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The Elegance of the Hedgehog | 
 enlarge | Author: Muriel Barbery
Creator: Alison Anderson
Publisher: Europa Editions
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $8.71
You Save: $6.29 (42%)
New (35) Used (7) from $8.44
Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 600
Media: Paperback
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 1933372605
Dewey Decimal Number: 843.92
EAN: 9781933372600
ASIN: 1933372605
Publication Date: September 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: 100% Brand New! - Ships Today! Identical to Amazon's book in every way. Flawless! Not a cheap Remainder or Book Club Copy! *We recommend Expedited Shipping option for much faster mail delivery
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Product Description
The enthralling international bestseller.
We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renee, 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, Renee 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 Renee 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 Renee 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
 ok, but frustrating December 2, 2008
ash (Phoenix)
I easily relate to characters who are different from others, on the outside making observations, so this book was one I thought I'd like. I enjoyed much of the first part of the book, until the two characters's voices became the same, and the whole thing bogged down into psuedo philosophy. A friend encouraged me to try more, so I did and was thrilled when Ozu transforms their lives. I envisioned a great many things here, but then something happens at the end that another reviewer correctly described as a sledgehammar between the senses. That just did not need to happen. I am not someone who needs happy endings in my reads, but this book had so many possibilities that I felt cheated. I think the author didn't know how else to end it. I think the young girl could have come to her conclusion without it. Took all my enjoyment from the book, even tho there was much there to enjoy.
I would still recommend it, because I think the book has much to say about class, and about the human condition. But be prepared to be disappointed.
 Not a book for me. November 20, 2008
E.S (College Park, MD)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was interested in this book and the concept behind it however upon recieving the book and beginning to read it I found that I just was not interested in the characters or what happened to them. For the first time in a long time I just couldn't not be bothered to finish the book which is rare for me. Many times throughout the book I found myself questioning the point of the characters and their motives behind what they did. At other points I felt like the author was writing essays on topics and this was her way to let her opinion be known. I am quite sure for many people they might enjoy this book, but for me I just found it boring and on the depressing side.
 High praise from my 11 year old! November 16, 2008
Just Me (USA)
My 11-year-old liked this so much that she has passed it along to her friends to read as well. From her, that is HIGH praise.
Enjoyable book! November 9, 2008
S. McNulty (Hoboken, NJ USA)
This book is different than anything else I've read. It focuses on two characters that you want to know more and more about. I think anyone could enjoy this book.
Elegant and Exciting Reading November 5, 2008
N. Sankovitch
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery is a beautiful, moving, and occasionally very funny novel. It tells the story of an amazing woman and a startling young girl, and their parallel and eventually joined paths to recognition of beauty, in the self and in the world.
Renee is the concierge of a very upscale building in Paris, a supremely intelligent and grammatically exacting woman, and Paloma is one of her tenants , a 12-year old girl already fed up with the falseness of the adults around her and doubtful about life's possibilities. Renee is acutely aware and appreciative of life's moments of beauty and yet is unable to grasp the absolute beauty within herself. Paloma is a French, intelligent, and female prepubescent version of Holden Caulfield, a confused and disillusioned but still young and therefore reachable rebel. Her thoughts are presented to us through her two thoroughly engaging and at times heartbreaking journals; from Renee we get her inner thoughts and observations through first person narration.
This book is about finding a reason to live but it is absolutely un-American in its prescription: there is no easy path, life is full of difficulties, and you are on your own. But if you are honest and intelligent and exacting, you will find and appreciate the beauty that exists in relationships and music and nature and books. The book is about the pure beauty that is possible in moments of genuine expression, the fleeting moments that can still last forever in our minds because of their beauty and truth.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog offers a beautiful but thoroughly realistic appraisal of life. By living fully observant and appreciative of the beauty that appears fleetingly in actual time but permanently in our minds, we can survive and surpass the mundane and trivial and superficial. We can make connections and stave off alienation; each moment caught by our flourishing minds only makes all the moments to come better and better. The reason to live, offered and accepted by the characters of this book (and wholeheartedly by me too!) is to find those "moments of always within never."
A wonderful book: read it and share it. Find more great books at www.readallday.org.
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