Prince. It is a timeless, culture-invariant treatise on the most precious and important facets of human existence.
I my case, it is precisly said animated film. I don't remember why, but I found it incredibly off-putting for some reason. I think back on it every time someone brings up The Little Prince.
I'm curious what you found off-putting about it, if you don't mind elaborating :)
You want each emotion with assigned numerical value from 0 to 10, I presume...
I'm not sure how I am supposed to interpret your comment, what did you mean by that?
My aim was to start a positive dialogue with zppln about why the book didn't land with him or why it was off-putting. I'm happy to discuss it with you as well, but if your comment was just meant to be negative then I'll pass.
Apparently nobody read the damn book. There is a section where he describes how adults only understands numerically measurable quantities.
I actually did consider that this is what you were referencing, but truly wasn't sure how to interpret your comment. Sorry I ruined the joke!
I missed hearing about the 2015 version and will seek it out now. Thanks for the pointer!
I'll let the accolades speak for themselves:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Prince_(2015_film)#...
But don't read about the plot! Go in as blind as possible. The experience is much more meaningful if you don't know the story beats.
I know the book - is it different from the book?
All I will say is that you have to watch it to understand how it relates to the book. :)
And outside France too!
I would add that there is something in it for all ages. I have read it many times, between ages 6 and 25 and in different languages. The later readings were for language learning without any expectations but each time I finished it, I was deeply touched.
With that it’s also a great one to read with kids.
> And outside France too!
Soleure, that's the French name of the city where the museum opened. The place might just be in France if you don't look too close.
This book got a bad reputation in Brazil because a famous actress (who supposedly isn't very bright) once said it was her favourite book.
When I finally decided to give it a try, I found it to be a very interesting read.
So, you can bet people who show disdain for it probably haven't read it. Or they have weak character and are afraid to be considered dumb by association.
Your comment made me think of Charli XCX's recent post https://itscharlibb.substack.com/p/the-realities-of-being-a-...
Who was the actress?
There are probably more people around the world who know about The Little Prince from the distinctive illustrations that show up everywhere, than there are people who have actually read the book. It's like Peter Rabbit. Everyone instantly recognizes the illustrations, but often has a hard time explaining what the book was about.
I grew up in Brazil and never heard that the Little Prince had a bad reputation there. Quite the contrary, at least in my circle of people.
> Very surprised and sad to see so many dismissive comments of the book
I cannot see that many dismissive comments. Those I can see are things like dismissing it purely because its not recent, or because the commentor has not read it which really say more about the person being dismissive than anything else.
It is very popular (in translation) in the UK (and other Engli8sh speaking countries) too.
Well... enough bad memory of some teacher wanting us all to read and ponder this thing in class, seemingly with the confused notion that this would be some kind of lesson in psychology.
I think the author would be very surprised if he'd been there to see what amount of fluff has been generated around his nice and simple quasi-autobiographical codebook.
This problem plagues so many well-known works of literature. Modern American classics like The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird have also been forever tainted with unpleasant memories of high school classes.
We were read parts of it in kindergarten. I was fascinated by the desert, at the time I loved deserts, even if I saw one only as an adult. Two years later I borrowed it from the school library. My friends teased me because they thought it is girly. I read it and found a bit confusing and boring.
Later it got more popular and adults found all kinds of deep things. It was so sentimental I've never got back to the book if I hadn't read it first as a children's book. In my mid twenties I got my own copy from a girlfriend who saw me as a little prince.
Now about a week ago I reread it again. Well, you can find all kinds of things in it but I think you should read it as a kid first time.
Children need to learn a lot of things they understand only as adults. It builds a real connection to the stories and ideas. Adults cannot absorb new thoughts anymore. They try but it's too late.
Like if you haven't read Nietzsche and Dostoevsky first time at the age of say 16 or 18 you will never be an intellectual. You didn't get the right impulses at the time. You cannot built on shallow experiences you can have after the childhood and youth.
It has one of my favorite quotes of all time. For those who haven’t read it yet, if the quote below resonates with you, the rest of the book surely will too.
“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add. But when there is nothing left to take away.”
It is relevant in so many contexts in life.
I'm not sure how I feel about this quote. It seems to me like it only makes sense when talking about a tool or thing with scoped functionality that would be hindered by unnecessary accretions. In the state of "perfection" for something like this, there would be nothing left to add or remove. But even in this context, if it's unable to perform it's function due to insufficiency, perfection would be achieved by adding and not subtracting.
If one were to apply it to life in general, it seems even less fitting. Although we can never achieve perfection, I think most people would agree that a meaningful life is lived through growth and gain towards a particular ideal or goal. The more we grow, the closer we come to that unattainable perfection. Removing what's harmful or a hindrance is a part of this, but if all you do is take away and not add, you just end up with nothing.
