The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore

One of the first things we talked about was that the “two Wes Moore men” were NOT the same. The author (the successful one) had a Grandfather who was a pastor, and the church, presumably, had a higher level of moral guidelines embedded into the culture of the family then (perhaps) the incarcerated Wes Moore. The fact that he had extended family nearby and someone who had money to help his mom put him into military school was a big difference as well. If we think these differences are small, then we are underestimating the impact of living where most folks are at the poverty level and dangers lurk in every neighborhood. ANY difference (and all differences) can BE the difference between surviving and going to jail.

Another thing we talked about is that when you come from a different culture, you see people who look like you, those people are in positions of power, and have a particular pride about who you are and where you are from. You can brush off negative assumptions of others because you KNOW people like you can make it. When you grow up in the United States, for example, and have been oppressed and thought less of, then you are constantly told you have less options.

In the words of one of my students, “In our small, suburban (often affluent) towns, most African-American students are bussed in from Boston in order to create a diversity where not much already exists. There is a distinct contrast between the size and luxury of many of their homes when compared to the homes of their suburban peers. Once the students begin to notice that the white children live in one kind of home and location, and the children of color live in another, it is hard not to think that the stereotypes to which the students are exposed in the culture at large are not being reinforced by their experience in the suburbs. It is easy for “Rumors of Inferiority” to seep into the self-image of a student of color. Once such an internalized belief takes hold, all aspects of a child’s experience can be affected. The child doubts his or her ability to be an active agent who can overcome difficulties, has a self-limiting view of his or her place in the future, assumes other people have little respect for him/her, may begin to feel that it’s not worth even trying, and spends a great deal of mental energy in self-protection. This, in turn, increases the likelihood that the student will disengage from the mainstream culture of the school, which has a huge impact on achievement.” There is a difference between growing up in a country where people like you are successful, and growing up in a country where people like you are oppressed. As Wes Moore wrote, “If you can’t visualize a future for yourself, what’s the point to doing something other than strapping on a bomb or doing something stupid?”

We talked about the difference between Hometown Cops vs. City Cops:

* Wes Moore says in some areas of the city (or towns) that the police want to harass not to protect

* We reflected on our own towns – would the cops arrest someone who pulled a knife (assuming, even expecting it would happen)? or take them down to the station and then talk to the parents?

* Do the well-to-do kids pay the not-well-to-do kids to do their dirty work (like jumping a kid they want to get back at)?

* If you are a good athlete, are you given more leeway?

* Do the police assume some kids come from “good” families and others are from the “bad” families? Does it make a difference?

* Where you live, your address, doesn’t it means something to some people?

Here’s a little comparison of our thoughts:

	AUTHOR Wes Moore	INCARCERATED Wes Moore
Absent Father	Taught to remember father	Taught to forget father
Humanity		Jail doesn’t remove us from humanity
		When the mother of the incarcerated Wes Moore lost her college funding (CETA during Reagan era, why spend gov’t money to get people off welfare?), it changed her life.
		Early losses condition you to think short-term plans are the best

We discussed the importance of having a Rite of Passage – something to show members of society that you have become an “adult” and should be treated differently.

Burgeoning manhood is guided in Africa. A Rite of Passage that includes the community.

* “Because Mandela asked us to”

* Abuntu – a way of life

* “Don’t define or limit me, but help me discover what it means to be free”

In the U.S., it is approached with apprehension and feared by others, except in a few cases:

* A Bah/Bat Mitzvah helps this transition for Jewish children

* What helps a typical American boy? Getting a driver’s license? A family car? Your own car?

* Wes Moore says, “Leadership comes when you are forced to make tough decisions”

A quote from the story, “It’s hard to distinguish between second chances and last chances.”

* Second chances come, but if the situation hasn’t changed, then it is not a second chance.

* Crucial junctures happen very quickly in a boy’s life. With no intervention or the wrong intervention, a boy can be lost forever.

* Getting a knife – is it a matter of survival?

Stages of Grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and then Acceptance.

Other quotes from the story:

* About death, dying, and the purpose of life, “When it’s time to leave, you make sure you worked hard to make sure it ever mattered you were here.”

* “Living in the Bronx and Baltimore had given me this foolish impression that I knew what poverty looked like”

* “Failing does not make us a failure, but no trying does make us a fool”

What one has, can't make up for what one's missing.
* "People change, but only if you give them room to do it."
* "If you pick this moment to be with a guy, you're stuck with it for the rest of your life"

Tis by Frank McCourt

Angela’s Ashes, the author’s earlier book, is about Frank McCourt’s childhood in Ireland growing up in poverty. This book is about his immigration to the United States.

