Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog (2006) is the dance of two highly intelligent females attempting to discover themselves in very contracting ways. Renée is the 54 year old concierge of a very upscale Parisian apartment building while Paloma is a 12 year old resident of said building who plans to commit suicide on her 13th birthday. The story is presented in short chapters from the first person narratives of both Renée and Paloma as they document the going-ons of the building which lead up to their eventual friendship. Ultimately, this novel is an exposition on the beauty of life and living, even in loneliness and pain.
The aspect of this story that I liked best is the development of characters. At the beginning of the novel, I was asking a lot of “Why?” questions: Why is Renee so afraid of people realizing her intelligence? Why does Paloma want to kill herself so badly? Why are they both talking about philosophy all the time and making me want to skip over paragraphs? Why? Why? Why?? The good news is that all of my questions were explained in a way that made me glad I didn’t skip over all those paragraphs (although it was incredibly tempting). Paloma and Renee reflect back to each other who their true selves are, making them each more self aware and able to grow and understand the causes of their tribulations. Take this quote from Paloma as she describes Renee:
“Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside, she’s covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement of a hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary – and terribly elegant.” (Gosh, I wish I spoke that well at 12!)
While not giving anything away, I will say that the book inspires growth and introspection both in the characters and in the reader (not a small feat).
I also enjoyed the ideas this book presented to me. Take for example, Wabi, which is a Japanese term meaning: an understated form of beauty, a quality of refinement masked by rustic simplicity. Renee writes a short chapter explaining Wabi and how it relates to “the greatness of small things” and how greatness can emerge from everyday life. This theme stands out as one of the strongest of the novel and I loved that it explored this idea; the most beautiful moments of one’s life can occur during the most commonplace of situations.
This book contains some very complex sentence structures (ie – not a “lite” book) and I will warn you that if you do not enjoy looking up words and terms (“what in the world is a phantasm?”), this might be a lot of work. Additionally, Barbury is a professor of philosophy and the book discusses A LOT of ideas that completely went over my head (although the Proust scholars among you might revel in this). I loved the story and the characters and the book moved me to tears more than once, but I did find myself having to re-read through sentences to understand what the heck they were talking about.
Rating (Out of 10)
Characters: 10
Plot: 8
Theme: 8
Readability: 4
Overall: 7.5
Gigi Explains It All 