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A review by oliviabirdy
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
1.0
This book is full of sentences like “The enigma is constantly renewed: great works are the visual forms which attain in us the certainty of timeless consonance.”
These sentences are curtesy of our delightful (kinda irritatingly self-righteous) protagonist, Renée. In order to describe Renée to someone who hasn’t read this book, I’d probably say something along these lines:
*clears throat*
Renée is a concierge with the crippling burden of having to hide her true identity from the wealthy environment she works in, because if these diplomats discovered their concierge has read Tolstoy, they would promptly drive her out of France with flaming pitchforks, screaming at the tops of their lungs. Renée is truly an underestimated (*speaks in alluring voice*) intellectual. This can be proved by facts like how she greatly enjoys reading the leaflets that come with medication, because of “the respite provided by the precision of each technical term, which convey the illusion of meticulousness and a frisson of simplicity, and elicit a spatiotemporal dimension free of any striving for beauty, creative angst or the never-ending and hopeless aspiration to attain the sublime.”
The illusion of meticulousness?? A frisson of simplicity?? A spatio-temporal dimension free of any striving for beauty, creative angst or the never-ending and hopeless aspiration to attain the sublime???????
Next: Renée receives a note from a woman who lives in the building, asking her to bring up a package. In the note, the woman, whose name was Sabine or something, made a comma splice. I’ll admit the comma splice was quite cringy as comma splices go:
Would you be so kind, as to sign for the packages from the dry cleaner’s?
Yeah, it’s definitely not pretty. However, I don’t think a comma splice is a legitimate reason to (I am not exaggerating) condemn the person who wrote it as deserving of death for failing to “uphold the sacred respect for beauty that it is so rightfully owed.” Seriously, Renée?
For those who have been favored by life’s indulgence, rigorous respect in matters of beauty is a non-negotiable requirement. Language is a bountiful gift and its usage, an elaboration of community and society, is a sacred work .
Um....okay...I’m sorry but what was that? Don’t you think you’re being a tiny bit dramatic, Renée? No? Not even a little?
This was the point in the book where I lost the last of my openmindedness. After this, folks, it only goes downhill. I was so sick of Renee by then, and this happens only a third of the way into the novel, if this book can even rightfully be called a novel.
If this book managed to do anything at all, it planted within me a strong fear of being a pretentious arse who puts down other people in order to make myself feel more...psychologically mature...or something. so i guess there’s that?
These sentences are curtesy of our delightful (kinda irritatingly self-righteous) protagonist, Renée. In order to describe Renée to someone who hasn’t read this book, I’d probably say something along these lines:
*clears throat*
Renée is a concierge with the crippling burden of having to hide her true identity from the wealthy environment she works in, because if these diplomats discovered their concierge has read Tolstoy, they would promptly drive her out of France with flaming pitchforks, screaming at the tops of their lungs. Renée is truly an underestimated (*speaks in alluring voice*) intellectual. This can be proved by facts like how she greatly enjoys reading the leaflets that come with medication, because of “the respite provided by the precision of each technical term, which convey the illusion of meticulousness and a frisson of simplicity, and elicit a spatiotemporal dimension free of any striving for beauty, creative angst or the never-ending and hopeless aspiration to attain the sublime.”
The illusion of meticulousness?? A frisson of simplicity?? A spatio-temporal dimension free of any striving for beauty, creative angst or the never-ending and hopeless aspiration to attain the sublime???????
Next: Renée receives a note from a woman who lives in the building, asking her to bring up a package. In the note, the woman, whose name was Sabine or something, made a comma splice. I’ll admit the comma splice was quite cringy as comma splices go:
Would you be so kind, as to sign for the packages from the dry cleaner’s?
Yeah, it’s definitely not pretty. However, I don’t think a comma splice is a legitimate reason to (I am not exaggerating) condemn the person who wrote it as deserving of death for failing to “uphold the sacred respect for beauty that it is so rightfully owed.” Seriously, Renée?
For those who have been favored by life’s indulgence, rigorous respect in matters of beauty is a non-negotiable requirement. Language is a bountiful gift and its usage, an elaboration of community and society, is a sacred work .
Um....okay...I’m sorry but what was that? Don’t you think you’re being a tiny bit dramatic, Renée? No? Not even a little?
This was the point in the book where I lost the last of my openmindedness. After this, folks, it only goes downhill. I was so sick of Renee by then, and this happens only a third of the way into the novel, if this book can even rightfully be called a novel.
If this book managed to do anything at all, it planted within me a strong fear of being a pretentious arse who puts down other people in order to make myself feel more...psychologically mature...or something. so i guess there’s that?