Initial thoughts: Stop whining! You are so morose! Stop doubting yourself so much. How can you complain when you didn’t come from a war torn area like the people in our last two books (Rwanda, Sudan). You are born in America, you speak English, you look like everyone else, you went to college, etc.

Discrimination based on religion seems different than based on race. In the last three books we read, it’s hard to hide your race, but you can “hide: what kind of religion, class, language, or sexual orientation, sometimes even gender.

We talked about being pessimistic vs. being optimistic. Sometimes a cultural group is more of one than the other. Some folks in the group from Irish heritage mentioned that the Irish seem pessimistic and melancholy. The poverty is apparent in McCourt’s story; he seemed to be ashamed of his mother getting an allotment.

We spent some time talking about our own ethnicities (German, Greek, Taiwanese, Native American, Irish) and the experiences of our grandparents/ancestors. Topics included poverty, not having cars/having a car, being sheep herders, chicken coop cleaners, being soldiers in WWI or WWII, being able to get jobs/or not gets jobs, and whether it was the female or male ancestor who made the income.

Key questions we asked ourselves about our ancestry:

• Which of our family’s generation immigrated to the United States?
• Which generation was the first to go to college?
• How many uncles/grand parents served in the military?
• Was the culture of origin supportive?

In other countries, you have to test to get into college – in the U.S., it’s all about the money. If you can pay for college, you can go to college. We considered the question, “What is the way out of poverty?” and noted that it is different at different times in history. These came to mind (if not through education): Military Service, Factory Work, Marriage.

Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness by Tracy Kidder What is the What by Dave Eggers

What would you do if you were a refugee? Could you survive? Or, on the flip side: Would you be able to an ally to a refugee?

- We talked a bit about this question. It’s clear that the couple in “Strength” had been doing activism work when they decided (and were able) to take in Deo.

	Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness by Tracy Kidder	What is the What by Dave Eggers
Refugees/Genocide	Burundian refugee from Africa coming to the United States to escape the Rwandan genocide	Sudanese (Lost Boys) refugee from Africa coming to the United States to escape Sudanese genocide
Main Character	Deo	Valentino Achak Deng
The Journey from Africa…	On his own, overnight, he ran away from the genocide. His parents pushed him to pretend to be a coffee merchant in order to get through U.S. customs. He arrived in New York not speaking English (only French), with no sponsor, no place to live, and fear that he would be found out as a refugee and as a Tutsi.	Traveled with a group of boys over miles for months, many died or were killed by wild animals along the way, settled for several more months in an African refugee camp. He spoke English. Many of the Lost Boys were resettled in the U.S. once they plight was made public. Deng was flown over to Boston, assigned a sponsor, given an apartment, supplies, money to establish himself, and a network of other Lost Boys.
Settling in…	He struggled to find his way around on the subway, find and keep a job, stay safe, and have a place to sleep (subway, Central Park, eventually a room in a house)	He had an excellent sponsor who understood the cultural conflict Deng was experiencing and explained everything from using a refrigerator or flushing a toilet. The money ran out very quickly and Deng got a job.
Previous Experience	Deo was a medical student, felt good/proud of who he was, and had to start over.	Deng’s journey began when he was just a child. He had no work experience.
Feelings of Inferiority	· Borrowing salt · Being a parasite
Mistaken Assume	· People assume you are dimwitted if you don’t speak their language · Not understanding U.S. race relations	· How to use a freezer/refrigerator · What is a toilet? How is it used?
Connection with Others	· Very isolated on the journey and then lived in subway and Central Park upon arrival	· Having a sponsor who explains and breaks things down really makes a difference

The following questions are adapted by LitLovers from the Teachers Guide at Random House publishers.

1. The first section of the book entitled "Flights" describes two kinds of flights: those in Africa, which are obvious flights for physical survival; and those in New York City. What kind of "flights" does the New York part of the book refer to?

2. How does Deo derive his name? What is the irony in his name...or is there irony? What are the meanings of some of the other names of those he meets along his journey?

3. How does Deo think about his experiences in New York City as compared to his growing-up years in Burundi? Does he change his views over time?

4. The manager of the food store where Deo works humiliates him. Why does this treatment sting more than the other humiliations he has received before?

5. What does Deo feel about Sharon McKenna and her personal quest for his redemption? How do you feel about her McKenna's? Why is McKenna so insistent?

