The book has been one of the best-selling books of the 21st century, and I wanted to see why. You start it and feel engaged immediately. Part of the reason is the intimacy of the writing, which has a warmth that no font and no computer can replicate. It can be a struggle to read—not difficult, but doing so requires mental attention. I suspect this is part of why the book is so immediately compelling.
It is a story of conversations, a solitary boy speaking with various animals who become part of the gang going through life to discuss the meaning of it all. None of it pretends to be real in any way except that it is a deeply real portrayal of interior life of an individual person who is working to find a life purpose.
The themes center on kindness as a first principle and love as the most perfect emotion. It is kindness and love that brings the fox into the community because of his gratitude. The mole serves as the philosopher and the horse as the storyteller.
The pacing of the book is even and rather eventful. Going through the entire book takes no more than 15 minutes, depending on how much you pause to think. The stories tug at the heartstrings, no question. There are no hidden political messages, nothing woke or agenda-driven. It is the purest of the form I’ve seen appear in years.
I’m struck by the timing of the release. Soon after the book was flying off the shelves, the schools closed for an extended period, leaving kids without friends and forced to sit alone in their rooms and use social media. Later, the surgeon general announced a loneliness epidemic, while making no connection to the policies of the government.
The book seems to anticipate this existential aloneness and loss of meaning. It also provides a way out along with brilliant lessons about friendship and gratitude.
One episode struck me as among the most powerful.
“There’s something I haven’t told you,” said the horse.
“What’s that?” said the boy.
“I can fly, but I stopped because it made the horses jealous.”
“Well, we love you whether you can fly or not.”
In other words, he is a displaced Pegasus, a hero of Greek mythology. What follows are four pages of illustrations of the horse showing wings and flying over lakes.
There is eerie magic about the timing of the announcement. There is no more follow-up on the theme. It is just stated and dropped.
For years I’ve wondered how to introduce children or anyone headed toward a career path about the grave problems of professional jealousy and envy. It is all-pervasive, much more than anyone can expect. High performers in any field expect plaudits and promotions. More often, they are met with the opposite. Every success breeds motions to take down the outlier and reduce everyone to a kind of mediocrity.
Teens first encountered this in middle and high school, as the top sports performers or academic performers or musical prodigies (or just the best looking) inspire awe but also loathing from others. It’s one thing for others to be jealous of success, but it becomes grim when jealousy bleeds into envy, which is the desire to wreck the person with the talent simply because he has broken from the pack.
In academia, this is a factor, but it becomes extremely real in professional life when people work in teams. Cooperation and mediocrity are main themes and the best path to survival. When someone breaks out from that with new ideas, new levels of excellence, and heightened productivity, others are inclined not to celebrate but just the opposite: to disparage and tear down.
This tendency flies in the face of a child’s sense of justice, which would naturally assume that being special is the path to being valued. It is sadly not. Discovering this strange truth is surely one of the great moments of tragedy in anyone’s life.
The horse could fly. Other horses were angry that they could not. Therefore the horse made his choice. He would stop flying completely. He chose instead to be sad and just fit in but still never did.
This is the tragic path of much excellence in life. I’ve known so many people who have stunning levels of talent and potential who never find a pathway in which expressing that and building on that is rewarded. As a result, they choose to curb their dreams. They choose not to fly.
Therefore the horse’s story is a metaphor for millions of actual people in the workplace. The more consolidated business becomes, the less excellence we see on display because bureaucracies make no room for breakout talent. There is a reason why start-ups innovate when large corporations do not: The horses are not afraid to fly.
This problem has been highlighted by many writers in the past who saw envy as a sure path to the wreckage of progress. It was a major theme, and probably the best theme, of the writing of Ayn Rand. Rendered without all the philosophical edginess, her core message to everyone was to not give in to the destroyers of talent but instead defy them with courage and bravery. It’s a great message but often involves grave personal cost.
Breaking free of the effects of this tendency to crush excellence comes at great personal cost to everyone. It is much easier to go the other direction, never become the “tall poppy” and keep one’s head down. But is this a good life? It can be, but ideally, we create societies in which achievement is rewarded and all people are inspired to achieve at their highest levels.
As hard a subject as this is, this beautiful book deals with the topic very well. It seems correct that kids need to be told about the beauties of the world but also its possible cruelties. The message of kindness as a first principle also seems like the best path to both avoid envy and deal with it when it happens.
There is a reason this book became and remains an international bestseller. It is a classic born in our own times. Despite all the technology and all the artificial intelligence, sometimes a handwritten message and pencil sketches about basic principles of life are the best salve we have in hard times.
