The Little Prince: A New York Story
The Morgan Library & Museum,
225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016-3405
January 24–April 27, 2014
Reviewed by Ed Voves
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry lived a life of adventure as an aviator during the golden age of flight in the 1920's and 30's. Saint-Exupéry wrote memorable accounts of his flights over the Sahara Desert in celebrated novels like Wind, Sand and Stars. But a vivid exhibit now at the Morgan Library and Museum recounts Saint-Exupéry's most incredible experience of all - his encounter with the mysteries of life and eternity in the guise of The Little Prince.
The Morgan exhibit is styled "a New York Story." It is a very fitting subtitle.
Saint-Exupéry lived for two years in New York City during World War II. He was "grounded." He was a pilot without a plane. Worse, Saint-Exupéry was a patriot whose country was gripped by defeat, with much of France under Nazi occupation and the rest governed by the powerless, collaborating Vichy government.
It would be wrong to say that Saint-Exupéry was "stranded" in the desperate circumstances of the pilot of the downed aircraft in The Little Prince. He had the support of American friends like Silvia Hamilton (to whom he gave the manuscript of The Little Prince) and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
But 1941-43 were years of the "dark night of the soul" for France, while Saint-Exupéry suffered the special anguish of a man of action without a mission.
Saint-Exupéry, however, used his time in New York to good account. The exhibit at the Morgan Library presents the fascinating story of how Saint-Exupéry labored during these years on the story and illustrations for a tale of fantasy that remains one of the great literary classics of the twentieth century.
Published in 1943, The Little Prince has been translated into more than two hundred languages. It has been read and pondered by millions of people, by children and by adults who - like Saint-Exupéry himself - never joined the ranks of spiritless, uncomprehending "grown-ups."
Saint-Exupéry once declared that "I come from my childhood, as though it were a homeland." The Prince in The Little Prince is certainly an alter ego for Saint-Exupéry, as much as the crashed-landed aviator. Saint-Exupéry was a deeply thoughtful man and though he was a Romantic at heart, he was not a sentimental one. If the Little Prince hails from the realm of childhood, then the loneliness, sorrows and anxieties of youth travel with him.
The millions of readers of The Little Prince will be immediately familiar with the image of the tousled-haired visitor from Asteroid B-612. The golden mop of hair (Saint-Exupéry actually used a mop-top doll as a model for the Little Prince), the lime-green jump suit and debonair bow-tie, the Prince's wide-open circular eyes that recall the round orbs of Little Orphan Annie. These signature traits from the published version of The Little Prince are instantly recognizable hallmarks of an idealized view of childhood.
The Little Prince in Saint-Exupéry's manuscript evokes a very different response.
Consider the two versions, published and manuscript, of the Little Prince as he uses a hoe to uproot a baobab sapling. In Saint-Exupéry's vision of the ecology of Asteroid B-612, the "bad seeds" of huge baobab trees will strangle his miniature realm unless the Little Prince "tend" his planet. In the published illustration, the Little Prince is calmly "tilling his garden" as if he were Voltaire's Candide.
The contrasting manuscript illustration shows the Little Prince in a frenzy of action. He has inverted eyebrows that are entirely lacking in the published version. His eyes have a manic cast and he grips the hoe like a lance. This is hardly an image of a fantasy tale for children.
Instead, the Little Prince appears as an avenging angel uprooting evil. There has been speculation that Saint-Exupéry cast the offending baobabs as symbols of the demonic legions of the Third Reich that had overwhelmed his beloved France. Is The Little Prince a political allegory of World War II rather than the timeless tale of wonder that most people believe it to be?
The Little Prince has been subjected to a barrage of interpretations alluding to people in Saint-Exupéry's private life. Did the solitary rose that the Little Prince loved, but left behind on Asteroid B-612, symbolize Saint-Exupéry's beautiful, often-estranged wife, Consuelo? Was the wise fox modeled after Silvia Hamilton, the young American woman who befriended Saint-Exupéry in New York?
