Muriel Barbery's "The Elegance of the Hedgehog"

Read: October 30, 2011

I'm beginning to think I should start writing down why I add books to my "to read" shelf on Goodreads - is it a friend's recommendation, a good review (from where?), or a suggestion shelf at a trusted bookstore? That way, when I start these reviews, I'll be able to say more than "this book has been on my to-read list for a couple of months and I was excited to read it finally." Alas, I no longer remember why this book made my list, but when one of my book clubs recommended it, I seconded it enthusiastically. As it turned out, that might not have been for the best - the book seems to be a polarizing one. People either love it or hate it. I loved it, so perhaps that says more about me than about the book.
Translated from the French, The Elegance of the Hedgehog tells the story of two closet intellectuals. Paloma Josse is a twelve-year-old girl who has decided that the mundane existences she sees around her, especially those of her parents, her elder sister, and her neighbors in their upscale Parisian apartment complex do not provide any hope for a life worth living. She has decided that on her 13th birthday she will kill herself romantically in a fire and she is keeping a journal to record "the movements of the world," ostensibly in an attempt to convince herself that there is beauty worth living for. The rest of the novel is told from the perspective of Renee Michel, the concierge at Paloma's apartment building. An autodidact, who named her cat Leo after Tolstoy, she perceives herself as something of an unnatural/socially unacceptable intellectual. She keeps up a facade as the lowly concierge who spends her days watching daytime dramas and making overcooked commoner's food, while meanwhile she is reading great works of literature in the back bedroom and tasting fine wines and cheeses. The novel spends a lot of time getting to know these characters before Paloma discovers Renee's secret. A friendship develops between Renee, Paloma, and a new tenant, Mr. Ozu, who is the first to notice that Renee is not as prickly and common as she pretends.

The biggest complaint I've heard about the novel is that there isn't a plot and that the readers got tired of listening to these two narrators soliloquize with big words. I found this fascinating. It's a story that's told primarily though characterization, and beyond that, Barbery achieves this strong characterization entirely through what her two main characters tell about themselves. There are distinctive differences between Paloma's narration and Renee's, even when they talk about each other.
The novel meditates on questions of class, philosophy, what makes for good literature, film, the purpose of family, and the question of happiness. The characters (and by extension the author) were knowledgeable enough about these subjects so that the meditations were more than just passing references. In fact, reading this book gave me the feeling I had just had a deeply pleasing intellectual discussion with one of my best friends. When it comes to recommendations, my suggestion to people is that, once I’ve described it in all its glory and potential detractions, if it still sounds like a book they will enjoy, then absolutely read it, and quick. It’s not for everybody (in fact, some articles I read questioned whether it was an untranslatable European book that Americans will not understand or buy), but for those to whom it is addressed, it’s a treasure.