The Elegance of the Hedgehog (2006) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

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• Madame Renee Michel: A 54-year-old widowed concierge of 7, rue de Grenelle for 27 years. Autodidact. Has a passion for the Arts, and is smarter than everyone at no. 7, rue de Grenelle knows.
• Paloma Josse: A sensitive, socially-aware and hyper-intelligent 12-year-old, younger daughter of wealthy family living in the posh apartment building where Renée works.
• Manuela Lopes: Portuguese cleaning lady for several apartments, a gifted pastry chef and Renée's only friend. "an aristocrat ... a woman who is never sullied by vulgarity, although she may be surrounded by it."
• Kakuro Ozu: A Japanese businessman in his 60s. Paul Nguyen is his private secretary. Buys the Arthen's 4th floor apt.
• Maman - Madame Solange Josse: 5th floor apt - Ph.D. in Literature. Fonder of houseplants than her daughters. Two cats: Constitution and Parliament.
• Papa - Messieur Josse: 5th floor apt - Parliamentarian, former government minister
• Colombe Josse: Paloma's annoying pseudo-intellectual bourgeois sister, nouveau neat freak, grad student with esoteric dissertation.
• Pierre Arthens: 4th floor apt - Snooty food critic, wife, Anna. Daughters Clémence, married, devout churchgoer; Laura, nice girl; and son Jean, drug addict who admired camellias
• Lucien Michel: Married Renée, wanted loyal, good wife, mother, housekeeper, not a beautiful bimbo. Died after 20 years marriage of cancer in 1990.
• Saint-Nices: 3rd floor left apt - diplomat - Olympe - wants to be a vet
• Badoises: 3rd floor right apt - Madame Diane - studying for law degree - anorexic blonde, have Neptune, a cocker spaniel.
• Madame Violette Grelier: Wife of Bernard, former maid, now housekeeper for the Arthens, scornful of lower classes
• Pallières: 6th floor apt - Sabine- bejeweled & furred heiress of old Banque de France family - comma splicer. Husband, is in arms industry. Son Antoine Pallieres reads Marx
• Madame and Mssr. Muerisses: 2nd floor apt - Anne-Hélène & Mssr. Muerisse - have whippet, Athena.
• Madame and Mssr. Rosen: 2nd floor apt - Jacinthe
• Chabrot: Pierre Arthen's personal physician, tanned aging beau type
• Gégène: Tramp living in cardboard boxes on the corner of rue de Grenelle and thr rue de Bac. Often drunk, Admired Pierre Arthen.
• Monsieur Ozu: Producer of exquisite art films
• Anna Karenina: Main character in Tolstoy's novel of the same name.
• Leo: The fat cat and companion of Madame Michel (Renee, the concierge).
• Madame De Broglie: resident of the apartment where Renee is the concierge
• Levin: A character in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and the name of one of Kakuro's cats
• Jacinthe Rosen: Lives on the second floor of the apartments
• Diane Badoise: Lives on the third floor and is studying law, owns Neptune the spaniel
• Tibere: Colombe's boyfriend
• Jean Arthens: A drug addict, son of Mssr Arthens who owns the 4th floor apartment.
• Madame Fine: Paloma's overweight French teacher who gives her 2 hours detention for speaking up in class
• Paul Nguyen: Personal secretary to Mr. Ozu
• Anna Arthens: Daughter of Pierre Arthens

Quotes edit see section history

• “Literature's mission is to make the fulfillment of our essential duties more bearable”

• “You would be surprised by what ordinary little people come out with”

• “Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain beauty.”

  Renée Michel

• “I may be indigent in name, position, and appearance, but in my own mind I am an unrivaled goddess.”

  Renée Michel

• “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.”

  Renée Michel

• “...maybe that's what life is about: there's a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It's as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never.”

  Paloma Josse

• “I have read so many books . . . And yet, like many autodidacts, I am never quite sure what I have gained from them.”

  Renée Michel

• “"Renée," he replied, with as much gravity as he could muster, showing himself to be more loquacious during the long disquisition to come than he would ever be again, "Renee, I don't want my wife to be one of those giddy young things who run wild and have no more brain than a sparrow beneath their pretty face. I want a woman who's loyal, a good wife, a good mother and a good housekeeper. I want a calm and steady companion who'll stay by my side and support me. In exchange, you can expect me to be a serious worker, a calm man at home and a tender husband at the right moment. I'm not a bad sort, and I'll do my best." And he did.”

  Lucien Michel

• “Thus we use up a considerable amount of our energy in intimidation and seduction, and these two strategies alone ensure the quest for territory, hierarchy and sex that gives life to our conatus. But none of this touches our consciousness. We talk about love, about good will and evil, philosophy and civilization, and we cling to these respectable icons the way a tick clings to a nice warm dog.”

• “I wonder if the movement of the world might not be a voice raised in song.”

  Paloma Josse

• “For the first time in my life I understood the meaning of the word 'never.' And it's really awful. You say the word a hundred times a day but you don't really know what you're saying until you're faced with a real 'never again.' Ultimately you always have the illusion that you're in control of what's happening; nothing seems definitive. I may have been telling myself all these weeks that I was going to commit suicide, but did I really believe it? Did my decision really make me understand the meaning of the word 'never?' Not at all, it made me understand that it's in my power to decide. And I think that even a few seconds before dying, 'never again' would still just be empty words. But when someone that you love dies...well, I can tell you that you really feel what it means and it really really hurts. It's like fireworks suddenly burning out in the sky and everything going black.”

