The Tale of the Rose: The Love Story Behind The Little Prince [Paperback]

Consuelo de Saint-Exupery (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 14, 2003

Consuelo and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry met in Buenos Aires in 1930—she a seductive young widow, he a brave pioneer of early aviation, decorated for his acts of heroism in the deserts of North Africa. He was large in his passions, a fierce loner with a childlike appetite for danger. She was frail and voluble, exotic and capricious. Within hours of their first encounter, he knew he would have her as his wife.

Their love affair and marriage would take them from Buenos Aires to Paris to Casablanca to New York. It would take them through periods of betrayal and infidelity, pain and intense passion, devastating abandonment and tender, poetic love. The Tale of the Rose is the story of a man of extravagant dreams and of the woman who was his muse, the inspiration for the Little Prince’s beloved rose—unique in all the world—whom he could not live with and could not live without.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Reading his wife's lyrical yet frank memoir of their turbulent marriage, it's easy to see why Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944) depicted her as the prince's beloved, difficult Rose in his most famous book, The Little Prince. The French writer's feelings for his Salvadoran wife were passionate from the moment they met in Buenos Aires. On that very first day in 1930, he cajoled her aboard his airplane, even though she was afraid of flying, and extorted a kiss by cutting the engine and threatening to drown them both in the waters below. He proposed marriage just a few days later, and the revolution roiling Argentina was hardly more unsettling for Consuelo than the emotions aroused by her swashbuckling aviator-author. "For you I am nothing but a dream," she explains. "But I want you to know I am not an object or a doll; I don't change faces on command." Blending the everyday with the abstract in a style reminiscent of The Little Prince's elliptical prose, Consuelo limns a man who loved her yet couldn't resist the adulation of other women or sit still long enough to build a life together. "You're the kind of man who is constantly in need of struggle, conquest," she tells him. "Leave, then. Leave." So off he went, on flights that often ended in crashes while she waited anxiously (but seldom patiently)--until he vanished for good during a wartime reconnaissance mission in 1944. Written a year later but unpublished until 2000, when it became a bestseller in France, Consuelo's portrait reveals a Saint-Exupéry far more human than the tragic, mythical hero constructed by his worshipful countrymen. --Wendy Smith --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Twice widowed and not yet 30, Consuelo Suncin married the dashing young aviator Comte Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry in 1931. As depicted in this posthumous memoir (written in 1945, it lay undiscovered until the 1990s), they were an impossible couple: childlike and terminally irresponsible, Saint-Ex (as his friends called him) broke engagements without a word to disappear for months. Consuelo sometimes na?ve, often egotistical, and always temperamental frequently exploded in nervous fits (one acquaintance described her as "Surrealism made flesh"). From Buenos Aires to Casablanca, Paris and New York, they failed to establish a home for themselves; Saint-Ex repeatedly fled the constraints of marriage, only to find he could not write without his wife's support and inspiration. She, for her part, loved him too much to leave him for good. Friends described Consuelo as a charming storyteller, always ready with a vivid observation ("She had the face of an umbrella" is her stab at a suspected rival). At its most heartrending, this book tells the story of a proud, charismatic woman who lived only for her husband, following him from continent to continent as he deceived and neglected her, then pleaded for her return when he began writing again. In 1943 he wrote The Little Prince, immortalizing Consuelo as the Prince's beloved Rose, too proud and thorny to admit her pain at his departure. A year later, the aviator disappeared over the Atlantic. For his many devotees, this memoir will offer an intimate glimpse of the strange and passionate life behind his mysterious work. (July 3)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (January 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812967178
• ISBN-13: 978-0812967173
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #185,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps the agony of Consuelo, December 11, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Tale of the Rose: The Passion That Inspired The Little Prince (Hardcover)

Great men often leave great pain in their wake. So it seems from Consuelo de St. Exupery's writings about her relationship with her husband Antoine de St. Exupery.

The book covers the time from when the couple met in Buenos Aires and the way Antoine (or Tonio as Consuelo called him) completely took over her life until he left Consuelo in the United States to return to France in during WWII.

