The Metaphor of The Rose ... and What Does it Really Mean (Sex or Love ... or Both)?

The Little Prince and his Rose

Amanda McBroom's
hit song 'The Rose'

As fate would have it, I read two books I had never read before in my life back-to-back, that even the so called "experts" can't agree on as to what the books are really all about, James Joyce's 'Ulysses' and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's 'The Little Prince', both stories heavily reliant on rose metaphors.

Reading Ulysses

I think if I had have read both books by myself without listening to podcasts telling me what to believe these books were all about, I would have been lost and given up on reading these books as "great works" of literature ... well given up on 'Ulysses' at least.

Bloomsday, Gallen and Cyclops?

And while the "experts" views on what they think the elephant in the hat is to them can be helpful in pondering just what the authors of both books may have been trying to convey in their stories, I always tend towards what resonates in my own heart, not theirs.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 44 times Around the Sun and the Elephant in the Hat?

What are these two
elephant huggers on about?-)

Poor old Carl Jung couldn't make head or tail out of reading Joyce's 'Ulysses', so what chance would a dumbf#ck high school dropout like me have of coming to any concrete conclusions about what the author was writing about, without the help of more educated folk and their opinions of reading the book?-)

Where would the world (and talk shows) be without the "experts" of this world?

But hey, I'm only throwing my hat into the ring to get trampled by elephants (experts) that may or may not be there, as far as literal metaphors go:-)

What Ulysses Did to a Supposedly Balanced Psychologist?

Carl Jung’s review of Ulysses 
and his letter to James Joyce

Groundhog Day?

The Dubliners recorded a duet with The Hothouse Flowers for Rose Week and released "The Rose" as a single in 1991, reaching no. 2 in the Irish Singles Chart.

The Dubliners, initially known as "The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group", formed in 1962 and made a name for themselves playing regularly in O'Donoghue's Pub in Dublin.

The change of name came about because of Ronnie Drew's unhappiness with it, together with the fact that Luke Kelly was reading Dubliners by James Joyce at the time.

A rose by any other name
would smell as sweet?

Bon Voyage Gavin MacLEOd?

Jack & Rose?

The rose metaphor really comes into its own (pardon the pun) in the last chapter of Joyce's novel.  

Reading Ulysses: Episode 18 - Penelope

It was only when I was listening to a podcast called 'Adapt or Perish' where the two married hosts were giving their opinion about whether the Little Prince's rose should be represented as a sexually mature woman in adaptions of the book for movies/musical/ballets that got me thinking more about the rose as a metaphor in these works.

Homecoming/The Little Prince?

The Adapt or Perish Podcast

These two married hosts I find annoyingly entertaining and frustratingly tiresome as critics of adapted works, especially when it comes to 'The Little Prince' and its adaptions.

I guess I have them to thank for telling me about "the creepy" animated Plasticine adaption of the book on You Tube, which I didn't mind as much as they did.

The best animated version I found was this version below, which kept the drunkard in the "adaption" of the book.

But what I find ironic about listening to the two hosts of the 'Adapt or Perish' podcast bitch on about the rose being turned into a sexy female dancer in two adaptions and what they see as the creepy pedophilia aspects of the movie musical adaption (which I haven't seen, and probably won't) is that I found the 2015 movie version where an old man pursues the friendship of a young girl living next-door to him rather creepy in today's more educated world.

Watching that so-so 2015 movie version of the book's storyline was basically my introduction to the book, and what prompted me to buy an illustrated (English language version, I don't speak or understand that much French) book version to read myself.

I agree more with the two hosts of the 'Cover to Credits' podcast about the 2015 movie version and its creepy elements, than what the 'Adapt or Perish' podcast hosts had to say about the 2015 movie.

Cover to Credits Podcast:
The Little Prince (2015)

Arielle Lipshaw and her husband Jeremy
produce the Adapt or Perish podcast

Having just read 'Ulysses' before reading 'The Little Prince' I was wondering if the 'Adapt or Perish' couple had ever bothered to read 'Ulysses'?

Then I found out that, "Arielle Lipshaw began her voiceover career as a volunteer narrator for LibriVox, where she coordinated and starred in the popular dramatic readings of the

Anne of Green Gables series."

And that Arielle also read parts 7 & 8 of the 'Penelope' chapter of the Librivox audio version of 'Ulyesess':-)

Sometimes a rose is just a cigar, as Freud would probably have said?-)

And I find it amusing that Bob Fosse and Freud both died on the day I celebrate my birthday:-)

I wonder what Jung would think about that?

What is essential is invisible to the eye—
but we can still podcast about it?

But as I go through all of those works mentioned in this post, I just wonder how much works like Joyce's 'Ulysses' would have had on authors such as 'The Little Prince''s author and his thoughts about the rose metaphor in his book ... not to mention Mc Broom's lyrics for her song 'The Rose' when maybe she had read 'The Little Prince' as a child?

Sopho-More-Lit Podcast #69 Ulysses

Sometimes a rose is just a rose, as Arielle likes to say in the 'Adapt or Perish' podcast about the Little Prince's rose.

Everyone has an opinion these days, I guess?-)

I wonder if snakes have one?-)

But critics and opinions are like arseholes, as I think Freud used to say, in that everyone has one and knows (nose?-) one?-)