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
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?