6. Talk about the meaning of this observation from Chapter 7 regarding history: "...history, even more than memory, distorts the present of the past by focusing on big events and making one forget that most people living in the present are otherwise preoccupied, that for them omens often don't exist."

7. Also consider this passage in Chapter 8 from the W.E.B. Dubois poem, The Souls of Black Folk: "To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships." How does this reflect Deo's life in New York?

8. Kidder conducts numerous interviews about Deo— Drs. Joia Mukherjee and Paul Farmer, Sharon McKenna, Charlie and Nancy Wolff. What are their various interpretations of Deo? Do you agree or not with any (or all?) of their assessments?

9. How does Deo's involvement in Partners in Health open up a new world for him?

10. What is Deo's reason for refusing psychiatric treatment? Do you agree with his decision and reasoning? Could he benefit from therapy?

11. Upon hearing Deo's account of his life, Kidder admits that he himself would not have survived. What qualities does Deo possess that enabled his survival? How do you think you might have fared under the same circumstances?

12. How and why does Kidder's relationship with Deo change during his trip with Deo to Burundi?

13. Describe Deo's reaction upon visiting the Muhato hospital. What is the significance of the left open door? How does the hospital visit compare to Deo's visit to the Murambi memorial?

14. Talk about Deo's belief that the primary cause of genocide is misery. Do you agree with his observation?

15. Deo laughs while recounting the suicide of a Belgian colonial. He also laughed earlier, in Chapter 9, while hiding among the corpses. Talk about this strange reaction and what it suggests about Deo's state of mind, personality or the culture in which he grew up.

16. In the epilogue, Deo talks about the Burundian volunteers who are building a road to his clinic. Talk about why they are so committed to bringing Deo's dream to fruition.

17. In what way, if at all, has this book changed your understanding of genocide? What other books or films have you seen that have focused on this problem, not just in Africa but in other parts of the world? Do you see genocide as a localized problem or a global issue?

18. If you've read Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains, discuss the two men at the heart of both books: in what ways are they similar? Did Mountains affect your reading of this work?

(These questions are adapted by LitLovers from the Teachers Guide at Random House. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)



















Questions from elsewhere:

1. Why do you think Valentino/Dominic/Achak had so many names?

2. Why do you think Valentino directs his story towards Michael, Julian, and the clients of the gym?

3. Which one of Valentino’s friends did you like or remember the most?

4. Did you know the plight of the Lost Boys before you read this book? Did it change what you thought about the situation?

5. What details from What is the What impacted you the most?

Denial: A Memoir of Terror by Jessica Stern

What trauma have we experienced with family, students, friends, and/or ourselves (if we a comfortable bringing the stories to the table)? How has it affected our psyche? And what has been our coping/treatment methods?

After reading the book and coming to our Big Brain Book Group discussion, several traumatic experiences were shared. To honor the trust that we developed in the group, those stories won't be repeated, though we recognize that acknowledgment, naming the events, and speaking them aloud are another step to finding our voice, holding on to our dignity (and sanity), and moving forward.

Here is an interesting related article which is currently in the news.

De-stigmatizing assault

Indiana Daily Student

Plainly, the criminalization of sexual assault victims is an injustice of the first order. Stories like Reedy's make the need for us to examine what ...

Below are some quotes from the book, Denial, which stuck out for us. Do they resonate for you?

Jessica:

Any person who has experienced acts of extreme violence will have such fantasies, though they might forget them. I took sexual violence into my body, and it became a part of me. It is better to know one’s shadow side than to pretend it doesn’t exist. Fantasizing is very different from action. p. 153

From another rape victim:

“My sisters and I. We used to huddle together and cry under the covers at night. Whenever it was possible, I protected them. I was the oldest. They black it out. They’ve forgotten. I’m sort of jealous…” p. 158

Jessica:

“I’m an oldest sibling, too,” I tell him. “I don’t voice the thought that I, too, saw and remember more than my sisters do. I, too, saw and remember more than I wish.” p. 158

John, best friend of Brian Beat (Jessica’s rapist):

“I know that those kinds of experiences could lead me to be very violent. That is why I became a vegetarian and started meditating,” he says. He tells me that he started meditating as a teenager. p. 159

John, best friend of Brian Beat (Jessica’s rapist):

“I feel disloyal telling you all this. He could understand the beauty of a beautiful poem, but he couldn’t arrange his life so he could live that way. He could envision the beauty of life and the goodness of life but somehow wasn’t able to actualize what he knew was possible. It’s a shame. Like I said, Most of the time he was a nice guy. It’s just that one of the gears didn’t mesh…” p. 161

Jessica:

