The Elegance of the Hedgehog: Plot, Characters and More

Elegance hedgehog, is a French novel, which touches on philosophical and reflective themes. If you are a lover of this type of reading. Stay with us to learn more about it!

L'Élégance du Hérisson, for its translation into Spanish, La Elegancia del erizo; is a novel that came from the French writer Muriel Barbery, published in 2006. It was the second novel at the hands of this writer and became a great success, cataloging the book as a Bestsellers; it managed to sell around 1 million copies and remained as a number 1 best-selling book for 30 weeks; Due to this success, the book was awarded the Premio las Librerías or was originally Prix ​​des LibrairesIn the year 2007.

Speaking of the author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Muriel Barbery, is a French writer, born on May 28, 1969; She is also a professor of philosophy, teaching first at the University of Burgundy and then at Saint-Lô. She has been a writer so far of four novels which are:

• A delicacy, in Spanish Rhapsody Gourmet or also A treat; book published in 2000.
• L'Élégance du Hérisson, the book this article is about.
• The life of Elves, whose translation into Spanish is The Life of the Elves; published in the year 2015.
• And finally, A strange country, which has been his last book so far.

In general, Muriel's works have been very well received by the public and this has awarded her various prizes, George Brassens, the Ville de Caen, the prize that was won by The Elegance of the Hedgehog, among many other awards.

Synopsis

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, tells us the story of two women, more specifically, a girl and an adult; who live in a bourgeois building called the Rue Grenelle.

These stories are told independently but within the same space and time, but what is interesting about this narrative is the perspective that each character has. Muriel, makes us see what the life of each protagonist is like from her own point of view and is one of the great reasons why they return to this interesting reading; put ourselves in the shoes of both characters and see their perception of the world.

Throughout the book, philosophical and reflection topics are presented, which help in some way to understand the girls more; On the one hand, we have Paloma Josse, a 12-year-old girl, and on the other hand, we have Renée Michel, a building janitor with a very particular secret. With a simple and straightforward wording, accessible to the general reading public, the story of the book will make you reflect and leave your comfort zone.

If you want to meet many more classic or famous authors; with stories of various kinds you can then visit: Find here the 40 most widely read and well-known famous writers in history

Characters

As we mentioned earlier, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, has two perspectives, of two characters who will be the protagonist of this interesting story:

• Renee Michel: a 54-year-old janitor, who passes without shame and without glory for the other people who live in the building where she works. A widowed woman, who lives with León, her cat; she has been working in the building for 27 years Rue Grenelle and although nobody knows it, she is a highly educated woman, who loves to read books that she always carries with her; she with a rather pessimistic point of view towards life and thanks to that she manages to connect in a very good way with the second protagonist Paloma; She is a lover of classical music, especially the music of the Viennese composer, Gustav Mahler.
• pigeon josee: a 12-year-old girl who, like Renée, has a rather pessimistic point of view towards life. She hates what she has around her and most of all, adults, her father, a leftist arborist, no friends; her mother, a highly educated woman, but who has never worked in her life; and to her older sister, a philosophy student who thinks she's an intellectual; Paloma plans her suicide at the time of her 13th birthday on June 16. She loves everything that has to do with Japanese culture and so on.

Other main characters of The Elegance of the Hedgehog:

• Pigeon's father: Mr. Josse's name is never mentioned. She is a deputy with leftist ideas, a socialist and who was once a minister; he is a candidate for the presidency of the National Assembly and it is very likely that he will win.
• Pigeon's mother solange jose: a 45-year-old woman with a doctorate in letters. As mentioned above, this woman does nothing and Paloma reproaches her a lot for this, even going so far as to say ironically that her studies, the only thing they have served her is «write the invitations without misspellings». She is quite addicted to sleeping pills and regularly visits Dr. Theid, her psychoanalyst for 10 years.
• Paloma's older sister, Colombe Josse: a girl who studies philosophy and is getting a master's degree on William of Ockham, in one of the most prestigious universities in the country as it is École Normal Superior. For Paloma, her sister has no value, marking her as a zero to the left.
• Renée's friend, Manuela Lopes: a highly educated woman, who also works in the same building where the protagonists live. She is a native of Portugal, specifically Faro; she has come to establish a very good friendship with Renée, with whom she talks on occasions, having a cup of tea, in her purest aristocratic style.
• kakuro ozu: is the owner of the fourth floor of the building, after the death of its former owner Pierre Arthens. He is an elderly Japanese man in his 60s. Extremely kind and gentle (his entire appearance is said to radiate this kindness); he is rich and retired, he has a man named Paul N'Guyen as his assistant and later, Manuela Lopes, will also work with this Japanese.

Minor characters in the book

In addition to Renée and Paloma, along with the characters described above; there is a group of people who will help the flow of The Elegance of the Hedgehog:

• Lucien: an extremely healthy man with no vice: he didn't drink, he didn't smoke, he didn't gamble. Of a pleasant air and expression, short and thin; he was Renée's husband but unfortunately he passed away; It is said that despite being a man without knowledge, unlike his ex-wife, he was an excellent gifted with manual work, that «distinguishes the industrious from the artists.
• Tiberius: he is a math student, at the same university where Paloma's older sister, Colombe, studies; being in addition to her, her boyfriend. His mother owns an art gallery in The quays of the Seine and as for his father, he is a film producer.
• The Broglie Messrs.: they are inhabitants of the first floor of the building where the story takes place. Mr. Broglie is a former minister, who worked under the French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, between 1974 and 1981; extremely conservative and who is currently a councilor of the state. Mrs. Bernadette Broglie is his wife.
• Olympia Saint-Nice: she is a 19-year-old girl who wishes to become a veterinarian, she is the daughter of Mr. Broglie.
• Diana Badoise: she, along with the other Badoise, live on the first floor of the building the Rue Grenelle. She owns a cocker spaniel named Neptune; she studies law at the University of Paris II, the daughter of a lawyer, and is described as an anorexic blonde woman.

