Le Petit Prince


The Little Prince , by Antoine De Saint-Exupery (author and illustrator). Pasti sudah banyak yang tahu buku ini, soalnya termasuk buku klasik. Tapi kalau anda belum tahu, wajar aja, kan buku jaman lama ..grin. Saya sendiri, walau sudah lama pernah dengar, baru dapat kesempatan membaca dan mempunyai buku ini sekitar 3 tahun yang lalu.

Buku ini bagi saya seperti sebuah misteri (mudah-mudahan gak berlebih-lebihan). Sekilas dibaca dan dilihat ini buku anak-anak, buku dongeng, karena ya memang isinya absurd (but simple) seperti dongeng dan penuh ilustrasi seperti layaknya buku anak-anak. Namun menurut banyak orang (saya lebih dulu banyak membaca review-nya daripada bukunya, so I'm no longer objective), buku ini sangat penuh pemikiran. Tentang karakter manusia (dewasa): haus kekuasan, kerakusan, kesombongan, kepatuhan yang buta; semuanya disimbolkan oleh tokoh-tokoh (king, businessman, geographer, lamplighter) yang ditemui si Pangeran Kecil dalam petualangannya.

Little Prince juga mengajarkan tentang persahabatan (simbolized by fox) dan cinta (rose).


"Tame me." The little prince asked "What is it to tame?" The fox replies, "It is to establish ties. ..to me, you are nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys and I have no need of you. ....But if you tame me , than we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world."

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." "It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important." "You become responsible , forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."

"You are beautiful, but you are empty. One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose."


Buku ini misteri buat saya. Begitu banyak yang bisa diungkapkan dalam sebuah buku yang kecil dan tipis ini. Begitu banyak orang yang membacanya, anak-anak dan orang dewasa, dari masa ke masa. Begitu banyak analisis dibuat untuk buku ini, bahkan konon buku ini juga dibahas di perkuliahan di fakultas psikologi. Begitu banyak orang yang terinspirasi.... What a little book?!!

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