The room is now permeated with shame – his story of drugs and homelessness, my thoughts about running away, my unbecoming desire to hurt John. Even the dog is ashamed of her paltry bark. And now that I’ve divulged my rape, there is the presence here, too, of my violated vagina. As I type this word, I cross my legs, I cover my vagina with a thick metal shield. Titanium with spikes. I surround myself with armed guards. p. 162

John urges me again to talk to his sister. He gives me her number. As we are leaving, he says to me, “I have never told anyone that story about the hook. I’m glad I told you. I feel much better now.” p. 166

At that time, he hadn’t yet thought of threatening his victims with a gun, at least not with her. At last, I have found someone able to confirm that the sadistic rapist that I think I recall was real. At last, I have found someone who doesn’t feel the need to protect herself – and punish me- with denial. p. 166

Jack’s story, her research assistant (fight, flight, or sleep):

“What do you mean, gang-raped?” I gasp. I am not sure I want to hear this. A sleepiness washes over me. I consider leaving this part of Jack’s story out. It’s too much for me and too much for the reader. But it’s an important part of Jack’s life so I’ve left it here. p. 172

“Where was her mother?” I want to know.

She says her mother didn’t know. Her mother was in denial,” he says. I see from the look on his face that Jack is suddenly aware of what he’s been telling me.

“I didn’t want to tell you any of this,” he adds, apologetically. “Sometimes the job became traumatizing for me, but I was afraid to tell you.” He sighs.

I feel my shoulders tensing. I was afraid of this. I want to know, but also don’t want to know.

Jack, the research assistant:

“I didn’t want to tell my girlfriend about what I’ve been doing for you,” he says. “It seemed to me it was unprofessional to talk about it. And I didn’t want to bring it home. She comes from a world where rape is still the victim’s fault. It would annoy me if she blamed you. When I finally told her about his project, she reacted strongly. She started crying. It made me worry that she would tell me that she was raped, too. I didn’t want to hear that. This is awful, but I didn’t want to know. It would just wear me out. I was fully prepared to let her act as though she had gotten over it. Women who say they got raped can get killed in Turkey. Honor killing. Or forced into marriage to their rapist. So no one talks bout sexual violence there. She had never heard about rape or sexual violence, except in an abstract way.’ p. 173

A grandiose thought comes to me: This is why I have to write this book, to speak out for those who cannot speak. I push the thought away.

Jessica:

I’m trying to get this right, to explain my embarrassing position. Let me try this one again. I cannot bear to be around victims who see themselves as victims. I’m more comfortable talking to victims who are numb, or who have learned how to harness their unfelt rage and fear to do productive work. I’m most at ease with the sort of victim who ends up doing work that involves exposing himself to risk or violence – soldiers or human rights workers who work in danger zones, whose love for humanity is expressed without a display of feeling. p. 186

Jessica (thinking about clergy when talking to Skip):

I know all about this – the difficulty that abusers of children have dealing with the impact of their abuse, how they try to brainwash their victims into thinking that the abuse doesn’t hurt, that it is actually good for them. If the abuse is sustained overtime, the victim learns not to feel. But I don’t tell Skip this. I listen. p. 187

Jessica (thinking about the Catholic Church):

But there is a new energy in the room. Rage. This part of Skip’s story is still undigested, a bitter potion. The state has taken Billing off the street. The church has forbidden him from preaching. But the church apparently does not view the sexual abuse of children as a sin sufficiently serious to warrant excommunication. These are the crimes that the church considers to be the most serious sins: Attempting to absolve a person who has committed adultery. Acquiring an abortion. Violating the confidentiality of confession. Physically harming the Pope. But not repeatedly persuading a child that allowing himself to be sodomized by a priest is an act of love. p. 188

Jessica (victim or survivor):

What is the difference between a victim and a survivor? Survivors, we are told, emphasize their own agency, and are thus different from victims, who cringe under fate’s blows, passively accepting fate’s amoral and senseless punishments. p. 189

Jessica (fight or flight):

Freeze, fight, flight. Freezing is the first reaction. But a person can get stuck, frozen forever. Flight is not an option for a low-moving animal facing a gun, slow-moving animals such as girls. And flight is not really an option for boys who believe themselves to be serving God by servicing sick priests. Victims, unless they are trained, do not get to choose the way they will react when they are “scared to death,” the phrase we use to describe the altered state that is evoked when someone or something threatens, credibly, to annihilate us, body or soul. Body or soul or both. Skip and I have this in common: we both froze, and we are both still immobilized, at least some of the time, by shame. p. 190

Skip:

“Pedophiles go after victims who have just suffered a major trauma. The priest comes in to help the family, and then abuses a child. They also go after families with a lot of faith – faith itself can be a kind of weakness in their eyes. They exploit individuals who have suffered severe trauma or who have strong faith,: he summarizes. p. 193

Skip

“I know I’m under stress when I see the shadow. These shadows come to me when I feel unbearable anxiety.”