More supporting characters

• Pierre Arthens: He is the first owner of the building, where all the characters live, before his death and the new owner was the Japanese Kakuro Ozu. He is a food critic; unfortunately and luckily for Renée herself, he dies of cardiac arrest; his family then decides to sell the apartment where Pierre lived, on the fourth floor. The leading woman describes it quite contemptuously: «es an oligarch of the worst kind.
• Clemence Arthens: She is the eldest daughter of Mr. Pierre, whom Renée has a lot of contempt for as well. She describes her as an exaggerated and hypocritical religious, destined to serve her children and her husband until the end of her sad days.
• laura arthens: youngest daughter of Mr. Arthens and therefore, younger sister of Clémence. Not much information is provided regarding this girl and according to Renée herself, she does not visit her parents very often.
• jean arthens: brother of Clémence and Laura. He unfortunately has fallen into the vice of drugs, becoming an addict and little more than a "human waste". Renée describes him that in the beginning, when he was a child, he was quite handsome and attractive and that he was always after Mr. Pierre, his father.
• The Greliers: made up of Bernard Grelier, a waiter; along with his wife Violette Grelier, who works for the Arthens and handles administration and everything related to it. She, the latter, feels enormous contempt for people of lower social status than her, denigrating and belittling them, treating them as the bourgeois treated her servant of hers in the past.
• The Pallieres: other of the horrible people who live in the building where the story is told, to which Renée has a lot of dislike too. They live on the sixth floor, this family is made up of: Mrs. Sabine Pallières; Mr. Antoine Pallières, son of Mrs. Pallières and Antoine's own son.

Mascots of The Elegance of the hedgehog

Among the different families presented throughout this article, some of them, have pets in a certain way, will help make the story a little more interesting:

• Parliament and Constitution: They are two cats that belong to the Josse family (Paloma's family). The protagonist girl on the one hand does not have much appreciation for these two animals; Renée however, if she admires them a little more, especially the cat named Constitution.
• León: Her name is an inspiration from one of the authors Renée has read, a Russian writer named Leo Tolstoy. This cat belongs to the same protagonist.
• Athena: It is a whippet breed dog, which belongs to the Meurisse family, specifically to Mrs. Anne Helènne Meurisse.
•  Neptune: previously said, it is a dog of the cocker breed, belonging to the Badoise. Renée has a certain sympathy for the animal, since the dog sometimes shows a certain rejection of her owner (Mrs. Diana) when she wants to force him to be a gentleman.
• Kitty and Levin: they are two cats, pets of the Japanese, Mr. Kakuro Ozu; their names are taken from a novel written by Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.

Phrases from the book The Elegance of the Hedgehog

1. “How much better it would be if we shared our insecurities with each other, if we all delved into ourselves together to tell ourselves that green beans and vitamin C, while they feed the animal that we are, do not save life or sustain the soul.”
2. "The true novelty is what does not age, despite time."
3. "What distraction is more noble, what company more distracted, what contemplation more delicious than that of literature?"
4. "The desire! She pushes us and crucifies us. »
5. «The stillness we feel when we are alone, that certainty of ourselves in the serenity of solitude are nothing compared to this letting go, this letting go and letting oneself talk that is lived with another, in accomplice company…»
6. «Those moments in which the plot of our existence is revealed to us, through the force of a ritual that we will recover as it was before with even greater pleasure for having violated it, are magical parentheses that put one's heart on the edge of the soul, because, fugitive but intensely, a pinch of eternity has suddenly come to fertilize time.»
7. "The ability we have to manipulate ourselves so that the foundations of our beliefs are not shaken in the least is a fascinating phenomenon."
8. «(…) You cannot feel safe if you have not crushed your adversary and if you have not reduced your territory to the minimum necessary. A world in which there is room for others is a dangerous world according to her three-quarter warrior criteria. At the same time, she only needs others for a small essential task: someone has to recognize her strength. So not only does she spend her time trying to crush me by every possible means, but she would also like me to tell her, sinking her sword into the flesh of my neck, that she is the best and that I love her.
9. "But when someone you love dies... It's like a fireworks display that suddenly goes off and everything goes black."
10. «The ritual of tea, this precise repetition of the same gestures and the same tasting, this access to simple, authentic and refined sensations, this license granted to each one, without much effort, to become an aristocrat of taste, because the tea is the drink of the rich as it is of the poor, the tea ritual, then, has the extraordinary virtue of introducing a breach of serene harmony into the absurdity of our lives.»

Film adaptation

Due to the success achieved by the book, the French director Mona Achache decided to bring the story of the book to the big screen, released in 2009 in France, her country of origin. The plot of the movie follows the same as the book.

Like the book, the film was a huge success and was well received by the public, receiving rave reviews. So much so, that it was awarded and received multiple prizes in the countries where it was later released: Spain, Egypt and the United States.

If you want to know more stories of books that were taken to the big screen of the cinema, you can visit: The Bridges of Madison County: Synopsis, Denouement, and More

Next, we will leave you a video with a small review of The Elegance of the Hedgehog. You can start reading it if you like it and watch the movie!