For those who question the authorship, this was most certainly written by a woman who lovingly supported by her husband's endeavors. Her pain can be felt through the words relating her feelings on his inattention, negligence and infidelities. The marriage endured despite situations that most independent women today would consider intolerable.

In light of the situations Consuelo experiences; she comes across as strong, intelligent, enterprising woman. She dealt with conditions during WWII in France that were common at the time, but today would leave many people unable continue with any sense of dignity.

The question arises as why Consuelo did not leave Tonio. There are some passages that allude to the possibility of ending the marriage. It seems that Tonio would show up and create a situation where she would no longer have legal grounds to divorce.

For those who love the book The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery, the Tale of the Rose gives interesting insight as to why the Little Prince was having trouble with his Rose.

27 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dissenting view, March 1, 2007

By 

John D. Bartone (St. Petersburg, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Tale of the Rose: The Love Story Behind The Little Prince (Paperback)

As American Idol judge Randy Jackson would say: "You want me to keep this real, don't you?" Well, the reality is that anyone coming to Consuelo de Saint Exupery's THE TALE OF THE ROSE is arriving by way of THE LITTLE PRINCE, and any interest there is in what this woman has to say is directly related to her role as her husband's muse and as his inspiration for the Rose in his classic tale. Sadly, the reality is also that THE LITTLE PRINCE is mentioned here exactly once, on page 293 (hardcover edition), a betrayal of the promise implied by the book's subtitle, THE PASSION THAT INSPIRED THE LITTLE PRINCE.

The remaining 307 pages are the disjointed ramblings of a meritless opportunist. It's hard to know where to lay the blame in matters of style and tone (awful and awfuler) in a translated work such as this, but blame for the excruciatingly dull content can safely be laid at the author's feet. This is a long slog through the tedious facts of a dysfunctional relationship with no insight whatsoever into her own or her husband's actions. She is self-centered and self-serving. More disheartening, however, is the depiction of Antoine de Saint Exupery. I think it is natural while reading THE LITTLE PRINCE to equate the author with the Pilot and therefore to romanticize him. How disappointing to discover he is a deceitful lout.

Of course this is only one side of the story, and at some point in the future I will seek out an objective biography of Antoine. Sadly, this memoir has done nothing to enhance my appreciation of his great work. In fact just the opposite is true, and so for now the Little Prince's star is shining a little less brightly.

24 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great read... not such a great lady, January 22, 2006

By 

Z. Freeman "Zach" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Tale of the Rose: The Love Story Behind The Little Prince (Paperback)

I have pretty mixed feelings about this whole book. The book itself is a super-fast paced read. I couldn't put it down and read the whole thing in a day. The writing stays interesting, maybe because it's like a 60-year old tabloid story involving Antoine de St. Exupery... I mean, come on, what's not to like?

But all the reviews talk about Consuelo as some kind of great woman who was incredibly strong, and even with her self-aggrandizing way of writing, I can't buy that.

In my opinion she was a 1930's Paris Hilton, living off the celebrity of the people around her and never doing anything constructive herself. She even had a little Pekinese dog! But Antoine, or as she calls him, Tonio, hardly gives her any attention throughout their 13 year marriage, and when he does, it's just to lie to her so that she won't leave. He continuously "breaks her heart" until she faints or cries or "something breaks inside her", which just makes me wonder, how often can the same person do the same thing to you before everyone around you stops feeling sorry for you and tells you to get over it and leave?

She knows he has mistresses, she knows he doesn't love her, and she follows him around and complains about how miserable he makes her. But, anyway, maybe that's just me being middle-class and I don't understand how the rich and their relationships work... I guess providing her with the last name de St. Exupery and making sure she never had to work is what real love is about...

Anyway, but regardless of how I feel about her, the book itself is a great read and will really make you feel differently about The Little Prince. It's a different side of Mr. Antoine de St. Exupery that you never knew about. So, check it out.