Free Books Online The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Muriel Barbery
Paperback | Pages: 325 pages Rating: 3.76 | 141532 Users | 17346 Reviews
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| Original Title: | L'Élégance du hérisson |
| ISBN: | 1933372605 (ISBN13: 9781933372600) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Renée Michel, Paloma Josse, Kakuro Ozu |
| Setting: | France |
| Literary Awards: | BTBA Best Translated Book Award Nominee for Fiction Longlist (2009), Prix des Libraires (2007), Brive-La-Gaillarde Readers Prize (2007), French-American Foundation Translation Prize Nominee for Fiction (2008), Prix Georges Brassens (2006) International Dublin Literary Award Nominee for Shortlist (2010) |
Description During Books The Elegance of the Hedgehog
A moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us. We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building's tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence. Then there's Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter. Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma's trust and to see through Renée's timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.Particularize Of Books The Elegance of the Hedgehog
| Title | : | The Elegance of the Hedgehog |
| Author | : | Muriel Barbery |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 325 pages |
| Published | : | September 2nd 2008 by Europa Editions (first published August 2006) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. France. Contemporary. Philosophy |
Rating Of Books The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Ratings: 3.76 From 141532 Users | 17346 ReviewsCommentary Of Books The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Reading all the reviews for this book is hilarious. They range from one star and "this book deserves to be shredded one page at a time" to 5 stars and "this is the best book ever written". I will go half way and say 3 stars and it has good points and bad ones. The bad - at first it comes across as pompous and trying far too hard to be clever. There are long philosophical passages which add nothing to the characters or the story. The good - once the new tenant arrives the main characters allEven if I were to overlook the self-obsessed, banal philosophical discourses that dominate this novel, I would still hate 'Elegance of the Hedgehog,' mainly because its characters are contrived and unbelievable. The main character, a concierge for a luxurious Parisian apartment complex, is a self-taught expert in philosophy, art, and film, yet she pretends to be stupid. Her behavior is apparently explained by her conviction that people from different social classes should not interact or become
I recently had a brief relationship with a young lady who had studied philosophy at a university in southern California. The relationship was destined to be a brief one, as she left for the Philippines to join the Peace Corps just a week or so ago. On one of our last evenings together, she thanked me for something that I found curious. She said, "Isaiah, have you ever met someone at a party or something who finds out you studied philosophy -- and then they just try to talk to you the whole rest
Initial review: 12/11/2008 -I may revisit the 5-star rating in a week or two, but after reading this book through all last night in a single sitting, it seems ungenerous to give it anything less. Muriel Barbery walks the high-wire throughout - there were any number of places where things could have degenerated into mere sentimentality. Not to mention the assorted philosophical digressions. But the alternating narrators - Renee the dumpy concierge and Paloma the precocious 12-year old - are so
My name is Renee, and Im the first protagonist of this book the hedgehog, as it were. Im a 54-year-old concierge who works in a building populated by rich and powerful people who barely notice my existence. Im also a closet intellectual and I frequently try to prove that to you by digressing into asides about philosophy, culture, and other topics. I alternate between sniping at the apartment owners for their snobbish indifference to my lowly concierge self (an image I strive to maintain at
I hated the ending of this one too. :|
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