As a child’s book, it is interested a simplified exploration of the divide between an adult’s and a child’s worldviews. It successfully made me entirely sympathetic toward the child’s worldview. Or at least, I sympathize with how sometimes it feels as if the adult world does operate on the level where if you describe a beautiful red brick house with a window facing a fountain, it holds...
more As a child’s book, it is interested a simplified exploration of the divide between an adult’s and a child’s worldviews. It successfully made me entirely sympathetic toward the child’s worldview. Or at least, I sympathize with how sometimes it feels as if the adult world does operate on the level where if you describe a beautiful red brick house with a window facing a fountain, it holds less interest then if you were to say that you saw a house worth $500,000.
The book is quiet and contained, emphasizing the moments where characters connect or fail to connect. The situations are absurd in the delightful way a child’s book can be absurd, traveling to world’s presenting people living their lives tailored to one idea and the prince’s observations on that idea. The king who’s word is absolute but is too kind-hearted to demand the impossible, the man who dutifully but grudgingly follows a lifelong schedule despite the increasing difficulty of it, the lone inhabitant who takes too much pride in his geography to be bothered to actually chart his maps himself. The commentary on the real-life equivalents seems plainly spoken but despite the charm of these encounters, the relationships between the prince and the rose, the fox, and the pilot resonated most with me. The metaphor presented felt like such an optimistic and yet, genuine portrayal of how people relate to one another and it really raised my spirits. Not toward humanity as it was mostly portrayled unflatteringly, not toward the ending which was appropriate to the tone of the story, but toward the idea that there are individuals worth believing in.
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