We are unlikely to get definitive answers to these questions. The Morgan exhibit wisely concentrates on the creative process that gave birth to The Little Prince.
One of the most striking features of the Morgan exhibit is how much Saint-Exupéry created - and then rejected from the final draft of his book. In keeping with the New York setting of Saint-Exupéry's work on The Little Prince, the exhibition notes that he originally mentions New York City in the early drafts:
If you constructed a huge building 50 stories tall (just like Rockefeller Center)
that covered Manhattan, and if all of mankind stood inside, you could house
the whole world in Manhattan!
Perhaps wisely, Saint-Exupéry deleted these local references for more cosmic ones. Likewise, a number of his most powerful, if disturbing, images did not make the final cut. Amazingly, some very endearing pictures were not included as well.
Saint-Exupéry drew a picture of the Little Prince leading his mentor, the wise, long-eared fox, on a very loose leash. Or is the fox leading the Prince? Whatever the case, this sketch illustrates one of the most important themes of the book, the bond of friendship and responsibility. The fox advises the Little Prince that there is accountability to our actions.
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."
The text of The Little Prince states that the Prince "tamed" the fox, in short became his friend. There is no explicit mention of a walk with the fox on a leash, so on one level, it is understandable that this picture never advanced beyond the draft stage. But the power of relationship is so central to The Little Prince and the wisdom of the fox so profound that it is perplexing that only two images of the fox appear in the book.
Saint-Exupéry worked long and diligently on The Little Prince. This was no slap-dash affair to generate badly needed revenue. Nor, given Saint-Exupéry's aversion to propaganda of any type, was the book directly aimed to aid the Allied war-effort, baobabs or no baobabs. We can see the personal effort that it cost Saint-Exupéry to wrestle with these issues, these themes of the place of human beings in the universe and of the debt we humans owe to the universe - and to each other.
The cigarette burns and coffee stains on the manuscript pages on display at the Morgan reveal Saint-Exupéry's determination to make a final statement representing his life philosophy before risking his life once more in the liberation of his country, pour le France.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in Alghero, Sardinia, May 1944
In 1998, an identity bracelet bearing Saint-Exupéry’s name and the address of the American publisher of The Little Prince, Reynal & Hitchcock, was recovered by a fisherman from the Mediterranean Sea. The bracelet is on view at the Morgan, the first time it has appeared in the United States.
Identity bracelet of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944)
Worn during his last mission with the 2/33 French Reconnaissance Group
By 1998, The Little Prince had attained the status of a classic. Saint-Exupéry’s last testament has acquired many meanings, with French fighter pilots wearing the picture of the Little Prince as an insignia on their flight jackets, while for many people the Little Prince is an almost Christlike figure of peace and non-violence. Worn during his last mission with the 2/33 French Reconnaissance Group
The wonderful exhibit at the Morgan won't settle those issues for you.
But after seeing the exhibit, you will, I think, gain some insight into the fox's other great words of advice to the Little Prince:
"One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."
***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved Images Courtesy of the Morgan Library and Museum
Introductory Image :
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944)
The Little Prince (title page)
New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1943
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
Photography by Graham S. Haber, 2013
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944)
The Little Prince (page 11)
New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1943
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
Photography by Graham S. Haber, 2013
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944)
The Little Prince (page 15)
New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1943
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
Photography by Graham S. Haber, 2013
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944)
Drawing for The Little Prince
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
© Estate of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Photography by Graham S. Haber, 2013
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944)
Drawing for The Little Prince
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
© Estate of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Photography by Graham S. Haber, 2013
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944)
Drawing for The Little Prince
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
© Estate of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Photography by Graham S. Haber, 2013
John Phillips (1914–1996)
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in Alghero, Sardinia, May 1944
Silver gelatin print
Collection of Andrea Cairone, New York
© John and Annamaria Phillips Foundation
Identity bracelet of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944)
Worn during his last mission with the 2/33 French Reconnaissance
Group under the command of the Mediterranean Allied Photo
Reconnaissance Wing, 31 July 1944
Estate of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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