Antoine de Saint-Exupery is both a pioneer of aviation and a famous French writer. He was born in Lyon (France) in 1900. From an early age, the boy dreamed of a life full of adventure, he wanted to become a naval officer. Unfortunately, he did not pass the exam at the naval school and decided to become a pilot, despite the fact that this profession was very dangerous at that time.
For Saint-Exupery, the flight was not just control of the aircraft, it was a time of meditation, reflection. In the air, the writer deeply thought about loneliness, friendship, the meaning of life, freedom. He decided to publish his thoughts in a book that turned out to be very successful. When his career in the field of aviation ceased to bring new successes, Saint-Exupery decided to go in for creativity. At first he became a journalist and traveled to Spain, Russia and Germany. He also wrote two philosophical books about aviation - Night Flight (1932) and Wind, Sand and Stars (1939). Nevertheless, remaining true to his love of piloting, he continued to fly when there was such an opportunity.
In 1939, when France began the war with Germany, Exupery was drafted into the army as a military pilot. France, however, was soon defeated and occupied by the Nazi forces. Saint-Exupery decided to leave his homeland and settle in the United States, where he continued his writing career. In New York in 1943, he published his most famous book, The Little Prince. Since its publication, more than 25 million copies have been sold in 75 countries.
In 1942, when American troops landed in North Africa, Saint Exupery decided to join the US Army as a pilot. Since he was 42 years old, and this is a significant age for aviation, permission was not obtained immediately. But Saint Exupery did not give up. Finally, they gave him a plane. He made many flights to occupied France. On July 31, 1944, Antoine de Saint-Exupery set off on his last mission. His plane was shot down by the Germans over the Mediterranean Sea.
"The Little Prince": a summary, reviews
The narrator, an airplane pilot, crashes in the Sahara desert. His plane is badly damaged, he is left alone with a very scarce supply of food and water. When the pilot thinks about his predicament, the Little Prince approaches him (summary, reviews read below) - a serious blond little boy who asks the narrator to draw a lamb for him. A man fulfills his request, and they become friends. The pilot learns that the Little Prince flew here from a small planet that the boy calls Asteroid-325, and people from planet Earth call her Asteroid B-612.
The little prince takes care of his planet very much, not allowing bad seeds to germinate and protecting it from the excessive distribution of baobabs.
Once a mysterious rose appeared on the surface of the planet, and the boy fell in love with her.
After the prince convicted her of a lie, he decided that he could no longer trust her. The boy decided to leave the planet. Despite the fact that at the last minute the Little Prince made peace with the rose, he nevertheless went to explore other planets.
Clash with the adult world
As the narrator narrates, during the journey the Little Prince (read reviews of children and adults about the book below) flies between two asteroids and for the first time encounters the strange world of adults. On the first six planets he visited, he met a king, an unreasonable person, a drunkard, a businessman, a lantern and a geographer, each of whom lived alone and was overly absorbed in his chosen profession. Such strange behavior seems to the boy both funny and outrageous. He does not understand the desire of these people to be admired by everyone, as well as the desire to own many unnecessary things.
An exception is the lamplighter, whose stubborn fidelity he admires, but otherwise the Little Prince does not find a good example in adults, does not learn anything useful from them. Only from the geographer does he receive new information that flowers do not grow forever and begins to miss the rose he left on his planet.
Visiting Planet Earth
On the advice of the geographer, the Little Prince visits Earth, but he lands in the heart of the desert and cannot find a single person. Instead, he encounters a snake that speaks in riddles and gloomy hints that its deadly poison can send the Little Prince back to heaven if he so wishes.
The boy does not accept this proposal and continues his research, stopping to talk with a flower with three petals and climb the highest mountain that he managed to find, where he confuses his own echo with the voice of an invisible interlocutor. As a result, the Little Prince finds a rose garden that surprises and depresses him - a rose from his planet told him that she was the only representative of her species.
New acquaintances
The Prince makes friends with the Fox, who teaches him that only the heart can discern the most important things in life, that time spent away from the rose makes it even more attractive and special for him, that feelings make the person responsible for those creatures that he loves.
The little prince understands that although there are many other plants of the same kind, his love of the rose makes it unique, and therefore he is responsible for it. Despite this discovery, he still feels very lonely, because he is so far from his rose ... The prince ends the story by describing a meeting with two men - Strelochnik and Seller.
Homecoming
The eighth day of the storyteller's stay in the desert. At the suggestion of the Little Prince, they decide to go ahead to find food and drink. Water nourishes their hearts as well as their bodies, and at this blissful moment, both agree that so many people do not see what is really important in life. The mind of the Little Prince, however, is consumed by the desire to return to his home planet to his rose, and he begins to negotiate with the snake to return. The narrator can fix the plane only a day before the anniversary of the Prince’s stay on the planet, and he sadly leaves with his friend in the place where the Little Prince landed. The snake bites the Prince, and he falls silently on the sand.