Jessica:

Feeling terrorized is humiliating. Having been raped is humiliating. To be treated “like a woman” is humiliating. Thus, the lament of one of the victims of sexual torture at Abu Ghraib, “They were treating us like women.” Rape is a perfect way to discharge one’s shame. But, like fear, shame is contagious. The shame and fear of the rapist now infect the victim, who, depending on his psychological and moral resilience, may discharge his fear and shame into a new victim, not necessarily through rape. I do not mean to assert that all terrorizes have been humiliated, or that all people who are severely shamed will ultimately terrorize others. My hypothesis is that shame is an important risk factor for savagery. p. 195

Scared them half to death, but then let them live. In the moment a person is broken by terror, she is more easily seduced into “muffling” others. You will move up in the world if you only follow order, if you sell out your sister, if you muzzle her. p. 201

Be quiet, the first girl said, so that we can both survive. p. 203

Physical death was imminent, but the Nazis did not kill these victims with gas. They killed them with terror. p. 203

I ordered t he most expensive bottle of win I’ve ever bought, in the spirit of the Titanic. p. 207

Jessica (upon receiving Lucy’s thank you notes for finding the identity of her rapist):

All this softness, at a time like this, is almost hard for me to take. I feel held, even loved. But I am afraid to express to Lucy and her sisters how much their reaction means to me. p.211

Lucy:

“So my dad leaves. My mother falls apart. I start eighth grade, and then in March I get raped. My mother dies. And now, many years later, my marriage was falling apart. It brought back all these earlier wounds,” she says, the many causes of the pain in her abdomen all jumbling out at once. p. 14

I wonder if that is true. Is rape really the worst sort of violation? I’m not sure. I often wonder why it matters whether we’re penetrated or not. There is the pain, but the pain doesn’t last – the shame does. p. 217

Getting the Pretty Back by Molly Ringwald

Topics brought up by Molly Ringwald, that you may want to share your opinion about, are listed below:

Our hair - as we age

Clothing - Have to wear/have and "Never wears"

Travel

Her mother (homemaker)

Her father (blind jazz pianist)

Having kids

Having friends with no kids

FaceBook

Friends who undermine us

Serial monogamy

Mr Right - Give me a baby RIGHT now

You're not the youngest, sometimes you're are even the oldest, in the room

Cooking and company (bag the buffet)

Cooking advice and faux pas

Parenting - ours and others

Washington Post Interview

Video Commentary

Another Blog

Ms. Ringwald was a totally convincing and attractive teenager, certainly from where I was sitting. However, she did have one drawback. She was one of those females who, through no fault of her own, gives the impression of being just one misfortune away from bursting into tears. In a teenager this quality is tolerable, even endearing. Why can't those bigger boys see what a fine and sweet girl Molly is? Why are those rich bitches from the posh side of the tracks being so nasty to Molly? Poor Molly. Somebody do something. You, handsome rich boy, dump your shallow girlfriend and give Molly a ride in your red Porsche. And as for you Andrew McCarthy, for once in your life show a bit of backbone!

Unfortunately for Molly, however, as teens turned into twenties, and then thirties, and then whatever the lady is now, she still gives off the same victimhood vibe, and whereas this used to tug at the heartstrings; now, on those rare occasions when we still witness it, it merely gets on the nerves. What had formerly seemed innocently melancholy – an artless appeal for aid and comfort - now seems frozen into a manipulative routine that ought to have been caste aside. Girl-girls are fine, one of nature's greatest bounties. But girl-women? Let's just say that this is the kind of thing that has to be done right. So when Molly the Woman hove into view, still with the exact same lacrimosity threat problem, the reaction was: Grow up woman. Stop your whining. This is not the stuff of which lady film stars are made.

Molly now

Please understand, Ms Ringwald (after all we're talking about a woman who may now have time on her hands and could well be reading this - especially if she thinks she might learn from this posting how she could become a movie star), please understand that I am not offering a personal criticism of your personal qualities, which are probably not at all as I have described them. I am talking about your screen persona, the way you come across in the cinema, in front of the cameras. You come across, on screen, as one of life's victims, and what is worse as a victim not so much of circumstances as of an inadequately developed character. Sorry, but there it is.

