Customer Reviews

Elegance of the Hedgehog

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"The Elegance of the Hedgehog" transcends excellence. It is one of those rare books with a special inner quality that makes you ponder over life in a way only very few others can. After turning the last page, I was left staring into space, feeling bereft. I wished there was more to read, yet its ending befitted the whole tale. I now understand why it received so many wonderful reviews in France recently and why it became such a literary success. It fully deserves it.

Just a brief summary, as described by both main characters -Renée and Paloma - introducing themselves in the beginning of the book, which is written in a diary form by each.
Paris, present day. Renée is the widowed concierge of an elegant building in an exclusive area. Its inhabitants all belong to the upper class. She is, by her own admission, dowdy, unattractive, often grumpy and wants everybody to believe that she is the stereotype of all concierges, blending into the background, almost featureless. But Renée has a well-kept secret: she is an extremely cultured autodidact. She loves art, philosophy, literature, music. Aestheticism and beauty in all of its forms fascinate her. Renée keeps concealing this aspect of her life to the outside world, hiding behind the concierge's screen -literal and metaphorical-.
Paloma is a twelve-year-old who lives in the building with her rich family. She is distractedly well-loved by her parents and does not get along with her older sister. Paloma is an extremely bright, clear-headed, lucid child. She is so lucid it is uncomfortable -yet to the reader she also conveys tenderness, and her wittiness is remarkable- . She pretends to be the average adolescent, yet despises what she considers the subculture of her peers and does not see any sense in continuing living. Her view of life is very disillusioned, disenchanted, sardonic. She decides to commit suicide on her 13th birthday.

Renée and Paloma could not be more different, yet their way of looking at life is often very similar. Their paths never cross, if not by sight, until the day a new tenant moves into the building and...
I cannot add anything else, the tale would definitely be spoiled.

In my opinion, this book is not your typical beach-read, it deserves to be savoured slowly and quietly if possible. Yet it is a page-turner and I myself have devoured it. Often heartbreaking, yet unbelievably funny in parts. Real humour pops up unexpectedly, which renders the reading even more pleasant and lightens some heart-knotting situations. The narrative flows beautifully and is linguistically refined.

Ladies and Gentlemen, get your tissues ready if you must, but do read this book. It shall touch you profoundly yet you will not regret having read it.

Every once in a while a novel comes along that propriety tells me to just let alone, recommend with a suitable rating, then leave to the reader to accept and explore for themselves. The sublime qualities of Ms Barbery's book make me reluctant to make any effort to contextualize it, or somehow do justice to what's presented by way of a review.

So I'm going to limit myself to these two paragraphs and say that I was enchanted, I was challenged, I was made to feel included, I was made to laugh, to cry...to take a fresh look at humanity, at walking through this world with grace...at the sometime-need to 'reboot' and live Life from an entirely renewed perspective. I offer my thanks to the author for this opportunity.

Personal rating: 9/10

In my romanticized version of Europe, after I've eaten ravioli in Roma, and sipped cappuccinos at a stand-up cafe, then I will stroll along the Seine and stop at booksellers with used treasures they sell along the river. In my romanticized version of Europe, the French and the Germans and the Albanians, they all drink good wine and smoke Gauloises at will. They eat thin slices of excellent cheese and talk about interesting things and deep things and not what they watched last night on TV. They talk about politics and paintings, they discuss books and don't care what Oprah thinks. The men read fiction and care about it. The women dress well but are also smart as hell. Together the men and the women, before they go off to have tantric sex on old-fashioned beds, they have long slow dinners at long wooden tables, or perhaps they are small round tables at an outdoor cafe on a cobblestone walkway, some Van Goghian starlight to brighten the evening, to sparkle off their bread knives.

This place I imagine is not real, I know. Oprah is shown around the world. Michael Bay films are global monsters and we stopped lighting the night with stars a long long time ago.

But then I read Muriel Barbery's "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" and all the intelligence and philosophy and the wit and the hope and pathos of the European, of the French, becomes real again. Barbery isn't afraid to discuss Marx and issues of class that continue today, she philosophizes on death and the meaning of life, but then she also discusses her love of Ridley Scott sci-fi movies and she quotes Eminem.

Yet for all its brainy seduction, the book is no lecture, the story no bore.

