The grand blue, the desert, and the golden-haired boy

[jollyman]

The grand blue, the desert, and the golden-haired boy

‘Terra di Verde’ for the rainy day

I’m sitting at a café around Chong-ro looking outside through a glass wall. There’s nothing that possibly makes me reminiscent of any kind of bright blue of the sky or ocean that I’m craving for. Surrounded by sky scrapers confining me in the middle of gray city, I’m nothing more than a miserable child cornered by nasty bullies. Even the gray sky seems unkind to come down around the edges of ugly looking stone-and-steel buildings of this city. Please give me a room to breathe! I decided to turn on my music player and began looking for ‘Terra di Verde’ played by T-square.

‘Terra di Verde’ is one of the best music pieces ever played by T-square, a Japanese group of commercial Jazz players. Actually the title of this placid music piece, yet featured with good amount of desire of soaring up to the sky or reaching over the horizon of Atlantic oceans of Lapis Lazuli simmering with the sunrays, holds some meaning to me. You are going to take it as strange. Why does this guy talk about the great blue of the ocean or the sky while he talks about music? I dare say there is good reason for that and that’s the perfect reason why I picked up this music on this gloomily rainy day.

I wish my younger days were full of adventures but, as a matter of fact, they were not. Me and my boys were always snooping around for some mishaps to spend our adrenaline as any average freshman does in their undergraduate days in a university and we found our haven in a computer game named ‘New horizon’ (or 大航海時代 2) about the adventures on the sea as a privateer roaming around all over the world to chase after the dream of fame and wealth. In this connection, I may have some liberty to tell you that my school was located near the eastern sea and maybe it made us to desire the dream of a seaman. Still I miss the smell of the salty sea wind or fog I was familiar with when I was living around there. It was really great when the setting sun began to redden the western sky to make the wonderous art piece of the claret-colored clouds. As you can easily get it, the dusk was the green light for us to live our night life as a sea captain on the virtual ocean of the ‘New horizon’. (Of course I have more stories of our misdemeanors in our reckless puppy days without monitoring from seniors, but it might be better to save it for the best.)

The geographical designation, Verde, was from the famous geographical designation, Cape Verde, located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and to the west from North Africa. It was one of several strategically important points when our virtual sea life went on, because Cape Verde was famous for the pivotal role as the last sea port and played enormously crucial for logistics and cargoes when we set sails toward the New World from the African side of Atlantic ocean. (We hardly forget the name of the port naturally.)

Can you get the picture? Toward the horizon which draws the distinction between the grand blue of the ocean and a little bit lighter but still eye-piercing blue of the sky, a boat sets sails and a sea bird soars into the sky… I imagined a boy standing on a hill facing westbound from the sea port, somewhere near the Cape Verde, watching that boat faring from the port to the horizon. He might want to get aboard to see the greater world but was not fetterless from the sure prospect of sadness he would suffer from the homesickness. ‘Terra di Verde’, meaning ‘the earth of Verde’, was throwing those images to me when I firstly introduced with the rendition of T-square, I am not sure they really composed it with these images in their mind, though. It was telling me a story of desiring the freedom of the ocean but simultaneously being saddened with some extent of sadness.

So what am I doing here? Just delving into the reminiscence of my yesterdays and the ambivalent sentiment of ‘Terra di Verde? Maybe… But, actually not. I happen to read ‘The little prince’ of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and made my mind to write something about this book while I listen to ‘The earth of Verde’.

Did the Little prince have that kind of ambivalent feelings when he got on his journey?

According to the narrator, the reason why He decided an adventure and went out of his planet - actually it was an asteroid, named B612 – was that he began to be jaded with his flower’s vain attitude toward him. He loved his flower and gave her everything that he could produce, but he was not happy because he couldn’t understand his flower’s responses now and again. And then he might grow curious about things out of his planet as people used to do in their juvenile age or when they are troubled with mind-boggling situations around them.

