The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
I can’t wait to discuss this book with the Bluestockings next week! It took me a while to really fall into the book – the first section seemed to have less life, less cohesion, and more philosophizing. Very brilliant philosophizing, but lacking the vitality and emotion that the later sections offer.
Somewhere in the middle section titled “Grammar.” I realized that the dynamic had shifted and I was gulping wine, not nibbling at apple slices. The story is powerful and surprising as you watch very disparate lives come together and the meditations are thick and well-woven. They seemed to at once express a well-felt but never articulated truth, and at the same time reveal an entirely new way of seeing and understanding the world.
I feel like I need to read this book over three or four times before I’ve even scratched the surface. Highly recommended.
Thanks for the review. Someone else recently recommended this book to me. I’ll definitely be putting it on my read-soon list.
My wife and I saw “The Hedgehog” at a SIFF 2010 preview screening earlier this month. It’s adapted from this book. I wasn’t familiar with the book, but the movie was well done and the story well told. Maybe I’m a sucker for stories about ordinary people being pushed (gently) out of their comfort zone and then watching what unfolds, but I liked it.