(It occurs to me that another bratpacker of that vintage and another would-be movie star, Rob Lowe, now to be seen in the political TV drama "The West Wing", has suffered in recent years from a rather similar problem. Coming of age, beautiful. Come of age, not convincing. Not the finished article.)

But please understand also, Ms. Ringwald, just how fabulous you were in your all-too-brief years of glory. Sixteen Candles and Pretty In Pink are two of my all time favourite movies.

Remember the days when I was going on here about Brian's Education Blog, but when there was no actual Brian's Education Blog to go and look at. Well, now there's another Brian Blog opening up Real Soon Now: Brian's Culture Blog. I had been saving this posting or something like it for that. But when Michael opened up the Ringwald issue over at his place I decided that my analysis of this should be made public, now, and of necessity here. I hope that was the right thing to do. As for what's holding up BCBlog, I won't mention any real names but will say that the Atlas who carried the load so manfully when BEdBlog was getting started seems, temporarily, to be shrugging.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

How does it feel to be invisible?

We had a large group to discuss The Elegance of the Hedgehog and a fantastic summer feast to share. Though we hadn’t all finished the book, there were observations we could make connecting the character’s personalities and experiences to society, visual art, movement, other literature, and philosophy.

We have been reading books in the them of "memoirs" in our group. One person in the group mentioned that the following would be a good read in preparation for our next discussion (it’s short):

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (also on DVD)

Looks like the whole book is on line here.

Or you can get the SparkNotes opinion here.

Book Summary in Brief (from the publisher)

We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building's tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence.

Then there's Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma's trust and to see through Renée's timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.

Publishers Weekly

This dark but redemptive novel, an international bestseller, marks the debut in English of Normandy philosophy professor Barbery. Renée Michel, 54 and widowed, is the stolid concierge in an elegant Paris hôtel particulier. Though "short, ugly, and plump," Renée has, as she says, "always been poor," but she has a secret: she's a ferocious autodidact who's better versed in literature and the arts than any of the building's snobby residents. Meanwhile, "supersmart" 12-year-old Paloma Josse, who switches off narration with Renée, lives in the building with her wealthy, liberal family. Having grasped life's futility early on, Paloma plans to commit suicide on her 13th birthday. The arrival of a new tenant, Kakuro Ozu, who befriends both the young pessimist and the concierge alike, sets up their possible transformations. By turns very funny (particularly in Paloma's sections) and heartbreaking, Barbery never allows either of her dour narrators to get too cerebral or too sentimental. Her simple plot and sudden denouement add up to a great deal more than the sum of their parts.

Sam Popowich – Library Journal

Philosophy professor Barbery-the author of one previous novel, Une gourmandise-has fashioned a slow and sentimental fable out of her own personal interests-art, philosophy, and Japanese culture-about a widow who serves as caretaker of a Parisian apartment building and a troubled girl living in the building.

OUR CONVERSATION started by reading a few quotations and passages from the book. For some (like me), it really helped to rehear parts of the book aloud and to focus on the imagery and feelings the words evoked. This is not the kind of story with a big plot to follow. The story’s beauty is in the descriptions, conversations, characters, and embedded philosophy.

The book made some of us thing of J.D. Salinger and Ayn Rand in the way the author’s philosophy is put into fiction. We wondered what wasthe significance of including hedgehog in the title? These animals curl up when threatened and have sharp fur. Why choose a hedgehog and not a skunk or armadillo? Is it French?

Then we asked ourselves about he word “elegance.” The book and the characters movement happens in “little steps” like Japanese women walking in a kimono. Movements are described very elegantly. There was a sense – very Buddhist – of being in the moment.

Renée and Paloma are both “heady” and well-read, but insulated from life and the “real” world. Renée has one friend. Paloma (who will be 13 on June 16) looks down upon others. They hide away from their respective social circle and are drawn to art and literature because these things are just as “static.” Paloma reflects on art on p. 203. It is “existence without duration” – “the tumult and boredom within the frame” is what we see, and does not represent the feelings or experiences that the artist is seeing and having at the moment the art is created – “for art is a motion without desire.” There is an element of the mundane in a painting, as there is in their lives. They are both seeking and searching – on a quest to live well (they have been physically hiding themselves from others, as well as hiding their intelligence from others).

