Review of The Little Prince

I recently finished read The Little Prince for the second time. It is sentimental in the best way possible; it is the best book I have ever read on the subject of love.

One of the insights about love, revealed by a fox, is that your sacrifice of time on behalf of someone is what makes that person special or significant to you. The fox also suggests that relationships between people is the most “essential” aspect of life.

The fox’s point of view is contrasted by the perspectives of other characters that The Little Prince meets on his journeys. When The Little Prince tells the geographer about his home planet, the geographer tells The Little Prince that the rose on his planet, the object of the Prince’s affection, is unimportant to the geographer because it is not permanent, but “ephemeral.” 

Of course, the reader wouldn’t disagree with the geographer; roses are never depicted in geographies. And that is the author’s point. There are a lot of things set up in life (such as the aims of most businesses and academic disciplines) that ignore the most important aspect of life —  our relationships with other ephemeral beings. This is why the fox’s advice is presented as a secret, because you wouldn’t intuitively glean the fox’s insight from the behavior of the characters on planet earth in The Little Prince or in reality. 

As such, it makes sense that the book comes across as a criticism of fast-paced, efficiency-centered culture. In an impressive prediction of meal replacement, a salesman tries to tell the Little Prince that a pill dismisses the body’s need for water for a week, saving the customer significant time. The Little Prince questions that he has something better to do in his life with 53 minutes per week than savoring water. Some characters that are hard at work—like the lamp-lighter and the businessman—are depicted to be thoughtless, and are obviously lacking the wisdom of the fox or The Little Prince.