How many times did I stop at my local Indigo bookstore to look at the beautiful blue of the cover and the sheer perfection of that title. But it takes so much more to buy book, to read book, to trust all those hours to turn all those pages to force all those neurons. So I must thank a dear friend, poet, writer, and philosopher for the suggestion that pushed me over that less than precarious edge. She told me I had to. And we all have friends like these. When they tell you you have to - you have to.

So I did. And now I recommend it to you.

I picked this book up in the Eurostar station in London. I didn't expect much, although the store owner advised that it was quite a brilliant read. I loved it. The author can elicit emotion and covers some thought-provoking subject matter. Definitely worth the read and a great book club selection. I am buying 3 more copies to send my girlfriends around the world, with whom I have an emotional connection.

Muriel Barbery is a Professor of Philosophy and you can see this in her writing. There are a lot of philosophy descriptions in this book which I found to be tedious. However, I persevered and finally ended up liking this book. The Elegance of the Hedgehog is different from any book I have ever read.

The main narrator of this book is Madame Renee Michel, a fifty-four year old widow who has worked for twenty-seven years as head concierge of a posh Parisian apartment building on 7, rue de Grenville. The inhabitants all belong to the upper class. Renee grew up poor and quit school at the age of twelve years old. Throughout her life she has studied philosophy secretly, always searching for knowledge. She has read Marx, appreciated Mozart, Dutch painting, Japanese culture, but most of all she loves literature. She lives alone with her cat Leo, named after Tolstoy. Renee is an unattractive woman. She is short, plump and has bunions on her feet. She is self-taught and believes that she is intellectually smarter than the residents. She is grateful for her job, but she keeps her intellectual side a secret. She lets them think she is simple and the perfect concierge, someone who lies around watching TV all day and blending into the background. But in reality, she spends her time reading, watching films and listening to music.

Paloma Josse is twelve years old and lives in the apartment building with her wealthy parents and sister. Her mother has a Ph.D in literature and is a social snob. Her father is a senior Government official. Her sister is studying for her Master's degree at the Sorbonne. Paloma receives no attention or love from her parents because they're too busy with their own lives, which leaves her lonely and unhappy. Paloma has a secret too. She pretends to be an average student so that she can fit in at school. However, she has the intellectual level of a senior in college. Paloma has a plan to commit suicide on her thirteenth birthday. To do this, every day for one year she steals a sleeping pill from her mother's box on her night table and when the time arrives, Paloma will be ready to end it all. She has decided that life is useless.

One day, a resident dies and a cultured and mysterious Japanese gentleman moves in. His name is Monsieur Kakuro Ozu. Renee thinks that he may be related to the Japanese film maker that she most admires. Monsieur Ozu suspects that Renee is not what she seems to be and wants to know her better. Paloma is also impressed with Monsieur Ozu, but his arrival is just around the time that she has decided to kill herself. Paloma begins to have hope for her future.

Muriel Barbery has written a beautiful and eloquent story filled with humor, tragedy and philosophy.

What started out to be boring ended up being a wonderful and interesting novel which I enjoyed very much.
I highly recommend it. However, give yourself a little time to get into it. You will enjoy it too.

(...)The Elegance of the Hedgehog is an interposed narration of a 54 year old woman and a 12 year old girl who eventually get to know, appreciate and admire each other up to the point of considering themselves dear beloved friends.
At first, life is gloomy and although sheltered it is pointless and quite worthless, grey past, grey present and no foreseeable future; the author is so convincing and factual that as a reader you begin to reassess your own life, think of its meaning, of origins, of present and overall value; if you were to perish that very instant, or if your dear ones were to be taken from you by death' the arguments are saddening and I kept pausing to think, because regardless of what you've done, are doing or will be doing one simple fact remains: immortality is only for the gods, we are to succumb in the face of death. The terror that overtook me was phrased into the 'hurry up and do something of value, leave something memorable behind'. Then I just started saying 'I love you 'more, caressing and embracing my dear ones, being kinder to those less fortunate' come to think of it one second later and our house could explode from a gas leak or' and I am not going to continue as the possibilities are countless.
Then, things gradually change for both main characters, they discover that life is worth living, there is love, there are cherished people, if you open your heart to others chances are that they will respond and open their hearts to you. You begin to enjoy the newly discovered meaning of life and treasure what you have even more, become hopeful if you do not have much; all is not lost, happiness is not mythical: love can get you at age 54, flowers do make us smile, there is beauty not only in art, but in ourselves. I do not want to disclose the end, it is abrupt and from personal experience expected, but you should see it for yourselves.
The book is memorable. Craftily written, beautifully developed, there is a continuous wonder that comes at you, via the characters but also the artistic path built by them: I started looking into Ozu movies, borrowed all my classical music favourites from the library, considered re-reading Dostoyevsky, listened to Great Expectations(one of my much-loved childhood books, my first one in English)' I recommend The Elegance of the Hedgehog heartily, it will wake you up a bit if you feel dusted by life, hard work and routine, it will make you remember gratitude and forgiveness, and it will bring you at peace with the ones that are gone and live in your memories...

