Despite the heavy-handed religious reading of the book and some proselytizing, many will enjoy learning about Saint-Exupéry...
The story behind one of the world’s most popular books.
Early on in this intriguing quest to solve the “enigma” of The Little Prince, “a true publishing phenomenon,” child psychologist Lassus notes that the book is fourth on the list of the world’s “most-read” books, after the Bible, the Quran, and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung. The favorite book of both Martin Heidegger and James Dean was written in America during World War II at the request of the exiled author’s American publisher. Antoine Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944) was experiencing “deep moral anguish” at the time as well as writing a spiritual autobiography, The Wisdom of the Sands, which was posthumously published. Beautifully illustrated with watercolors by the author, this fairy tale for children, as some describe it, is about a little lost boy/prince from another planet who lands in a desert where a pilot is trying to repair his plane. They both want to go home. Saint-Exupéry was an accomplished pilot who wrote a number of hugely popular and award-winning autobiographical books about aviation. He was brought up Catholic in a family dominated by women but never seriously practiced his religion as an adult. Lassus notes that there are no women in The Little Prince and that the author also once crashed a plane in the desert. Lassus goes on to interpret the book as a “metaphor of the author’s life,” identifying real-life parallels for key elements in the book. He focuses on what he sees as the book’s spiritual message, exploring such topics as the annunciation, ascension, and Eden; quotations from the Bible become prevalent. For Lassus, the book seems “more of a parable than a fairy tale.”
Despite the heavy-handed religious reading of the book and some proselytizing, many will enjoy learning about Saint-Exupéry and his life and how he came to write such a beloved book.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62872-681-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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