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 Author | Topic: The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Read 1,531 times) |
bixaorellana
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|  | The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Thread Started on Apr 8, 2009, 4:42am » | ![[Quote]](http://images.proboards.com/buttons/quote.gif "[Quote]") |
by Muriel Barbery.
Originally published as L'élégance du hérisson by Editions Gallimard, Paris.
Did anyone here read it in the original? No matter, get a copy in French, English, or German & immerse yourself in this book.
It has been dismissed by some as too sentimental, or as pretentious because of all the philosophical musing, or for any number of other flaws found by reviewers who were unable to drop their defenses and simply allow themselves to be carried along.
Yes, there are perfect coincidences and some romantically fairy-tale moments in the book, but they are entirely plausible and enjoyable.
Of the three highlighted characters, the most fleshed-out is Renee, the concierge of an expensive apartment building in Paris. It's her story and her musings that win us over. Renee is a natural intellectual and successfully self-educated person who deliberately hides her knowledgeable self under the trappings of the stereotypical French concierge. Like many an exceptionally intelligent person who was forced to be an auto-didact, Renee has gone far beyond what she would have been spoon fed in school.
Indeed, the breadth of Renee's knowledge and interests made me want to explore every book, film, or piece of music she mentions. I was actually gratified to find that Connelly and Mankell were two of her favorite mystery writers.
So how can one reconcile the fact that this book has been dismissed as too facilely sentimental and also as too weightily philosophical? Well, it's both of those things, but in a good way!
You will have to restrain yourself from phoning your friends and reading out passages to them -- the book has that effect. I released the tension of that temptation by quoting part of it to you all in the thread about tea in Maritime Museum.
Please, treat yourselves to this delightful book. You will be entertained and will have the pleasurable sensation of having bettered yourself for having read it.
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kerouac2
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #1 on Apr 8, 2009, 4:58am » | |
All of my colleagues raved over this book, which was the #1 bestseller for months. So I finally bought a copy but pooped out after about 80 pages. That was about a year ago, and the book is still lying around somewhere. I have promised myself that I will finish it some day, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
I think that what has prevented me from being hooked in so far is that I have read numerous novels from concierge's POV and also precocious child's POV and what I have read so far just seems like the same old stuff.
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bixaorellana
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #2 on Apr 8, 2009, 5:12am » | |
I was very close to rejecting it out of hand. "Am I going to sit here and let you yammer at me?" I said to the two main voices in the book. Then suddenly, I was pulled in and enthusiastic about reading it.
I believe this happened before page eighty, however.
At various times I've plodded back to a book because I felt I should. Sometimes that made me hate it more, but on occasion the initially rejected book has caught fire for me. But I must say that I feel life is too short to continue reading a book that simply doesn't it do it for me.
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kerouac2
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #3 on Apr 8, 2009, 5:15am » | |
I will forge ahead sooner or later. I have distinct memores of books which required up to 100 pages of effort for it all to suddenly click.
It is interesting to note that, unlike many books that I have started and put aside for variable amounts of time, I still remember distinctly what I have read so far and exactly where I am in the story.
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jazz
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #4 on Apr 23, 2009, 4:35pm » | |
I read the entire book last night and I loved it! No 'dutifully plodding back' for me, it drew me in immediately. Renee, the concierge, and Paloma, the 12 year old girl, are wonderful, endearing characters. They both reveal rich self created worlds of being alone, stunning intellects and artistic grasp in the most pure and beautiful sense. And, they are both so funny!!! I enjoyed their exploration of assumption and reality.
Weak as I am, Bixa, I couldn't restrain myself from the odd quote and now two of my friends are going out today to buy the book. I will probably reread it very soon. (my highest compliment to a book).
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kerouac2
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #5 on Apr 23, 2009, 5:07pm » | |
I think I saw it lying around covered with dust the other day. Now, where is it exactly and does it still have a bookmark in it? No way am I starting over!
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bjd
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #6 on Apr 24, 2009, 12:31pm » | |
I read it last year and liked it very much, although I don't usually read best-sellers.
I don't think I would go back to a book if I gave it up in disgust after 100 pages. I think my limit is about 50 pages before I decide I won't continue or else need that much to get into something. (Proust, The Tin Drum, for example).
I tend to agree with Bixa who says life is too short to force yourself to continue books you don't like.
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casimira
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #7 on Apr 24, 2009, 12:47pm » | |
A friend of mine had it and told me she couldn't get into it so is giving it to me. Her taste and mine in books has always diverged so I expect I'll like it. Will see.
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jazz
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #8 on Apr 24, 2009, 8:06pm » | |
You are all more patient than I am. I give a book perhaps 30 pages, at most. If I am still thinking 'what are they are going on about?', the book gets one last chance...I randomly flip to the middle and read to see if this has become something good. Sometimes this is wonderful and I continue. Or, finis. There are too many good books that I haven't read to waste time reading out of some obscure obligation.
But, I do find that your state of mind is very important. Sometimes, it simply isn't the time for you to read a particular book. I have begun a book and discarded it. Then, perhaps five years later, I pick it up and love it.
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casimira
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #9 on Apr 27, 2009, 11:53am » | |
Having great difficulty with this book,am up to page 78 and doubt I'll proceed further. Maybe something got lost in the translation for me.