For more enticing reviews go to allwords.ca.

I found the previous reviewers all had valid comments to make.

I found it an engaging book, even when it was making me uncomfortable with the depth of Renee and Paloma's utter contempt for their fellow man. I appreciate subtle, dry, and wry humour. I enjoyed the philosophical ramblings, actually learned a few things, and was satisfied when I put it down.

Those who enjoy philosophy will like the novel more than I did. My university studies required that I suffer through five full credits of it and I did not suffer gladly. So, I was dismayed that a great deal of The Elegance of the Hedgehog is spent droning on about philosophers. I found it pretentious. The constant commentary on the French caste system also grated on me somewhat since it was stereotypical and overdone. The two main characters, Renee the building concierge, and Paloma the suicidal thirteen-year-old tenant of Renee's building, are jaded, hard and disconnected. They live in their minds, not their hearts. Most of the book is about their affected musings. I didn't find their thoughts very interesting (even the references to Tolstoy's Levin annoyed me). Neither Renee nor Paloma engaged me. There wasn't much of a story but I kept reading because there was a promise of something about to happen. At the halfway mark, I was rewarded when an interesting character, Monsieur Ozu, comes on the scene and stirs everything up in a quiet dignified way. He is elegant, interesting. I would have liked to read about his thoughts, his musings. I finished the book wanting more Monsieur Ozu. I didn't like the ending. It left me perturbed. However, it is definitely an interesting, different read. It is well written and originally crafted.

1. Easy book to read
2. I liked the different fonts
3. I liked how the title refers to the concierge
4. Liked the mention of Willem of Ockham - the Franciscan monk, philosopher and logician
5. Liked the universal themes of truth, beauty, absurdity, searching for meaning and the connection of love and friendship
6. Liked the haikus (three lines) and tankas (five lines)
7. Liked the table of contents
8. Liked the short sections and the space between entries
9. Liked the mention of "Le Corbusier" pg. 94
10. Liked the question: "If you were given the choice between Dutch painting and Italian painting, which would you rescue?" Pg. 225

There are two narrators in this novel: Renée Michel, a fifty-four year old widow who is the concierge at 7, Rue de Grenelle, and Paloma Josse, the twelve-year old daughter of one of the wealthy families living in one of the apartments in the house.

To the residents, Renée is an ideal concierge: honest, reliable, discreet and insignificant. Renée is so insignificant that, for the tenants, she has no existence beyond her concierge role. Behind this carefully constructed facade, she is passionate about culture and the arts, but doesn't want anyone to know this: `I correspond so very well to what social prejudice has collectively construed to be a typical French concierge'. And, it seems, that a typical French concierge cannot adore Tolstoy, listen to Mahler and enjoy Japanese cinema.

Paloma Josse is the daughter of one of the most bourgeois families in the house. Paloma is making plans to commit suicide on her thirteenth birthday in order to avoid the predictably bourgeois future laid out for her.

Renée and Paloma are drawn together after the death of a celebrated restaurant critic results in the sale of his apartment. The apartment is bought by a cultured Japanese man, Kakuro Ozu. Kakuro Ozu and Paloma are both fascinated by Renée, and decide that she has: `the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary - and terribly elegant.'

This novel invites the reader to think about a number of different things including: aspects of society; philosophy; constructs of beauty; and the components of self - both true and false.

Are hedgehogs elegant? I'd not really thought much about this but somehow the image is appropriate for Renée as the reader comes to know her. I enjoyed this novel, although aspects of it did not work completely for me: a bit like life itself, really.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith