read the little prince. i know its a kids book but ive been trying to read more this year and so far ive read the necrophiliac, notes on suicide, and in the very slow process of reading erotism: death and sensuality. and arent those all super dark subjects?! so something lighter and easy to digest.... i liked the little prince. unedited notes taken from when i was reading:
its a book about childhood and the curiousity and wonder of life that exists when you are a child.
your worldview is free and unrestricted by common sense and normality. growing up requires an understanding and compliance
to rules, both in social rules and logical rules. the entire universe and existence itself seems amazing and baffling to a child. life has not yet become mundane and mundane explanations for common phenomena, nature, etc. have not set in as truth. if everything seems fantastical, then fantastical explanations are no more nonsensical or ridiculous.
the little prince is alone, like the narrator who sees himself akin to a child in an adults body. although the narrator has learned to mask and fit in with adult society, he feels isolated in his differing perception of the world, his inability to take everything for granted and understand rules that 'simply are'. he is still grounded in more of the reality than
the little prince is. but the little prince has nobody to enforce rules or common sense in his planet, and he is free and unburdened by the standards of others. he is free but deeply lonely, in his literal isolation. a contrast to the narrator who is shackled by social rules and surrounded by people, but still lonely due to his inability to
relate
the king's "logic" is that he is in charge of all things. in reality, he is in charge of nothing, but because he has convinced himself of his authority, he percieves the natural processes of the universe to be agreements to his own commands and confirmation of his authority, when common sense would dictate that the king in fact forms his commands around that which already happens without his input
the concieted man is the opposite of the king. he demands the prince to clap, and the prince does so, and the concieted man takes the prince's clapping to be praise instead of the result agreement to his command. the tippler's logic is circular, an explanation akin to "it simply is that way". so is that of the businessman, who collects more stars simply to hoard, that he can use to buy more stars later. he does not admire the stars, he simply wants to own them so he may use them to purchase more. circular logic that relies on an adult standard of "the way things are"
the lamplighter cares for the lamp, but it is not out of love, it is obligation. nonetheless, it looks much to the little prince like a kind of love, because he is acting for something outside himself, rather than a self indulgence justified by circular logic like the other adults
value is given to things through love, and that makes things special. but value in adult society is decided largely by what others deem useful or expensive, brands, and other signs of "worth" that are meaningless to a child.
obsession over living productively blinds people to the wonder of living in the moment
the little prince was a lost child, and died a child. his death, in the eyes of a child, is a return to his planet. he justifies his own death this way. is that escapism, denial of reality? or an invitation for the narrator to not mourn too much, to not focus on misery, but remember the prince with fondness and love?
very umineko-esque. i thought of maria.