"If I've told you these details about Asteroid B-612 and I've given you its number, it is on account of the grown-ups. Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: 'What does his voice sound like?' 'What games does he like best?' 'Does he collect butterflies?' They ask: 'How old is he?' 'How many brothers does he have?' 'How much does he weigh?' 'How much money does his father make?' Only then do they think they know him. If you tell grown-ups, 'I saw a beautiful red brick house, with geraniums at the windows and doves on the roof...,' they won't be able to imagine such a house. You have to tell them, 'I saw a house worth a hundred thousand francs.' Then they exclaim, 'What a pretty house!'"
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Le Petit Prince, p. 10, English edition)
I don't really classify Le Petit Prince as a postmodern novel, but that statement reminded me of our discussions on language, and how, according to Derrida, we cannot escape it. But it seems that here, Saint-Exupery took the concept of language a step further and said that children and adults cannot communicate well because they speak in different languages. Children use words, and to adults, numbers have become the new way to communicate, and each side considers the other's way of communicating to be wrong and even laughable. Even the author (as the narrator), feels like he is falling between the two worlds of language, and doesn't seem sure which side he is supposed to take.
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1 comment:
You're right in taking it a step further. It's a clear example not so much on the Immanence of Language, but the smaller sublets of language that people confine themselves to.
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