We had a discussion of how society expects certain things from Renée and Paloma based on their age, gender, appearance, and occupation. They have chosen to “act the expectation” (stereotype) in some situations, for example, Paloma downplays her intelligence with classmates and Renée doesn’t let on about how much she reads and knows. As a result of their internalizing society’s expectations or by conscious choice to “hedgehog,” they don’t easily “fit in” to their respective social circles. We each shared some experiences with others stereotyping us and when we choose to speak up, challenge, accept, or let go. Are you more likely to speak up if someone assumes that your children have different fathers because you are single and have dark skin, or when someone assumes because you work in a lab at a University that you must have a Ph.D. and be a Doctor?

Renée and Paloma are both attracted to Japanese art and culture. Things change when a Kakuro Ozu becomes a new tenant in the apartment building. He takes the time to get to know them and ends up bringing the two women together. Life goes from the mundane (being only in their mind) to the emotional (being in their bodies). Renée says, “When did I ever feel so blissfully relaxed in the presence of a man?”

The story is about living life. In chapter 5, Paloma compares Chess to the Japanese board game Go! Two adversaries face with black and white pieces: in Chess you have to kill the other to win. In Go! you have to build your pieces to live. Living or dying is a consequence of what you do.

Paloma keeps a diary-like list of thoughts. Profound Thought #12 has interesting ideas – “If I start a fire, it may affect others…” “Sex, like love, is a sacred thing…” “A teenager who pretends to be an adult is still a teenager. If you imagine that getting high at a party and sleeping around is going to propel you into a state of full adulthood, that’s like thinking that dressing up as an Indian is going to make you an Indian. Why imitate everything that is most catastrophic about being an adult. Teenagers are imitating adults who never really made it into adulthood and are running away from life.”

The Pamela Anderson add came up when we talked about the part of the story where beautiful women are described a “men idealizing the consumer product she represents.” Here is the ad:

Paloma says that “What matters is what you are doing when you die.” Renée dies when she is hit by a car while rescuing someone else.

About the Author (From the publisher)

The Elegance of the Hedgehog is Muriel Barbery's second novel. Her first book, Une gourmandize, has been translated into twelve languages. It will be published by Europa Editions in 2009. Muriel Barbery is a french novelist and professor of philosophy. Barbery entered the École Normale Supérieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud in 1990 and got her degree in philosophy in 1993. She then taught philosophy at the Université de Bourgogne, in high school and at the Institute Universitaire de Formation des Maitres of Saint-Lo. Her novel L'Élégance du hérisson (its English title: The Elegance of the Hedgehog) has undergone 50 reprints and sold 600,000 copies, topping the sales 30 weeks in a row.

Caryn James - New York Times

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a best seller in France and several other countries, belongs to a distinct subgenre: the accessible book that flatters readers with its intellectual veneer…Renée 's story is addressed to no one (that is, to us), while Paloma's takes the form of a notebook crammed with what she labels "profound thoughts." Both create eloquent little essays on time, beauty and the meaning of life…Even when the novel is most essayistic, the narrators' kinetic minds and engaging voices (in Alison Anderson's fluent translation) propel us ahead.

In closing, we found that our topics and interpretations frequently “hit the mark” when compared to the book club discussion questions issued by publisher and copied below:

1. True life is elsewhere… One French critic called The Elegance of the Hedgehog “the ultimate celebration of every person’s invisible part.” How common is the feeling that a part of oneself is invisible to or ignored by others? How much does this “message” contribute to the book’s popularity? Why is it sometimes difficult to show people what we really are and to have them appreciate us for it?

2. This book will save your life… The Elegance of the Hedgehog has been described as “a toolbox one can look into to resolve life’s problems,” a “life-transforming read,” and a “life-affirming book.” Do you feel this is an accurate characterization of the novel? If so, what makes it thus: the story told, the characters and their ruminations, something else? Can things like style, handsome prose, well-turned phrases, etc. add up to a life-affirming book independently of the story told? To put it another way—Renée Michel’s way—can an encounter with pure beauty change our lives?

3.”A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Both Renée and Paloma use stereotypes to their benefit, hiding behind the perceptions others have of their roles. Our understanding and appreciation of people is often limited to a superficial acknowledgement of their assigned roles, their social monikers—single mother, used car salesman, jock, investment banker, senior citizen, cashier… While we are accustomed to thinking of people as victims of stereotypes, is it possible that sometimes stereotypes can be useful? When, under what circumstances, and why, might we welcome an interpretation based on stereotypes of our actions or of who we are? Have you ever created a mise en place that conforms to some stereotype in order to hide a part of yourself?