Ultimately, I think it's lacking because while you can err both due to deficiency and excess, it only considers excess and denies deficiency. It serves more to assuage feelings of inadequacy in the face of unattainable perfection than to give an accurate representation of life. And even if you don't believe in perfection, this quote doesn't deny that it exists, it merely claims that it can be achieved solely by treating excess, while ignoring deficiency.
I'm sorry if this is all very pedantic.
One of the best pieces of advice about software engineering as well.
Pseudointellectuality. It sounds profound at first, but it's wrong.
You may not be able to remove anything, but that doesn’t mean nothing needs to be added, ergo it’s not perfection.
I disagree on it not being profound. The intended audience for the book are young children, and parents reading to their children.
It is not unlikely that a decent number of the intended audience will have grown up that "perfection" is equated to having everything, with nothing left to want. New parents especially would have feelings of inadequacy when they are trying to be "perfect" for their kids.
There's something both beautiful/enchanting and deeply tragic about the story.
If anyone's interested in an analysis of Saint-Exupéry's psychology via the symbolism of The Little Prince, the book "The Problem of the Puer Aeternus" by Marie-Louise von Franz [1] is absolutely fascinating.
[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1404609.The_Problem_of_t...
Yes! I didn't understand why I always found the Little Prince story (and by extension "alchemist") so repulsive, until I read that book. Little prince is aimed at people who have lost their idealistic youth qualities and seek to get back in touch with that part of themselves. I had the opposite problem - I never fully left that place.
There was one in Hakone, Japan which opened in 1999 and closed in 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_The_Little_Prince_in...
It was one of my fondest memory of my first travel in Japan, we had no clue that such site was there, so when we took the bus from whatever train station to the onsen hotel, and we passed in front of it, as a French, it was jaw dropping to see such place. Even crazier was when we actually visited it, they really captured my home region. Unbelievable experience.
Oh, it closed? That's too bad! We visited it when we were in Hakone in 2017—it was a remarkable experience finding it in Japan!
As an American, we grow up almost entirely without this gem of children's literature. I'm so thankful that PBS aired this story when I was a small child. The imagery was so strong that it has forever stuck in my head. When I see other stories like "The Fountain" or Super Mario Galaxy, I immediately think of the Little Prince.
I've yet to revisit it as an adult, but I think maybe it's time?
I make sure I read the little prince once every 10 years.
Every time I do so, I learn something new.
And what do you do here?
- I scroll
Why do you scroll?
- To forget
To forget what?
- That I am boring and bored
Why are you boring and bored?
- Because I scroll!
This book and its cartoon adaptations have been amazing. I am not French, still it touches amongst cultures.
It’s interesting how The Little Prince keeps resurfacing across generations. Even if someone doesn’t connect with every part of it, the themes loss, imagination, responsibility, friendship feel universal. It’s rare for something that short to stay relevant for so long.
I recently bought this book for my kids. Somehow I've never read it in forty years. What's the big deal? It's gotta be the most famous book I've never read.
It's not a hard read, and probably would take most adults an hour or two. Maybe just go read it if you're curious, and if you don't like it then quit after a chapter or two.
I like it. I got a lot out of the encounter with the fox, specifically, and that helped me in how I relate to a lot of my friends and lovers.
It's one of those books that strike you with a completely different meaning when you read it as an adult, than when you read it as a child. Which probably contributes to its enduring charm across the generations. I think everyone should read it twice, but with at least 20 years between readings.
Read it with or to your kids. It is an adult book just as much as it is a children’s book. Something there for all stages of life.
I don't get it neither. I have learned French in school, I have read it in French and all... it just seems quite banal. A content-personality mismatch I guess, and if that wasn't so, I might still prefer something that feels more weighty than that book.
This is a sub plot in "Changing Places" by David Lodge. Hyper competitive professor of English wins dinner party game admitting major Canon work he hasn't read: gets terminated by head of department.
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Out of curiosity, what cultural artifacts do you suppose people under thirty will consider worth passing on to their kids?
Not trying to be snarky. I think printed book culture led to some degree of consensus about books like The Little Prince. I’m not sure what replaces it.
I'm thirty and my sisters and my partner are in their twenties and we will probably all pass on books to our children if we have them.
Kids still interact with physical books. School libraries are a part of education here and the school kids visit them with their teacher at least once a month to borrow physical books.
The Little Prince was published before the baby boom. I am a millennial. We've read it to our gen alpha kid. We have it in three languages.
Very well written and will be relevant for all ages for another 100 years. Very unsnoopy. (Although I’ve heard that pre-Snoopy Peanuts is excellent and deep)
As I mentioned in the thread on Peanuts two days ago, "pre-Snoopy Peanuts" consists of two total comic strips, which are neither excellent nor deep. There's not enough material for either to be possible.