  Paloma Josse

• “An onomatopoeia and a slang expression coming from the mouth of Manuela, whom I have never known to say a single trivial word, is rather like the Pope forgetting himself and shouting to the cardinals, Where the devil is that bloody miter?”

  Renée Michel

• “Madame Michel has 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.”

  Paloma Josse

• “Mme Michel, elle a l'élégance du hérisson : à l'extérieur, elle est bardée de piquants, une vraie forteresse, mais j'ai l'intuition qu'à l'intérieur, elle est aussi simplement raffinée que les hérissons, qui sont des petites bêtes faussements indolentes, farouchement solitaires et terriblement élégantes.”

• “Les gens croient poursuivre les étoiles, et ils finissent comme des poissons rouges dans un bocal.Je me demande s'il ne serait pas plus simple d'enseigner dès le départ aux enfants que la vie est absurde.”

• “Pour la première fois de ma vie, j'ai ressenti le sens du mot jamais. Eh bien, c'est terrible. On prononce ce mot cent fois par jour mais on ne sait pas ce qu'on dit avant d'avoir été confronté à un vrai "plus jamais". Finalement, on a toujours l'illusion qu'on contrôle ce qui arrive, rien ne nous semble définitif. <...> Mais quand quelqu'un qu'on aime meurt... alors je peux vous dire qu'on ressent ce que ça veut dire et fait très très très mal. C'est comme un feu d'artifice qui s'éteint d'un coup et tout devient noir. Je me sens seule, malade, j'ai mal au cour et chaque mouvement me coûte des efforts colossaux.”

• “S'il y a bien une chose que j'abhorre, c'est cette perversion des riches qui s'habillent comme des pauvres (...). Non seulement c'est laid mais c'est insultant: rien n'est plus méprisable que le mépris des riches pour le désir des pauvres.”

• “Au fond, nous sommes programmés pour croire à ce qui n’existe pas, parce que nous sommes des êtres vivants qui ne veulent pas souffrir. Alors nous dépensons toutes nos forces à nous convaincre qu’il y a des choses qui en valent la peine et que c’est pour ça que la vie a un sens”

• “"Comment décide-t-on de la valeur d'une vie ? Ce qui importe, m'a dit Paloma un jour, ce n'est pas de mourir, c'est ce qu'on fait au moment où on meurt. Que faisais-je au moment de mourir ? je me demande avec une réponse déjà prête dans la chaleur de mon coeur. Que faisais-je ? J'avais rencontré l'autre et j'étais prête à aimer."”

• “Où se trouve la beauté? Dans les grandes choses qui, comme les autres, sont condamnées à mourir, ou bien dans les petites qui, sans prétendre à rien, savent incruster dans l'instant une gemme d'infini?”

• “J'ai beau savoir que le monde est laid, je n'ai pas envie de le voir.”

• “Et puis surtout, j'ai ressenti autre chose, un sentiment nouveau et, en l'écrivant, je suis très émue, d'ailleurs j'ai dû laisser mon stylo deux minutes, le temps de pleurer. Alors voilà ce que j'ai ressenti : en écoutant Mme Michel et en la voyant pleurer, mais surtout en sentant à quel point ça lui faisait du bien de me dire tout ça, à moi, j'ai compris quelquel chose : j'ai compris que je souffrais parce que je ne pouvais faire de bien à personne autour de moi”

• “Toutes ces choses qui passent , que nous manquons d'un yota et qui st ratées pr l'éternité...Toutes ces paroles que nous aurions du dire , ces gestes que nous aurions du faire , tout ce qu'on a pas pu saisir ...”

• “s'il y bien une chose que les pauvres détestent, ce sont les autres pauvres.”

• “N'ayez qu'une seule amie mais choisissez-la bien”

• “Because art is life playing to other rhythms.”

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• France
• Paris

Organizations edit see section history

• The French: Add a description of this organization.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Appanages: The grant of an estate, title or offices given to a young male sovereign.
• Incunabulum: a single sheet of printed material; a book; Latin for swaddling clothes or cradle.
• Phenomenology: Philosophy or method of inquiry based on the premise that reality consists of objects and events as they are perceived or understood in human consciousness and not of anything independent of human consciousness. primarily concerned with making the structures of consciousness, and the phenomena which appear in acts of consciousness, objects of systematic reflection and analysis.
• conatus: In the philosophy of Spinoza, the force in every animate creature toward the preservation of its existence.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Philosophy: Anchoring philosophy to a work of fiction to give it more meaning.
• class consciousness and conflict: Describe this theme.
• Literary allusions to the novel

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Muriel Barbery (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Alison Anderson (Translator) - Translated the book into English from the original French
2. Gabriela Zehnder (Translator) - Translated the book into German

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• French Booksellers Prize (2007)
• Brive-la-Gaillarde Reader's Prize (2007)
• International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (Finalist, 2010, Short list)
• Audie Award (2010: Literary Fiction)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PQ2662.A6523 E4413
• Dewey: 843.92

Notes for Parents edit see section history

This could make a good literary read for a homeschooled high school student, but I suggest reading it first.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › French
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( B )

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• The New York Times Sunday Book Review
• Wikipedia page for "The Elegance of the Hedgehog"

Movie Connections edit see section history

• Le hérisson (IMDb): 2009

More Books Like This edit see section history