{"id":7494,"date":"2004-04-14T23:19:40","date_gmt":"2004-04-14T23:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/04\/down_to_earth.html"},"modified":"2004-04-14T23:19:40","modified_gmt":"2004-04-14T23:19:40","slug":"down_to_earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/04\/down_to_earth.html","title":{"rendered":"Down to Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

I meant to blog, but forgot, the news last week that the remains of Antoine Saint-Exupery’s crashed aircraft, found in 2000, had been positively identified. <\/p>\n

Here’s a WSJ Opinion Journal piece on Saint-Exupery, <\/a> confirming my own puzzled stance on him as a writer.<\/p>\n

Instead, they relish Saint-Exup\u00e9ry’s murky observations, excerpted in “A Guide For Grown-ups: Essential Wisdom from the Collected Works of Antoine de Saint-Exup\u00e9ry” (Harcourt), edited by Anna M. Burgard. Some gems follow: “love is not thinking, but being”; “in giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude”; and “friendship is born from an identity of spiritual goals–from common navigation toward a star.” Being Saint-Exup\u00e9ry means never having to say you’re sorry.<\/p>\n

Sampling the readers’ opinions of his books on amazon.com, one finds admirers hardly less passionate and devout than readers of the Bible and “Das Kapital.” After all, the story of a Little Prince from another planet who enlightens a downed pilot about the real meaning of life is in the domain of spiritual philosophy, however blatantly expressed, belying “The Little Prince’s” perplexing reputation as a book for children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I know. I must have read The Little Prince<\/em> when I was young, because I was pretty assiduous about checking off “classics” from my to-read list for a time there, but I remembered nothing about it. Then, when Katie was around 7 or so, I guess, I decided we would read it together. Because you know, it was this charming book. I skipped many pages.<\/p>\n

When it comes to little boys and other planets, I’ll take Harold,<\/a> thanks. He’s more my speed.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I meant to blog, but forgot, the news last week that the remains of Antoine Saint-Exupery’s crashed aircraft, found in 2000, had been positively identified. Here’s a WSJ Opinion Journal piece on Saint-Exupery, confirming my own puzzled stance on him as a writer. 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She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}