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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
I wasn't enjoying it. Very esoteric and not much plot.
Esta historia me fascinó. Me ha hecho reflexionar sobre muchas cosas; entre ellas, la importancia de tener asi sea una sola persona en tu vida, que te escuche y te acepte tal y como eres, esto puede salvarte la vida, como en el caso de Paloma y Reneé. También sobre lo superficiales que pueden llegar a ser algunas personas, olvidando las que las cosas mas pequeñas, muchas veces son las más especiales.
I tried reading this book and had a hard time getting started. However, listening to the audio version has made it far more engaging as the readers bring the prose to life in a way that I was not able to on my own. Well worth a listen so far.
I picked up this novel because it was referenced favorably in the last book I read (“Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop,” by Hawng Bo-Reum). I’m glad I did.
In The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Barbery presents two protagonists that are somehow likable because of, rather than in spite of, their detached pretentiousness. Renée Michel and Paloma Josse are, for different reasons, fatigued by the drudgery of life and infuriated to the point of absolute indifference by society’s phony castes and wealth-based hierarchies. When a new resident moves into the building in which they reside/work, the protagonists are unexpectedly brought together, and over time, they curiously find themselves in pursuit of a renewed vigor for life.
Throughout its chapters, narrated in alternating fashion by Rénee and Paloma, the novel scatters reflections on philosophy, art, phenomenology, and Japanese cinema while weighing if and how one can find beauty and meaning in being alive. In Paloma’s own words, the protagonists are in search of “something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never.” Is this “always within never” only for “others undiminished somewhere,” as Paul Larkin would suggest, or is it attainable here, presently, in this world? In my opinion, Barbery's novel answers that question in a satisfying way.
In The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Barbery presents two protagonists that are somehow likable because of, rather than in spite of, their detached pretentiousness. Renée Michel and Paloma Josse are, for different reasons, fatigued by the drudgery of life and infuriated to the point of absolute indifference by society’s phony castes and wealth-based hierarchies. When a new resident moves into the building in which they reside/work, the protagonists are unexpectedly brought together, and over time, they curiously find themselves in pursuit of a renewed vigor for life.
Throughout its chapters, narrated in alternating fashion by Rénee and Paloma, the novel scatters reflections on philosophy, art, phenomenology, and Japanese cinema while weighing if and how one can find beauty and meaning in being alive. In Paloma’s own words, the protagonists are in search of “something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never.” Is this “always within never” only for “others undiminished somewhere,” as Paul Larkin would suggest, or is it attainable here, presently, in this world? In my opinion, Barbery's novel answers that question in a satisfying way.
Hot takes incoming.
This is the kind of book that people say is their favorite book so they can seem worldly and feel superior. The writing style was... hard to swallow. The ellipses are intention because there were so many in this book!!! Too many!! The second half was much better but still I really didn't like it.
Way too erudite for some casual fiction reading for my taste
This is the kind of book that people say is their favorite book so they can seem worldly and feel superior. The writing style was... hard to swallow. The ellipses are intention because there were so many in this book!!! Too many!! The second half was much better but still I really didn't like it.
Way too erudite for some casual fiction reading for my taste
I tried reading this book quite a few years ago and abandoning it because I just couldn't get into it. I struggled again, even with the audio book, but am glad I saw it through to the heartbreaking ending because it was worth it. I understand the ending but didn't realize it until it happened and was surprised and quite sad. Good book though!
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
“The camellia against the moss of the temple, the violet hues of the Kyoto mountains, a blue porcelain cup — this sudden flowering of pure beauty at the heart of ephemeral passion: is this not something we all aspire to?”