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casimira
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #10 on Jun 5, 2009, 10:45am » | |
I picked this up again last night and am now entrenched. Funny how just over a month ago I posted the opposite. Really does make me wonder about books I've dismissed in the past.
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kerouac2
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #11 on Jun 5, 2009, 5:10pm » | |
I spotted the book while doing house cleaning about a month ago and promised myself that I would get back to it. But where the hell is it now?
(Don't even imagine the state of my apartment at the moment.)
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kerouac2
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #12 on Jun 16, 2009, 10:38am » | |
The movie is coming out in France in two weeks, although it is just called "The Hedgehog" and says it is "loosely inspired" by the book. This implies that they kept the main character and redid everything else.
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spindrift
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #13 on Jun 16, 2009, 11:10am » | |
Hmmmm....I'll look out for it....but if K didn't get on with it, I mightn't.
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tempus fugit |
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bixaorellana
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #14 on Jun 16, 2009, 3:12pm » | |
What about, "If Bixa and Jazz and BJD and Casimira liked it, I might as well." ............... hmmmm?
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spindrift
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kerouac2
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #16 on Jun 16, 2009, 8:53pm » | |
I was somewhat shocked myself. 
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kerouac2
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casimira
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #18 on Jun 16, 2009, 10:10pm » | |
Jun 16, 2009, 8:51pm, spindrift wrote:Wow! why did I say such a stupid thing? what was I thinking of?  |
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I was on the board at the same time,you did seem particularly preoccupied and distracted. 
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bjd
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #19 on Jun 17, 2009, 3:54pm » | |
I'm sure the movie will be good, but I won't go to see it since I liked the book. Too many bad experiences with good books being made into bad movies.
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cigalechanta
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #20 on Jun 18, 2009, 5:15pm » | |
I loved this book. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think!
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kerouac2
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #21 on Sept 18, 2009, 1:11pm » | |
Here is the trailer of Le Hérisson, if you want to see if the film images correspond to the images in your head.
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casimira
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #22 on Sept 18, 2009, 2:05pm » | |
Jun 17, 2009, 3:54pm, bjd wrote:| I'm sure the movie will be good, but I won't go to see it since I liked the book. Too many bad experiences with good books being made into bad movies. |
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I'm with you . Maybe down the line if a video falls in my lap and I'm bored will check it out. Now,especially with K's Dakota whozzit reference I have no desire at all.
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kerouac2
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #23 on Sept 18, 2009, 2:11pm » | |
Well, I saw the movie on the plane, which is always a good excuse. Actually, now it has given me the desire to go back and finish the novel, precisely because the movie proclaims that it is "loosely adapted" from the novel, which is an extremely rare claim for a film to make -- normally they want you to think that the adaptation is faithful, even though it isn't 95% of the time. So I will be very intrigued to learn where the film deviated from the book. The part that I read (maybe about 80 pages) was faithfully rendered in the film, except that now I will have to picture a French Dakota Fanning as the little girl.
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casimira
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #24 on Sept 18, 2009, 2:18pm » | |
"Loosely adapted",hate that claim. I distinctly recall the slaughter of Susan Orleans,The Orchid Thief into so loosely adapted a film they called it "Adaptation".eISCH!
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bjd
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #25 on Sept 18, 2009, 2:27pm » | |
I don't think Josiane Balasko (who plays the concierge) is as unattractive as what I had imagined in the book.
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onlymark
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #26 on Jun 5, 2010, 6:41pm » | |
To resurrect this thread - I finished this book recently.
And all I can say is that the method of ending the story ruined the rest of the book.
To me it was as though the author has left a big question, the one of relationships between the classes and if they would work, and built you up to finding out more about it .......... and then lost interest and ended it in a predictable way.
There is no doubt that it is well written, that it has a lot of positives, but then when it comes down to it, the author either chickened out or got fed up, or was under a time constraint or ran out of ideas or whatever. The point is that to me the story of the ending (I'm trying not to give too much away) was a cliché and an easy way out.
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bixaorellana
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #27 on Jun 5, 2010, 6:56pm » | |
Use the spoiler button if you want to say something that might give too much away.
I agree with you about the "big question", but not that the ending was predictable nor that it ruined the rest of the book. My feeling is that the author felt the big question had been answered.
[spoiler=spoiler]I think the author's feeling was that no, generally there would be no intimate relationships between people of differing classes and that the ones she depicts are exceptions to the rule.[/spoiler]
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kerouac2
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #28 on Sept 8, 2011, 6:37pm » | |
The French movie was finally released in the U.S. and the U.K. recently, a mere 2 years after its initial release.
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bjd
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| | Re: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
« Reply #29 on Sept 8, 2011, 6:45pm » | |
A funny thing happened a couple of months ago when I was in Paris. My daughter had put some books up for sale on Amazon and got a request for quite a big, expensive book. She was having trouble finding a large enough parcel and the postage would have been high. So she got in touch with the buyer who was in Paris and said my daughter could deliver the book if she wished.
Turns out it was Muriel Barbery. They chatted for a bit about the writing of the book, even though my daughter made a mistake with the title. 
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