The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry is a novella with illustrations meant for kids. But, why is it so famous among the adults? I'd like to answer this question in Exupéry's own words “All grown-ups were once children - although few of them remember it.” The Little Prince is a magical book and is highly symbolic. The narration is so beautifully carried out that it doesn't even occur to our minds that this has been written by an adult, sitting far away from the country that he loved, in a world stricken with war. Maybe, it is for this reason that the book provides an escape for people who are tired of living a life of disillusionment.
We're all children in our adult bodies that provide us with the most rational explanations for things around us. This book reconnects us with that child inside. For a moment we can just let go of the real world and it's rationality and dive into the world where planes crash into the desserts and we meet a little boy who teaches us something that we had known all along but were afraid to confront.
The book questions reality, the myth of adulthood and rationality. It is so correctly phrased that you'd shed tears at every page. But that is not the best thing about the book. The best thing is the fact that a child and an adult will enjoy reading it in the same. While a child will get lost in the fantasy world of the little prince, an adult will take some of the best life lessons from the Little Prince and the narrator.
Sometimes language fails. That's where a picture starts to speak. The illustrations are so beautiful and full of imagination. They also show that the adult mind isn't much different from a child's mind.
There are certain books that'll make you feel sad at the end and there are some books that you'll never want to end and that is a devastating feeling. The Little Prince is one such book for me. To be honest, I'll always revisit the book in hope that one day The Little Prince will return and tell us about his new experiences.
If I had to make a horcrux, I'd surely keep a part of my soul in this book!
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