Though it wanders in places, this is an admirable novel which deserves as wide a readership here as it had in France. Hedgehogs have teethup to 44 of them, and, like any wildlife with teeth, they can bite They can also carry parasites on their quills. Clever, informative and moving, it is essentially a crash course in philosophy interwoven with a platonic love story. It's intriguing that her compatriots have bought into it so enthusiastically. This element at least in part explains the attraction of the book in France, where philosophy is still a compulsory subject and most people have a basic knowledge of the great thinkers in a way we don't in the UK.ĭespite its cutesy air of chocolate-box Paris, The Elegance of the Hedgehog is, by the end, quite radical in its stand against French classism and hypocrisy. They decide that the concierge has 'the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary - and terribly elegant.'Īll these strands provide Muriel Barbery - a Paris-born one-time philosophy teacher who now lives in Japan - with the opportunity to explore her favourite theme: philosophy as applied to everyday life. A cultured Japanese man takes the apartment and shares Paloma's fascination with Renée. The upstart girl and the concierge are drawn together when the celebrated restaurant critic upstairs dies. 'To be poor, ugly and, moreover, intelligent condemns one, in our society, to a dark and disillusioned life, a condition one ought to accept at an early age.' So she pretends to be far more stupid than she is. Plus, Renée just wants to be left alone and has no desire to become the eccentric object of everyone's curiosity. The inhabitants of 7 Rue de Grenelle would, apparently, be scandalised if they found out that their lonely, dowdy concierge was getting up to all these intellectual high jinks. But Renée must maintain her lowly position in the pecking order so that she can keep her job: she is an autodidact who adores Tolstoy, is a devotee of Japanese cinema and listens to Mahler. This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The reader knows from the beginning that the two of them have more in common than they realise. The Elegance of the Hedgehog is her second novel, which has been highly acclaimed in the press and was awarded the Prix du Rotary international 2007 Her first book, The Gourmet, is also published in English by Gallic Books.

The eloquence of the hedgehog