Why Every College Student Should Read The Little Prince

Why Every College Student Should Read The Little Prince
By college standards, it?Ts a quick read. English scholars trained in zipping through the last 200 pages of a novel in an evening will find it a breeze; students used to formulas and equations won?Tt find it too taxing; and even the more reluctant French scholars among us can take it for a spin in the original language and barely crack a dictionary.

For all its brevity, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is nonetheless unexpectedly moving. Anyone can be forgiven for missing it on the first go-around (i.e., childhood). For readers of any age, and especially college students, there are quite a few compelling reasons to travel to Asteroid B612.

If you read The Little Prince as a child, quick! ?" read it again before you?Tre a grown-up. The book?Ts changed, I promise. Or otherwise it?Ts you who?Ts changed. Maybe somewhere along the way you dropped the controls for a moment and where you?Tre headed now ?" in a tiny airplane, perhaps ?" wasn?Tt on the flight plan. Check back with the drawings and directions in this book and you?Tll be on your way.

Remember why we read ?ochildren?Ts literature? when we are children and ask yourself why we don?Tt read it now. Never belittle an author who writes books for children; they have the toughest audience. They won?Tt confuse a boa constrictor for a hat, and they usually know when the author is not telling the truth. Just because fantasy remains at the core of works written for kids, and not a mere ?ogenre,? doesn?Tt mean that books with young people painted on the cover aren?Tt asking the most timeless questions out there. The Little Prince will remind you of that.

When you?Tre a grown-up, don?Tt sell pills to quench thirst. Listen in chapter 23 when the prince says, ?oIf I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.? Don?Tt invent ways to take the cool source out of life. There?Ts a reason water is refreshing, why tending a rose is hard and satisfying work, and why thinking yourself unique gives you strength beyond your ability.

Revel in the knowledge that you don?Tt have everything figured out. People don?Tt fully understand The Little Prince the first or second time they read it. But on some level they get enough to keep going, and maybe they?Tll even cry at the end, as I do. There are undoubtedly gems readers have found that Saint-Exupéry didn?Tt know he was including in The Little Prince, and that is comforting for the less-than-geniuses like me that account for most of us on this planet. Sometimes when you?Tre looking up at the sky at just the right time -- and wearing the right costume -- things align of their own accord. In the meantime, waiting for those moments, we can just do our best to keep pulling up the baobabs.

If only we learn how to maintain our own asteroids as diligently as the little prince, pieces of life will make sense and maybe we?Tll recall what it?Ts like to see the world as children do.


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Written Spring 2001.
Originally conceived for an application to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

cho Gorrilaz xem này

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i read this story when i was 12. My mom recommended me to read "Le petit prince" when i was 8 or 9. She had a vietnamese version. At that time, I was lazy to read any stories. Le petit prince is a nice story for us to read especially for the children.( like me hì hì ).
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WHAT DO WE LIVE FOR, IF NOT TO MAKE LIFE LESS DIFFICULT FOR ONE ANOTHER