The Tale Of The Rose: The Love Story Behind The Little Prince (2003) - Plot & Excerpts
NO SPOILERS!!!Having finished the book, I have added a few comments at the end.....I am reading The Tale of the Rose: The Love Story Behind The Little Prince, and opposite to all the negative reviews given here at GR, I like it. I like it A LOT!!!! I am shocked and dismayed and annoyed by what I read in the GR reviews! First of all, the prose is GOOD. People complain about the translation since Consuelo wrote it in French, yet she is originally Spanish speaking. I don't agree at all! What I will say is that these people who have written the reviews do not really love The Little Prince. Why? Because you recognize the similarity in prose style, in how Antoine and Consuelo thought. The prose is simple, plainspoken and full of naive thoughts, and yet it says so much. THAT is its charm. "His (Antoine's) images had extraordinary charm, and there was a wild note of truth to even his most fantastical stories." (page 17)And then the reviewers think Consuelo is weak and a doormat. Forget that! She loved Antoine and she KNEW what she was getting herself into when she chose marriage to him. She says:"I was being offered the role of a wife in a play. Was I right for the part? Did I really want to play it?" (page 34)She LOVED him. She chose to marry him. She was willing to take the bad with the good. I am halfway through the book. I cannot keep my mouth shut any more. I assume Antoine is going to get even more mean and crazy and wound up in his own world. People with daring and imaginative qualities are NOT easy to live with, but a life with them brings marvelous experiences too! Life will be intense and never dull. I believe they fit each other. Let me backtrack a bit and show you how they met, one evening at a party, and what they said to each other:"I beg your pardon," Crémieux replied. "I forgot to introduce you. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, pilot and aviator. He'll show you Buenos Aires from above, and the stars too. You see, he adores the stars.""I don't like to fly," I said. "I don't like things that go fast. I don't like seeing too many faces at once. And I want to leave." (the party)"But faces have nothing to do with stars!" the dark-haired man (Antoine) cried. "You think our heads are so distant from the star?""Oh," he exclaimed in surprise. "You have stars in your head, do you?"I have yet to meet a man who has seen my true stars," I confessed with a touch of melancholy. "But we are talking nonsense. I told you. I don't like to fly. Even walking to fast makes my head spin." (page 13-14)But were they talking nonsense? Do you see the similarity in this and The Little Prince?I am going out on a limb b/c I haven't finished the book yet. I am just so darn annoyed about all the negative things said about the couple and the book. I thoroughly enjoy it. Jeez, I am annoyed!You really get to know who these two people are, both Consuelo and Antoine. If you want a fairy tale, pick up a book by Grimm. I just had to spurt a little bit.***************************************************************On completion:Who ever said love was easy? I like the prose style of this book. I like its simplicity. And I like and sometimes hate the characters. Yes, both. If The Little Prince speaks to you, you will love this book as I do. Antoine was one hell of a person to live with. To read and understand this book you must be willing to change your time-frame and not judge the people by modern standards. Women today think you are a doormat if you act as Consuelo did! Even Consuelo's friends could scarcely understand her love for a man who hurt her as no one else did. Antoine could not live with nor could he live without Consuelo. The same is true for Consuelo's feelings for her husband! This book should be read with The Little Prince. P.S. If you are going to be driven crazy by Antoine's terrible behavior, if you are going to logically get frustrated by Consuelo's inability to protect herself, then maybe this book isn't for you. I think people are crazy and do illogical things. The middle road is oh so comfortable, but you miss out on a lot that life offers.
In this book Consuelo de Saint Exupéry tells the story about her stormy marriage to the famous Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. My God! What a mess! Antoine is a womanizer of the first degree, but at the same time he apparently wants to maintain his marriage to Consuelo. Antoine is a total chaotic, he all the time fly around, crashes and gets seriously wounded, move around all over the world and have innumerable affairs with other woman, especially after he becomes a global household name. But he must have been a great man because he has an electricising effect on other people. He seems like a funny mixture of something really lovingly and tender and at other times appear like a sheer psykopat. There is definitely an heroic air about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. He is a warrior and his flights are really dangerous, atleast time after time he crashes. Consuelo and Antoine live in a circle of famous friends: Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Greta Garbo, Marcel Duchamp, etc. And Antoine is a celebrity. Consuelo spend much of the time waiting for Antoine who is always go somewhere else, she is always filled with her love towards him and often frustration, she seems a bit hysteric and at times she is also at a sanatorium in Switzerland. A cool thing I will remember from the book is when Consuelo wants to paint her and Antoines new apartment in Paris. Consuelo wants the color of the walls to be exactly like the color of water in a bathtub. So they invite their artist friends to come and find just the right color. And who finds the right color? Well - Marcel Duchamp of course!
What do You think about The Tale Of The Rose: The Love Story Behind The Little Prince (2003)?
My reactions are much the same. Saint-Exupery long ago opened to me the realm, and reality, of flight. The ever-shifting facts of his literary legacy and life have trickled in -- bit by bit -- over the years. Consuelo played an inimitable and highly significant part in his life from which she cannot be dislodged. Stacy Schiff's recent biography is masterful and treats Consuelo in a most credible and deserving way -- capturing both her fire, somewhat immature yet passionate love, and her colorful, numerous, and self-dramatizing idiosyncrasies.
—Becky Sokolowski
Thank goodness I eventually managed to finish with this one; it was taking too much. So, having read most of the book's reviews around here, I was kind of determined to hate Saint-Ex. once I finished the book, but while reading it I realized those two had something most of us wouldn't bear: a kind of love-and-hate relationship that would destroy both partners if they were separated for too long and eat them inside if they stayed too much together. So basically, they just went with the flow. Head over heels when they met, some quiet moments, then storms, he left, she suffered, he came back, they separated, he got injured, she looked after him, together, separated and so on. I don't agree with all those who feel pity for Consuelo. From where I'm standing, she's a strong woman, quite determined and very intelligent. So I believe it was her choice to put up with all his whims, cheating, childish behaviour and everything. And if, after 13 years of marriage, one can write such a delicate and powerful love letter, then it's no doubt: there was love all along.P.S. Unfortunately, Consuelo wasn't as talented a writer as her husband, but she was, nevertheless, a wonderful woman.
—Lavinia
I'm not a huge fan of "The Little Prince," although it has been so many years since I read it perhaps my feelings about it would be different now. I knew nothing about the author nor anything about his wife who wrote this memoir. I am not sure that I know much more about either one now, except they had quite the tumultuous marriage. But most of the memoir has a kind of whiney tone and a lot of melodramatic histrionics from the narrator about her multiple separations from her husband. She traveled extensively and in interesting circles so there was a lot of potential for the narrative to be far more intriguing than it is.
—Marcy
