Sunday Review: The Elegance of the Hedgehog (a book)

Hedgehogs found out

By Morris Dean

The central, narrating character of Muriel Barbery's 2006 novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog [in French: L'Elegance du Herisson, translated into English by Alison Anderson] is Renée Michel:

I am fifty-four years old. For twenty-seven I have been the concierge at number 7, rue de Grenelle [in Paris], a fine hôtel particulier with a courtyard and private gardens, divided into eight luxury apartments, all of which are inhabited, all of which are immense. I am a widow, I am short, ugly, and plump, I have bunions on my feet and, if I am to credit certain early mornings of self-inflected disgust, the breath of a mammoth. I did not go to college, I have always been poor, discreet, and insignificant. I live alone with my cat....[p. 19]

    But, being the hedgehog heralded by the title—one of them, anyway—she is also widely read, loves all kinds of music and movies, and is deeply philosophical, all of which she has successfully hidden from the residents.

The central, narrating character of the movie based on the book, which I reviewed on December 23, is Paloma Josse, whose family live on the fifth floor.
    In the book, her narrative voice appears in the "Profound Thoughts" and entries from her "Journal of the Movement of the World" that are interspersed among the chapters of Renée's narrative:

...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....
    I am twelve years old, I live at 7, rue de Grenelle in an apartment for rich people. My parents are rich, my family is rich, and my sister and I are, therefore, as good as rich....
    Despite all that, despite all this good fortune and all this wealth, I have known for a very long time that the final destination is the goldfish bowl. How do I know? Well, the fact is I am very intelligent. Exceptionally intelligent. Even now, if you look at children my age, there's an abyss between us. And since I don't really want to stand out, and since intelligence is very highly rated in my family—an exceptionally gifted child would never have a moment's peace—I try to scale back my performance....
    So I've made up my mind...at the end of the school year, on the day I turn thirteen, June sixteenth, I will commit suicide....[pp. 23-25]

The full name of the other, non-narrating main character of both book and movie is revealed in Paloma's "Profound Thought No. 9":

The gentleman who has bought the Arthens apartment [on the fourth floor] is Japanese! His name is Kakuro Ozu! That's just great; something like this would happen right before I die. Twelve and a half years in a cultural desert and right when it's time to go and pack it in a Japanese gentleman arrives...It really is too unfair. [p. 139]

Mr. Ozu's recognition of the two hedgehogs changes things for both of them, and the precise, careful language in which the story is told explains why readers who love language and serious, philosophical stories have made Barbery's book a bestseller, in both France and the United States. Here's another example, including one of many literary allusions with which the book abounds—from the first chapter of the section titled, naturally, "On Grammar":

This morning Jacinthe Rosen introduced me to the new owner of the Arthens apartment.
    His name is Kakuro Something. I failed to understand properly because Madame Rosen always talks as if she has a cockroach in her mouth and because the elevator door opened at that very moment to let Monsieur Pallière's father out, all cloaked in haughtiness. He greeted us cursorily and hurried off with the jerky stride of a busy captain of industry....
    And now [the new owner] is speaking to me.
    "Were you acquainted with the Arthens? I have heard they were quite an extraordinary family^*," he says.
    "No," I reply, on my guard, "I didn't really know them, they were just another family, here."
    "Yes, a happy family," says Madame Rosen, who, visibly, is getting impatient.
    "You know, all happy families are alike," I mutter, to have done with this business, "there's nothing more to it."
    "'Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way'," he says, giving me an odd look and all of a sudden, even if it's not for the first time, I shudder.
    Yes, I assure you. I shudder—but quite involuntarily. It just happened, there was nothing I could do, I was overwhelmed.
    As misfortunes never travel alone, Leo decides it is time to slip between our legs, rubbing against Monsieur Something on his way.
    "I have two cats," he says. "May I ask your cat's name?"
    "Leo," replies Jacinthe Rosen in my stead then, breaking off our conversation, she hooks her arm under Monsieur Something's and, saying thank you without looking at me, begins to steer him toward the elevator. With infinite tact, he places his hand on her forearm and gently brings her to a halt.
    "Thank you, Madame," he says to me, then allows himself to be led away by his possessive fowl. [pp. 133-135]

    So, Mr. Ozu suspects that the concierge has read Anna Karenina...and maybe Leo was named after its author?
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* The subject of Barbery's first novel apparently. Une Gourmandise is about "the greatest food critic in the world," who just happens to have been Pierre Arthens, whose death in The Elegance of the Hedgehog necessitates the selling of the family's apartment.
Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean

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