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From Amazon.com
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first published The Little Prince in 1943, only a year before his Lockheed P-38 vanished over the Mediterranean during a reconnaissance mission. More than a half century later, this fable of love and loneliness has lost none of its power. The narrator is a downed pilot in the Sahara Desert, frantically trying to repair his wrecked plane. His efforts are interrupted one day by the apparition of a little, well, prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. "In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don't dare disobey," the narrator recalls. "Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket." And so begins their dialogue, which stretches the narrator's imagination in all sorts of surprising, childlike directions.
The Little Prince describes his journey from planet to planet, each tiny world populated by a single adult. It's a wonderfully inventive sequence, which evokes not only the great fairy tales but also such monuments of postmodern whimsy as Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. And despite his tone of gentle bemusement, Saint-Exupéry pulls off some fine satiric touches, too. There's the king, for example, who commands the Little Prince to function as a one-man (or one-boy) judiciary:
I have good reason to believe that there is an old rat living somewhere on my planet. I hear him at night. You could judge that old rat. From time to time you will condemn him to death. That way his life will depend on your justice. But you'll pardon him each time for economy's sake. There's only one rat.The author pokes similar fun at a businessman, a geographer, and a lamplighter, all of whom signify some futile aspect of adult existence. Yet his tale is ultimately a tender one--a heartfelt exposition of sadness and solitude, which never turns into Peter Pan-style treacle. Such delicacy of tone can present real headaches for a translator, and in her 1943 translation, Katherine Woods sometimes wandered off the mark, giving the text a slightly wooden or didactic accent. Happily, Richard Howard (who did a fine nip-and-tuck job on Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma in 1999) has streamlined and simplified to wonderful effect. The result is a new and improved version of an indestructible classic, which also restores the original artwork to full color. "Trying to be witty," we're told at one point, "leads to lying, more or less." But Saint-Exupéry's drawings offer a handy rebuttal: they're fresh, funny, and like the book itself, rigorously truthful. --James Marcus
From Publishers Weekly
Young Osment (The Sixth Sense; Pay It Forward) again proves his mettle as an actor, giving voice to the Little Prince in this crisp, full-cast production of the literary classic. He approaches the role with a gentleness and sensitivity that touches the heart and never sounds maudlin. As the pilot whose plane has crashed in the Sahara, Gere plays it low-key, creating a perfect partner for Osment's interplanetary-traveling, wise-beyond-his-years prince. Gere expresses just the right mix of amusement and bewilderment as the prince interrupts the pilot's efforts to repair his plane with a request that he draw a sheep. The adept performances capture the timeless nature of Saint-Exup‚ry's fable about how a child sees the important things in life much more clearly than many adults do. All ages. (Dec.) birth.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
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First Sentence
ONCE WHEN I WAS six I saw a magnificent picture in a book about the jungle, called True Stories. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
ONCE WHEN I WAS six I saw a magnificent picture in a book about the jungle, called True Stories. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
10 Star Book, 1 Star Translation,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Little Prince (Paperback)
Please, people, do not waste your time on the Richard Howard translation. It is childish, simplified, and simply awful. I really think that Richard Howard took this phenomenal, amazing book and tried to make it as devoid of meaning as he could. The new translation is almost like how a five year old would tell it- small, small words and small, small ideas. However- I had the Katharine Woods translation before I bought this one. Do not blame this new error on the author. The Katharine Woods translation is superb. Richard Howards- Not so much. This review has nothing to do with the book, just its differing translations.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Masterpiece,
By
This review is from: The Little Prince (Paperback)
I first read this almost thirty years ago as part of my French A Level course. I have read it every couple of years ever since. It has always been one of my favourite all time books. Is it a childrens' or a grown up's book. Who cares? It speaks to everyone.It is the simple tale of a pilot who is grounded in the desert and meets the enigmatic Prince who has come from another planet. A tiny planet inhabited by the Prince and his beloved flower - and the constant fear of Baobab trees which could overwhelm everything. It is so small that he once watched 44 sunsets. He watches these when he is sad. How sad he must have been on that day observes the narrator. It is a beautiful story about friendship. We laugh as much as we cry. The author's drawing of the empty landscape after his friend's departure still chokes me. But there is also the humour. Normally at the expense of our bizarre adult world. The Prince meets a merchant who sells a pill that means there is no need to drink. This could save several minutes each day. The Little Prince observes that if he had that time he would go to a fountain and have a nice cool drink. St. Exupery is much loved in France. He was even on the money before the Euro arrived. This is much deserved for this little classic alone. Read it in English or French or whatever you like. But read it - now.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Matters of Consequence rewritten,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Little Prince (Paperback)
If you would like to experience the Little Prince as the brilliant book it is, DO NOT READ THIS TRANSLATION! The translator obviously missed the key points that make this book the treasure it is. The "Matters of Consequence" phrase is changed throughout the story, completely destroying one of the main themes. Also, more complicated words have been replaced with simple words. Instead of elephants being very cumbersome they now take up a lot of space. Ack! Again, I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS TRANSLATION! It is for silly grown ups who have forgotten what it is to be a child. Big words are okay, they help children learn. If we continue to over-simplify things, not only will we be robbing our children of a stronger education, we will have created a new form of literature that is boring for all. Long live the old version!!!
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