Writer. Contributing Editor at The Discarded Image. Digital Content Strategist. Here's where I publicly explore the books I'm reading, the projects I'm working on, and other current interests. The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Which is the real me — the me I think I am or the me others think I am, the story I tell myself or the story/stories others tell about me? How can I know, since it is not possible for me to step outside of myself long enough to negotiate between those stories and, say, plot them on a Venn Diagram? At what point do the stories I overhear (or perhaps only assume) others tell about me replace or flow into the story I tell myself about myself?
Such complexities of personal identity writhe at the center of French novelist Muriel Barbery’s 2006 L’Élégance du hérisson, translated into English by Alison Anderson as The Elegance of the Hedgehog. An unlikely but fascinating duo of first-person narrators introduces the reader to the residents of an upscale apartment building. Renee, the middle-aged concierge, speaks only when spoken to, blares her television, and is seen coming home from the market with her peasant vegetables; but she surreptitiously reads Marx and Husserl, studies art films, and feeds the cabbage to her cat. Because the residents expect her to be uneducated and unrefined, they never see through her ruse, which both intrigues and infuriates her. At the same time, Paloma, a bright, twelve-year-old penthouse resident with everything at her disposal but nothing to value, has decided to burn down her apartment and kill herself on her next birthday. To amuse herself until then, she keeps two journals, one she calls her book of “Profound Thoughts†and the other a “Journal of the Movement of the World.â€Â These journals are full of her observations about people, mostly her family and the other residents, and absolute declarations regarding life and death of which she believes she has convinced herself. While her parents plan high society dinner parties, in the next room she cheerfully lays her arson plans…
–> This review continues at The Discarded Image, where it originally appeared, and is cross-posted here by permission.
Pingback: Mindy Withrow » Blog Archive » My “look back list” for 2010