But what he found out of his little planet were grown-ups who were so serious about tedious and not important things. He had gone through several other asteroids numbered from 325 to 330. The first one was occupied by the king who wanted to control everything around him – even the little prince’s impulse to yawn, the second was by the conceited man who had nobody to admire him, the third was by the drunkard who was constantly drunken because he was so ashamed of his drinking and so got back to drinking again, the fourth was by the businessman who alleged the ownerships of innumerable number of stars but hadn’t stepped on any one of his stars on his list, the fifth was by the lamplighter who was so responsible to keep orders - he was the only person who was empathized by the little prince because he was the only one who cared for others but not himself among the grown-ups whom the little prince met on this journey, and the sixth and last one was by the geographer who didn’t care for ephemeral things like the little prince’s flower but told him to visit the globe.

When he came down to the planet earth, it was so barren and he couldn’t find anyone, even though the planet earth had to be inhabited by innumerably large number of kings, vain men, business men, drunkards, lamplighters and geographers: simply put, grown-ups who were apt to ‘sweat the small stuffs’. It was desert and so far from where people lived. But anyway he made his first acquaintance on the earth soon after his landing on the earth. The first critter which the little prince met was the yellow desert snake with poisoned pangs. He responded to the little prince’s making fun of the snake’s size and moving ability with words like this, ‘… But (I am) much powerful than kings' fingers. … I can take you further than a ship. Anyone I touch I send the land where he came. But you are innocent and you come from star. I feel sorry for you so weak on this planet earth. I can help you someday if you grow homesick for your planet.’

At last part of this story this snake provided the little prince with his lethal service. But how could the innocent but wise little prince be ended up with that snake’s bite on the ankle in the middle of desert, which was so much detached from where people lived, even though he knew the hidden connotations in that unctuous desert snake’s vain words to offer his hubristically precious service to the little prince? Perhaps the answer could be drawn out from his depression, loneliness, taming, and responsibility. Wow, it is somewhat long row of words without any meaning, huh? But you are going find my point soon.

What waited for the little prince, after he dismissed the snake from his sight, was the whole row of rose bushes with 5000 roses. Every single flower was just looking like his own flower on his planet, B612, and he found his flower was not the only one flower of that species in the whole universe. He was depressed about what he discovered in that rose garden and felt loneliness all of a sudden. He yelled out, ‘Where are you? Let’s be friend.’, but couldn’t find anybody. After a while a fox came to him. The fox kept his distance with the little prince at first but as time went by they grew closer and the pretty fox taught him the secret of taming. The fox told him the flower was unique and special because it was what he loved. He said, ‘Men have forgotten this truth. … But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.’

Perhaps his mind was troubled a lot by the fox’s word. He came to know that he needed to be responsible for his flower that he loved but didn’t know what to do if he couldn’t come back to his planet. It might be the very moment when the little prince began to consider of using what the desert snake promised with the smooth and seductive language.

Was he so desperate to get freed from his body and come back home even with that yellow desert snake’s bite? Was it just a naïve but ineffectual way with no gain but losing all?

The little prince headed for the desert to see the yellow snake which had venom, strong enough to kill a person with just one bite. Of course it was because he remembered the desert snake’s enticing word to help him to come back to where he came from.

Maybe he grew too much homesick, which he couldn’t have even a drop of clear discernment anymore. We don’t know what lead him to the desert. It might be a straw of hope or belief to come back home or, even worse, the death which he construed from the unctuous desert snake’s vain word promising a precious chance to take his own life to remove the pain in his heart.

Nevertheless, there is one thing clear: The reason why he asked the narrator, the aviator whose plane had crash-landed in the middle of nowhere, to draw a sheep could be understood as he believed he was going home soon. Our narrator, the last person who witnessed the physical but, at the same time, ethereal presence of the little prince, was overwhelmed by the request of the little prince, ‘Draw me a sheep.’, because of the wise and charismatic demeanor despite his puerile and naïve appearance. As it may be easily understood, those traits are the best friends of a person who has determination and sheer will to confront the future at any rate and the yellow snake in the desert was of the fate that the little prince made his mind to face no matter what the consequence was.

Some people find the image of Jesus Christ, sacrificing himself to save others, in the little prince’s innocent but determined image. Maybe they are right in a way. They both stranded in the desert and confronted the desert snake, it was only literal meaning of the snake in the case of Jesus, though. Both of them seemed wise and charismatic when they said anything, but still had corporeal needs that we can find where the little prince said, ‘I'm thirsty too. Let's find a well.’ He responded in an uncanny way when he the narrator thought, ‘He (The little prince) might never be thirsty or hungry because a little sunlight might be enough for him.’