Long-winded, didactic and over-wrought are words that describe the first quarter of the novel - as if Muriel Barbery, the novelist of “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”, flaunts her background in philosophy. The story presents two female voices: Renee Michel, a fifty-four-year-old concierge in a Parisian apartment for the bourgeois, and Paloma Josse, a precocious twelve-year-old who has decided to commit suicide on her thirteenth birthday due to her philosophical conclusion that life is purposeless. Barbary’s alternate shifts between the two narratives, though sometimes abrupt, emphasize that although both the female protagonists may differ physically, they have a lot more in common than they initially realize. Both deeply admire the Japanese culture and enjoy the ritual of tea drinking and heavily criticize class-conscious people. As the story progresses, Kakuro Ozu, a new tenant, discovers that both these women are more than meets the eye. We then continue reading to discover how interconnected these two women are; and to relish the lambasting of the French upper-class’ ostentatious behavior.
MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD
Readers also then realize the purpose of the superfluous beginning: to perfectly encapsulate Madame Michel - underneath the appearance of a lowly and indolent concierge hides a perceptive mind. Barbery shows this by having Ozu painstakingly unmask Madame Michel’s facade of “just” a humble caretaker through Japanese cuisine and contemporary culture, allowing her to open up to both Paloma and himself. Thus, Madame Michel is the elegant hedgehog; covered in quills and deceptively slothful, the hedgehog conceals a determined and graceful solitary.
Yet it is through this revelation that elucidates her reasons for being hidden and unavailable to form other relationships. Her haunting memories of her sister being betrayed by her own lover and the passing of Madame Michel’s late husband have made any attempts at meaningful connections dreadful for her. Thus, despite her old age and the long time that has passed since these incidents, she is eternally trapped within her self-inflicted isolation. The camellia, referenced through Madame Michel’s favorite movie, the Munekata Sisters, symbolizes her sense of longing for her late husband and her missing her sister, both of whom she deeply cared for. Now that, both of them are distant memories, Madame Michel lives her life with no further meaning - similar to Paloma’s plight.
Despite the notions of time and memories being negative, Ozu guides both of them to find beauty in the most boring of times - “the moments of the always in the never”. While courting Madame Michel, he teaches why paintings have a timeless quality to them; even though they are old, their value and significance have withstood the test of time. This allows her not only to embrace her relationship with Ozu but also to move forward from her past. Prior to the growth of Madame Michel, we also find ourselves human once again - shackled and drowned by our own memories. And it is after this breaking of chains and resurfacing that we ourselves more liberated and empowered to move on as well.
Yasujiro Ozu, the basis of Kakuro Ozu’s character in the novel, states that “true novelty is that which does not grow old, despite the passage of time”. This novel tells the tale of self-discovery of our two female protagonists but also a call for readers to find the odd, rare moments of beauty in our otherwise mundane motion of our lives. To observe the everlasting elegance of the camellia blooming, amidst the dull green of the overgrown moss.
Truly emotional in its events yet hilarious through the stereotypes of the French bourgeois, this unusual book leaves us more enlightened than before.
Long-winded, didactic and over-wrought are words that describe the first quarter of the novel - as if Muriel Barbery, the novelist of “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”, flaunts her background in philosophy. The story presents two female voices: Renee Michel, a fifty-four-year-old concierge in a Parisian apartment for the bourgeois, and Paloma Josse, a precocious twelve-year-old who has decided to commit suicide on her thirteenth birthday due to her philosophical conclusion that life is purposeless. Barbary’s alternate shifts between the two narratives, though sometimes abrupt, emphasize that although both the female protagonists may differ physically, they have a lot more in common than they initially realize. Both deeply admire the Japanese culture and enjoy the ritual of tea drinking and heavily criticize class-conscious people. As the story progresses, Kakuro Ozu, a new tenant, discovers that both these women are more than meets the eye. We then continue reading to discover how interconnected these two women are; and to relish the lambasting of the French upper-class’ ostentatious behavior.
MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD
Readers also then realize the purpose of the superfluous beginning: to perfectly encapsulate Madame Michel - underneath the appearance of a lowly and indolent concierge hides a perceptive mind. Barbery shows this by having Ozu painstakingly unmask Madame Michel’s facade of “just” a humble caretaker through Japanese cuisine and contemporary culture, allowing her to open up to both Paloma and himself. Thus, Madame Michel is the elegant hedgehog; covered in quills and deceptively slothful, the hedgehog conceals a determined and graceful solitary.
Yet it is through this revelation that elucidates her reasons for being hidden and unavailable to form other relationships. Her haunting memories of her sister being betrayed by her own lover and the passing of Madame Michel’s late husband have made any attempts at meaningful connections dreadful for her. Thus, despite her old age and the long time that has passed since these incidents, she is eternally trapped within her self-inflicted isolation. The camellia, referenced through Madame Michel’s favorite movie, the Munekata Sisters, symbolizes her sense of longing for her late husband and her missing her sister, both of whom she deeply cared for. Now that, both of them are distant memories, Madame Michel lives her life with no further meaning - similar to Paloma’s plight.
Despite the notions of time and memories being negative, Ozu guides both of them to find beauty in the most boring of times - “the moments of the always in the never”. While courting Madame Michel, he teaches why paintings have a timeless quality to them; even though they are old, their value and significance have withstood the test of time. This allows her not only to embrace her relationship with Ozu but also to move forward from her past. Prior to the growth of Madame Michel, we also find ourselves human once again - shackled and drowned by our own memories. And it is after this breaking of chains and resurfacing that we ourselves more liberated and empowered to move on as well.
Yasujiro Ozu, the basis of Kakuro Ozu’s character in the novel, states that “true novelty is that which does not grow old, despite the passage of time”. This novel tells the tale of self-discovery of our two female protagonists but also a call for readers to find the odd, rare moments of beauty in our otherwise mundane motion of our lives. To observe the everlasting elegance of the camellia blooming, amidst the dull green of the overgrown moss.
Truly emotional in its events yet hilarious through the stereotypes of the French bourgeois, this unusual book leaves us more enlightened than before.
“Those who feel inspired, as I do, by the greatness of small things will pursue them to the very heart of the inessential where, cloaked in everyday attire, this greatness will emerge from within a certain ordering of ordinary things and from the certainty that all is as it should be, the conviction that it is fine this way.”
“A Elegância do Ouriço” (Muriel Barbery) Envolto por uma ‘espinhenta’ camada de filosofia, este livro guarda no seu íntimo uma mensagem muito delicada e sentimental. O enredo, em si, é simples e sobre ele não convém falar muito – ao contrário, é melhor não saber nada da história porque, ao intercalar a narrativa em primeira pessoa de duas personagens, a trama vai se revelando aos poucos e se encaixando progressivamente até o seu desfecho (um tanto polêmico, mesmo assim muito bonito). O que importa realmente é a forma de contar: o tom intimista e reflexivo da obra provoca o leitor o tempo todo, entre lágrimas e sorrisos, a profundas reflexões sobre as coisas belas e duradouras de um mundo em constante movimento. Livro para ter entre os favoritos e para guardar com carinho na estante até a próxima tentação de o reler.
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"A camélia sobre o musgo do templo, o violeta dos montes de Kyoto, uma xícara de porcelana azul, essa eclosão de beleza pura no centro das paixões efêmeras, não é a isso que nós todos aspiramos? E não é isso que nós, Civilizações Ocidentais, não sabemos alcançar? A contemplação da eternidade do próprio movimento da vida" [...] “Uma camélia pode mudar o destino”
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"A camélia sobre o musgo do templo, o violeta dos montes de Kyoto, uma xícara de porcelana azul, essa eclosão de beleza pura no centro das paixões efêmeras, não é a isso que nós todos aspiramos? E não é isso que nós, Civilizações Ocidentais, não sabemos alcançar? A contemplação da eternidade do próprio movimento da vida" [...] “Uma camélia pode mudar o destino”