The narrator regains peace when he cannot find the Prince’s body the day after the bite - he is sure that the boy has returned to his planet. The pilot is comforted by the stars in which he hears the laugh of his friend. However, he often finds sadness on him, he suddenly begins to think that the lamb painted by him could eat the rose of the Little Prince.
In conclusion, the narrator shows the reader a drawing with a desert landscape and asks us to stop for a minute under the stars if we suddenly find ourselves in this place and immediately let him know if the Little Prince has returned home.
Beautiful fairy tale?
Of all the books written in French over the last century, The Little Prince (a short review by contemporaries is presented below), of course, remains the most beloved work in many countries of the world. This is somewhat strange, since the meaning of the book, the purpose and intention of the author is still unclear, almost a century after its publication. In fact, it is amazing, but the first reviews of Exupery’s book “The Little Prince”, reviews (the school was also the place where this work was considered) did not characterize it as a beautiful fairy tale. She always puzzled readers.
Review of the work "The Little Prince". Author - P.L. Travers
Among the early reviewers was only Pamela Lyndon Travers, who wrote the famous Mary Poppins, which can be called the English equivalent of The Little Prince. A review of the book showed that she truly understood the extent of de Saint-Exupery's work and its significance.
Opinions of children and adults
Many people stubbornly continue to believe that The Little Prince is a children's book. Paying tribute to justice, we note that Antoine de Saint-Exupery in 1942, when this work was written, conceived it as a child. It usually looks like a children's book: a wide format, less than a hundred pages of volume, simple sentences, more than 40 illustrations ... The main character, as often happens in such works, is a child. Most bookstores exhibit this work in the children's section.
However, as practice shows, not many children after reading say that they liked this fairy tale.
Book for adults
Little Prince, a critically acclaimed review by critics, is truly an adult book. The main character is not a young prince, but a pilot, a middle-aged man who tells a fairy tale. The complex interweaving of internal experiences, both psychological (his artistic talent was never realized) and situational (he crashed when landing in the center of the Sahara and cannot fix his plane), occupies a central place in the work.
The most bewitching episodes of the book are those that only an adult reader can understand: Saint Exupery's satirical injections about adulthood, his intentionally naive watercolor illustrations, and Rousseau's inspired romantic message about the superiority of feeling over reason, the breakdown of civilization, and the pure wisdom of children .. .
The book is more an allegory than an adventure, the reviews and echoes of Dante's Divine Comedy and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Travels vibrantly sound in the work The Little Prince, where we first meet the hero at a turning point in our life, followed by spiritual rebirth, redemption, and repeated Charm.
Facts from the life of the author
What was Antoine de Saint-Exupery? "The Little Prince" (reviews confirm this) helps to better understand the writer. Thanks to a biography written by Stacy Schiff, we can learn interesting circumstances from the author’s life. They are reflected in the story "The Little Prince" (reviews of contemporaries are very mixed).
Forced to flee Europe, being in a difficult monolinguistic exile in North America, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, together with a group of like-minded people, is engaged in a shallow but ardent struggle with his opponents (he had a low opinion of Charles de Gaulle, who, as a writer, mistakenly believed , waged war with his own - with the French, and not with the Germans).
The work was written in Manhattan and Long Island. Forced landing in the desert, depicted in the book "The Little Prince" reviews are enthusiastic. The description of the situation is striking in its realism. And this is not surprising, because, as a pilot, in 1935 Exupery was lost for almost a week in the Arabian desert, which is reflected in the memories, visions and thoughts of imminent death and beauty, placed on the pages of the work.
Strong feelings
The love story of the Prince and Rose is a reflection of the author’s stormy romance with his wife Consuelo. Rosa has some of the traits of a beloved writer: coughing, power, and sudden fainting. Schiff says in his work, when de Saint-Exupery was lost in the desert in 1935, Consuelo mourned the loss on her own "asteroid" - at a table in a small restaurant Lipp. Exupery tells the story in a semi-autobiographical manner, starting the story with a joke about how, as a child, he had to listen to the urgent calls of intelligent adults to put down paints and colored pencils and get down to business.
Product adaptations
At different times, many attempts were made to adapt the creation of "The Little Prince" (many artists left a review of the book), its display on stage and on a television screen.
The first production appeared in 1963 at the Maturins Theater in Paris. Its author is Raymond Jerome. In 1974, Stanley Donen directed the musical on this story, in 1981, Hugh Wheeler, Don Black and John Barry tried to make their version on Broadway. Since then, hundreds of stage adaptations of the book have appeared, including school and amateur productions of The Little Prince (the performance always collects enthusiastic reviews).
The version presented at the Lukinglas Theater is an adaptation of Rick Cummins and John Skaullar. In honor of the 60th anniversary of the French edition of The Little Prince (composition, reviews see above), Virgil Tanase made the famous adaptation at the Michel Theater in Paris. This version remains the most popular both in France and abroad.
In Moscow pleases admirers of the talent Exupery Theater "Sphere". The "Little Prince" reviews are mostly encouraging.