Even the little prince said something like this, ‘You know the roses in the garden bloom. No one has tamed them and they haven't tamed anyone. They are beautiful but they are empty. One couldn't die for them. But my rose is more important. She is the one I've watered. She's the one I've put on the glass. She's the one I listened to when she complained or she boasted. She is my rose.’, to the narrator who was busy to contrive to fix his broken airplane, like teaching him that the important thing was not about the body or earthly things but the love. Don’t you think these words that came out of the innocent but wise mouth sound like what Jesus said about the shepherd and his sheep?

But this type of analogy has its own limit. As the rascal-like prosecutor in the American soap drama, Shark, always says, ‘Truth is relative.’, which may be understood like that the interpretations or insinuations of things around us could be sometimes right but sometimes wrong depending on conditions such as time and place.

Therefore, I don’t like to judge what the little prince decided on that typical sunny day of Sahara desert or blame the author or narrator to allow him to resort to that fatal option. Maybe it’s so normal that I’d like to think the little prince finally got back home as the narrator did. This novel is at least taken as a fairy tale which should be happily ended, yet it is a fairy tale for the adults, but not for the children, and has every right to be done in the other way. Maybe, maybe he could get by the death mysteriously and be alive and well somewhere on the planet earth, living his perfectly normal life as an average grown-up. Just like the story of typical atheist who claims that Jesus lived a normal life married with Maria the Magdalene, after his life was saved miraculously from the cross stood on the hill of Calvary. But there would be no other way but to take this interpretation as the little prince’s life was taken away anyway. If he came to be one of the grown-ups, whom he had conspicuously jeered at, it could be understood as nothing but his denigration from something pure and ethereal to something degraded and worldly. From this connotation, we easily obtain the demise of the image of little prince, though the one who had been once the little prince still were alive and well. If the little prince had any options about utilizing the desert snake’s service, all of them were connected directly to his death. In other words, he had no choice but to die.

The little prince of today

Anyway I’d like to believe he finally made it his journey back to his home like the narrator, though we don’t know whether he eventually freed to his home from the body bound by the gravity of the earth; or just dropped dead with no good; or was living somewhere keeping his corporeal life but having lost his soul – his essence of being the little prince. But when the narrator said, ‘… But I know he did get back to his planet, because at daybreak I didn't find his body. … If you should travel Africa someday in the desert, I beg you not to hurry passed. Wait, wait a little just under the star. Then if a child comes to you, if he laughs, if he has golden hair, if he doesn't answer your questions, you will know who he is. If it should happen, be kind and don't let me go on being so sad. Send me word immediately that he's come back.’, did he really mean to believe what he said? I can’t help myself but to ask something like this.

Julius Caesar said, ‘People see what they like to see.’, and maybe it is alright to change it like, ‘People believe what they like to believe.’ Even though I admire Caesar’s gifted mind, genius works, and highly educated words, at least for this time, however, I’d like to be one of the average people who believe what they like to believe, even with the cost of laughter from wise and critical people around me.

What do you think about the little prince’s choice? This fairy tale for the adults is quite thought-provoking. Therefore I suppose there’d be no problem with wrap up my writing with some questions. Actually I didn’t mean to be unkind to end up my writing like this, but I’m too much urged to throw some questions to you.

- Do you believe the little prince get back to his planet with his sheep drawn on a paper?

- Could he keep his flower from that sheep?

- Was he cornered to death because he didn’t have anywhere on the planet earth to go to keep his identity as the little prince?

- What do you think his state of mind - wise or foolish, or even moonlighted, when he allowed the desert snake to wriggle up on his ankle?

I still don’t have my answers about these questions. Maybe I am not wise enough yet. Will you be obliged to answer them for me, please, if you feel you are wise enough?

[jollyman]

생각해 보니 스포일러성의 게시물이 되어버렸습니다만... 어차피 어린왕자 모르는 분들은 없겠죠.