Book Review - The Elegance of the Hedgehog

This is why I belong to a bookclub.

I've seen The Elegance of the Hedgehog on prominent display in bookstores.  I recognized the title as it showed up as "to read" or rated by someone on Goodreads.  It was even recommended to me by Amazon.com as something I might enjoy based on what I've recently looked at online (which is helpful but kind of creepy if you think about it).

Even with all those nudges and advertising, I felt little desire to read this book.  I can't even claim to have any good reason.  Truthfully, I had no idea what it was about.  The little bit I had heard merely warned me that the vocabulary was advanced and I might want to have a dictionary close by while reading.  I may not be a master of language, but I wasn't worried that it would be over my head.  So, that wasn't it.

The cover was disenchanting.  The blue is melancholy and the superimposed girl in pink with boots didn't please me.  Yes, I suppose the weird cover may have been the problem.  Well, that and the bizarre title.

What is a hedgehog?  Is that the animal Jan Brett uses in all of her illustrations?  It sounds familiar and yet I'm totally unfamiliar with it.  I have no frame of reference.  Are they elegant?

Turns out - no.  That's just it.  Nothing is as it appears to be.  There are layers - with people, with relationships, with understanding.  Perspective puts everything, even hedgehogs, in a different light.

The description on the book jacket and from most reviews describe a book containing the philosophies and judgments of two cantankerous women:  a twelve year-old genius, Paloma, who has already decided life has no meaning and thus decides to commit suicide and set fire to her family's over-sized luxury four-thousand square foot apartment on her thirteenth birthday, and the building's fifty-four year-old concierge, Renee, who disguises her intelligence and understanding of art, literature and music because she is convinced there is no person willing to respect a member of her class with that amount of knowledge.   She knows her place, or at least acknowledges what she assumes others believe it should be.

Much of the book is unnecessary.   While I found the writing to be engaging and the luxurious placement of lesser known adjectives, verbs and nouns delightful, most chapters are filled with Paloma's and Renee's lectures (you could say rant except most are written too dispassionately to be attributed to emotion) about all that is wrong with the world.  The philosophies themselves are interesting to think about, though I disagreed with much of the protagonists' conclusions.   The author, Muriel Barbery, who is actually a professor of philosophy, must have found writing the theories and ideas that envelop her professional life into as the thoughts of two fictional characters in a novel tremendously satisfying.  Again, however, I don't think most of the narration is all that necessary to what eventually emerges as the central conflict:  Renee's and Paloma's deep rooted unhappiness.  It certainly develops their characters, as we readers are privy to their points-of view towards the world that surrounds them, but most of it is probably a bit of showing off by the author.  

Eventually, their stories merge and the plot becomes extremely satisfying as both are touched by the power of love and friendship.  I found this theme of redemption through genuine feeling to be a powerful teacher.  Both Renee and Paloma have seemingly plenty of tools to find their own happiness - knowledge, privilege, security, access to beauty - and yet none of these things are able to permeate either of their hardened outer shells until Kakuro Ozo comes along.  Because of him and his interest, sincerity and kindness, two lonely people finally get a glimpse into the world of what can be.  

And to think I wasn't going to read this!  This book with the ugly cover and the abstract title was going to exist in the same world as me and yet, like Renee and Paloma, I was willing, even determined, to be untouched and unaffected.  Thank heavens for the powers of bookclub - spurring readers everywhere to read things they might normally ignore.

If you have the slightest inclination to intellectualize things - read this.  If you have the tendency to judge - read this.  If you want to read a testament that true beauty, real knowledge and what matters most is love - read this!   I found it so pleasantly surprising.