There's a lot of Peanuts. Whatever you like or don't like about it, you can find examples of at any point in its history.
When people say "pre-Snoopy Peanuts" they don"t mean before the character existed at all but before the strip became focused on Snoopy and his wacky adventures in the mid 1970s and later. Early Peanuts was more focused on the melancholy aspects of childhood and was truly brilliant. This was lost later on.
> When people say "pre-Snoopy Peanuts" they don"t mean before the character existed at all but before the strip became focused on Snoopy and his wacky adventures in the mid 1970s and later.
There are several problems here. Is this something you personally believe, or something that you've read other people believe?
In either case, it makes about as much sense as believing that Captain Kirk is characterized by sleeping with the alien women he encounters. It's easy to find people saying that it's true. It's very difficult, often impossible, to find an example of the phenomenon.
I just read through the years 1983-1984 for Peanuts. Snoopy appears frequently. You know who pulls more focus than Snoopy? Spike. But also, Peppermint Patty and Marcie, who both have an ongoing theme of unrequited love for Charlie Brown.
(The little red-haired girl is not mentioned in either year, but Charlie Brown is sad to receive no valentines in 1984. In 1983, it's Sally who is sad to receive no valentines - she had convinced herself that Linus was going to give her one, despite his repeated warnings ahead of the date that he would do no such thing.
In the followup to that storyline, Charlie Brown doesn't think Linus has done anything wrong, but nevertheless feels obligated to do something about Linus hurting his sister, so he compromises on standing still with his fist out and asking Linus to walk into it.)
Profound thoughts about the human condition don't become less profound when the next generation comes along. The Little Prince is no more "boomer" than, say, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
I've never heard of Little Prince before. I don't think it's as popular as the article claims.
Based on approximate sales figures, it's one of the top-selling books of all time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_literary_works_by_numb...
This is the second most translated book after the Bible
That is a really interesting list.
The number for the Bible is a bit misleading because it is "at least one book translated". I think the number for the most translated "book" would be preferable. Its a bit inconsistent with how it treats series too.
There are quite a few things that surprised me in the list (either a lot more or far fewer translations than I expected, especially relative to other works in the list)
Wikipedia gives 2191 for "at least New Testament", which I assume means all the books of the New Testament, and 698 for the Old and New Testaments. So it's still #1, since #2 (Le Petit Prince) is at 610.
It wouldn't surprise me if the number for the four Gospels is higher than the full New Testament number.
> Wikipedia gives 2191 for "at least New Testament", which I assume means all the books of the New Testament
Yes, and that number is too low because some single books you be translated mroe times.
> So it's still #1, since #2 (Le Petit Prince) is at 610.
I am not disputing that. The Bible is far ahead of anything else.
> It wouldn't surprise me if the number for the four Gospels is higher than the full New Testament number.
As there are separate translations of the gospels (e.g. the Lindisfarne Gospels) that must be true. I would be interested in know things such as whether any particular gospel has more translations.
> I've never heard of Little Prince before.
interesting. may I ask which region of the world you live in?
> I don't think it's as popular as the article claims.
that may be telling more about the region you live or yourself.
I suggest go to it's Wikipedia article and check the books impact.
ps: and to get a physical copy and to read it...
America, could this be a European thing?
I am also American (born and raised in Chile). The Little Prince is extremely well-known over there. I am personally very fond of it.
I lived in America (NJ and CA) for 25 years and plenty of people knew about The Little Prince.
I've even seen people wearing shirts with the drawing of the snake that ate the elephant.
It's not that obscure, even in the US. Anyone who takes French in US high school has probably read it in French (it's very easy to read), and even in English it's one of the most common classic children's books.
Apparently James Dean loved the book from an early age, so guessing it must have had some popularity in the USA.
I think it's rather a kind-of- schooling-and-education thing.
for schools in a "humanistic" tradition I dare to bet it's canon.
it's a very beautiful read and when you have time, go and grab a sweet illustrated full text paper copy in your language of choice, it has been translated in all languages of the world, and there are wonderful editions of the book. I treasure a large pop up one.
At first glance it looks and feels like a childrens book, but really, is it? Antoine de Saint-Exupéry offers a very unique and poetic look at humankind and a truly timeless masterpiece, touching not so children topic's like different types of vanity, several perspectives on the rat race, addiction, love of course, both "caritas" and "amor" and at an idealistic level also "eros", responsibility for nature, it even touches on assisted suicide, but all of these little essays which are woven into a story arc are told with deep love and tenderness and clarity.
fine dining, if you wish, a gourmet story, really.
you can tell I like it :-D