“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the
heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the
eye.”
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Blurb
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.
Menurut Farah Tentang Buku Ini
Dari kisah dalam buku ini kita akan mengetahui bahwa narator cerita sempat berkeinginan menjadi seorang pelukis di masa kecilnya. Sayangnya impian narator kita tidak dapat terwujud karena minimnya dukungan dari lingkungan di sekitarnya. Ketika pada suatu waktu narator yang telah dewasa terdampar di sebuah gurun pasir, pertemuannya dengan The Little Prince (Pangeran Cilik) membuat narator ini mengingatkan kembali dirinya di masa lalu yang bercita-cita menjadi pelukis.
Secara garis besar The Little Prince memang mengeksplorasi perbedaan pola tingkah laku dari seorang anak dan orang dewasa. Sepanjang cerita kita akan melihat bagaimana sempitnya pemikiran orang-orang dewasa dalam kisah buku ini. Sebaliknya, kita juga akan menyadari bagaimana lapang dan terbukanya pemikiran dari seorang anak. The Little Prince seolah menyadarkan narator kembali pada hal-hal yang sudah narator lupakan seiring dengan pertumbuhannya sebagai orang dewasa.
Kau dapat juga menemukan analisis menarik terkait dengan cerita dalam The Little Prince di sini: Shmoop dan SparkNotes
Kalau kau menyukai buku anak-anak yang “menggelitik” aku pikir buku ini lumayan cocok untukmu.
Rating
4/5