4. “One of the strengths I derive from my class background is that I am accustomed to contempt.” (Dorothy Allison) Some critics call this novel a book about class. Barbery herself called Renée Michel, among other things, a vehicle for social criticism. Yet for many other readers and reviewers this aspect is marginal. In your reading, how integral is social critique to the novel? What kind of critique is made? Many pundits were doubtful about the book’s prospects in the US for this very reason: a critique of French class-based society, however charming it may be, cannot succeed in a classless society. Is the US really a classless society? Are class prejudices and class boundaries less pronounced in the US than in other countries? Are the social cr itique elements in the book relevant to American society?

5. Hope I die before I get old… Paloma, the book’s young protagonist, tells us that she plans to commit suicide on the day of her thirteenth birthday. She cannot tolerate the idea of becoming an adult, when, she feels, one inevitably renounces ideals and subjugates passions and principles to pragmatism. Must we make compromises, renounce our ideals, and betray our youthful principles when we become adults? If so, why? Do these compromises and apostasies necessarily make us hypocrites? At the end of the book, has Paloma re-evaluated her opinion of the adult world or confirmed it?

6. Kigo: the 500 season words… Famously, the Japanese language counts twelve distinct seasons during the year, and in traditional Japanese poetry there are five hundred words to characterize different stages and attributes assigned to the seasons. As evidenced in its literature, art, and film, Japanese culture gives great attention to detail, subtle changes, and nuances. How essential is Kakuro’s being Japanese to his role as the character that reveals others’ hidden affinities? Or is it simply his fact of being an outsider that matters? Could he hail from Tasmania and have the same impact on the story?

7. Circumstances maketh the woman… Adolescent children and the poor are perhaps those social groups most prone to feel themselves trapped in situations that they cannot get out of, that they did not choose, and that condition their entire outlook. Some readers have baulked at the inverse snobbery with which the main characters in The Elegance of the Hedgehog initially seem to view the world around them and the people who inhabit it. Is this disdain genuine or a well-honed defense mechanism provoked by their circumstances? If the later, can it therefore be justified? Do Renée’s and Paloma’s views of the world and the people who surround them change throughout the book? Would Paloma and Renée be more prone to fraternal feelings if their circumstances were different?

8. “Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.” (Edward Gibbon) In one of the book’s early chapters, Renée describes what it is like to be an autodidact. “There are days when I feel I have been able to grasp all there is to know in one single gaze, as if invisible branches suddenly spring out of nowhere, weaving together all the disparate strands of my reading—and then suddenly the meaning escapes, the essence evaporates, and no matter how often I reread the same lines, they seem to flee ever further with each subsequent reading, and I see myself as some mad old fool who thinks her stomach is full because she’s been attentively reading the menu. Apparently this combination of ability and blindness is a symptom exclusive to the autodidact.” How accurately does this describe sensations common to autodidacts? What are the advantages and disadvantages of being self-taught?

9. The Philosopher’s Stone… Much has been made of the book’s philosophical bent. Some feel that the author’s taste for philosophy and her having woven philosophical musings into her characters’ ruminations, particularly those of Renée, hampers the plot; others seem to feel that it is one of the book’s most appealing attributes. What effect did the philosophical elements in this book have on you and your reading? Can you think of other novels that make such overt philosophical references? Which, and how does Hedgehog resemble or differ from them?

10. A Bridge across Generations… Renée is fifty-four years old. Paloma, the book’s other main character, is twelve. Yet much of the book deals with these two ostensibly different people discovering their elective affinities. How much is this book about the possibilities of communication across generations? And what significance might the fact that Renée is slightly too old to be Paloma’s mother, and slightly too young to be her grandmother have on this question of intergenerational communication?

11. Some stories are universal… The Elegance of the Hedgehog has been published in thirty-five languages, in over twenty-five countries. It has been a bestseller in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, South Korea, and America. In many other countries, while it may not have made the bestseller lists, it nonetheless has enjoyed considerable success. In the majority of these cases, success has come despite modest marketing, despite the author’s reticence to appear too often in public, and her refusal to appear in television, and despite relatively limited critical response. The novel has reached millions of readers largely thanks to word-of-mouth. What, in your opinion, makes this book so appealing to people? And why, even when compared to other beloved and successful books, is this one a book that people so frequently talk about, recommend to their friends, and give as gifts? And what, if anything, does the book’s international success say about the universality of fictional stories today?

12. “…a text written above all to be read and to arouse emotions in the reader.” In a related question, The Elegance of the Hedgehog has been described as a “book for readers” as opposed to a book for critics, reviewers, and professors. What do you think is meant by this? And, if the idea is that it is a book that pleases readers but not critics, do you think this could be true? If so, why?