The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery and translated from the French by Alison Anderson, was our book club pick for this month. I listened to the audiobook because I didn't have time to read it with my own eyes, but I had time in commuting and dog walks to fit it in. The audiobook has dual narrators -Barbara Rosenblat and Cassandra Morris - for each of the two protagonists. 

Renee Michel is the concierge at a fancy apartment building in Paris. She's intelligent, but uneducated and a lower class than the folks to live there. She's got some serious grudges about this.  She has a friend who comes over for tea regularly and a cat named Leo. 

You know you have reached the very bottom of the social food chain when you detect in a rich person's voice that he is merely addressing himself and that, although the words he is uttering may be, technically, destined to you, he does not even begin to imagine that you might be capable of understanding them. (page 36)

I had for many years accustomed myself to the prospect of a solitary life. To be poor, ugly, and moreover, intelligent, condemns one, in our society, to a dark and disillusioned life, a condition one ought to accept at an early age. To beauty, all is forgiven, even vulgarity. Intelligence no longer seems an adequate compensation for things - some sort of balancing the scales offered by nature to those less favored among her children - no, it is a superfluous plaything that exists only to enhance the value of the jewel. As for ugliness, it is guilty from the start, and I was doomed by my tragic destiny to suffer all the more, for I was hardly stupid. (page 47-48)

Meanwhile, in the apartment building, we have a cynical twelve-year-old named Paloma. She's planning on killing herself and burning down her apartment, although it's hard to figure out why she's so dissatisfied with her life. Sure, her sister is sort of annoying, but aren't all siblings? She's doing well in school and has loving parents, but she's bored. So much ennui. 

People aim for the stars, and they end up like goldfish in a bowl. I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler just to teach children right from the start that life is absurd. That might deprive you of a few good moments in your childhood but it would save you a considerable amount of time as an adult - not to mention the fact that you'd be spared at least one traumatic experience, i.e. the goldfish bowl. (page 23)

So we follow them. 

Here's what happened in this book. SORCERY. I was so TIRED of these two characters at first. I get it, I get it. You're smarter than the rest of the world and you're unhappy about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, smart people are often socially isolated and that can lead to higher rates of depression. It must really suck to feel so stuck and be able to evaluate the societal reasons why you are where you are. 

But then, gradually, I started to root for them. And by the end of the book, I wanted them to be best friends and super happy with their lives. I don't even know how the character development happened. It was seamlessly done. Huge props to both the original author and the translator. My book club peeps agreed with this assessment. For those of them who made it to the end and didn't give up at the beginning, the ending was a masterpiece. 

4/5 stars

Lines of note:

If you have voluntarily saddled yourself with a dog that you'll have to walk twice a day, come rain wind or snow, that is as good as having put a leash around your own neck. (page 67)

I felt personally attacked as I was walking Hannah when I read this. 

At moments like this the web of life is revealed by the power of ritual, and each time we renew our ceremony, the pleasures will be all the greater for our having violated on of its principles. Moments like this are act as magical interludes, placing our hearts at the edge of our souls: fleetingly, yet intensely, a fragment of eternity has come to enrich time. Elsewhere the world may be blustering or sleeping, wars are fought, people live and die, some nations disintegrate, while others are born, soon to be swallowed u in turn - and in all of this sound and fury, amidst eruptions and undertows, while the world goes on in its merry little way, bursts into flames, tears itself apart and is reborn: human life continues to throb.

So, let us drink a cup of tea. (page 91)

For your listening pleasure. 

Beautiful things should belong to beautiful souls. (page 113)

I don't know about this. Aren't beautiful things for everybody? Debate. 

"Get used to the idea, fiddle-dee-dee," says Manuela who, since she followed my advice and watched Gone with the Wind, has been taking herself for the Scarlett of Argenteuil. (page 149)

YESS!! Let's bring back fiddle-dee-dee!

I believe that we can choose our moods: because we are aware that there are several mood-strata and we have the means to gain access to them. (page 155)

I also don't know if I believe this. Can you choose your mood? Do I CHOOSE to just start crying while driving to work on a random Tuesday? I don't know. Discuss. 

Beyond the frame of the painting there is, no doubt, the tumult and boredom of everyday life - itself an unceasing and futile pursuit, consumed by projects; but within the frame lies the plenitude of a suspended moment, stolen from time, rescued from human longing. (page 203)

I have so many questions about this. Maybe it's the blogger in me, but I want the tumult and boredom of everyday life. It's so much more interesting to me (where did they park? what did they eat?) than the perfectly composed painting. 

What is the purpose of intelligence if it is not to serve others?...If you belong to the closed inner sanctum of the elite, you must serve in equal proportion to the glory and ease of material existence you derive from belonging to that inner sanctum...The only thing that matters is your intention: are you elevating thought and contributing to the common good, or rather joining the ranks in a field of study whose only purpose is its own perpetuation, and the only function the self-reproduction of a sterile elite - for this turns the university into a sect. (page 252)

Ouch. Again, I feel personally attacked. Comparing universities to cults! Yikes. 

With respect to faces, the first one is a little muzzle. Yes, my first thoughts go to my cat...I take the measure of how the ridiculous, superfluous cats who wander through our lives with all the placidity and indifference of an imbecile are in fact the guardians of life's good and joyful moments, and of its happy web...(page 317)

For those of you without pets, I hope you don't find this too melodramatic. 

What about me? What do I feel? I may be chattering away about the little events at 7 rue de Grenelle, but I'm not very brave. I'm afraid to go into myself and see what's going on in there. (page 323)

Grief. Everyone deals with it differently. 

Because from now on, for you, I'll be searching for those moments of always within never.
Beauty, in this world. (page 325)

The last lines of the book. 

Title spotting:

Madame Michel is 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 as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary - and terribly elegant. (page 143)

Things I looked up:

incunabulum (page 36) - an early printed book, especially one printed before 1501

Anyway, basically, this Russia of the great Russians, I really couldn't care less. They spoke French? Big deal! So do I, and I don't exploit the muzhiks. (page 169) - Muzhiks are Russian peasants.

furbelows (page 181) - a gathered strip or pleated border of a skirt or petticoat

dozier (page 269) - dozy means drowsy or lazy

Hat mentions (why hats?):

"What did the English invent, do you think?" Kakuro asks her, still at it with his cultural contest.
Paloma sits lost in thought.
"The hat, as a symbol of stubborn resistance to change," she says. (page 267)

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Should beautiful things be exclusive to beautiful souls? Can you control your mood?