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OUR READINGS
THE SMARTNESS OF THE HEDGEHOG - M.BARBERY
“My name is Renée. I am 54 years old . Since 27 years ago I am the doorkeeper at number 7 of rue de Grenelle , a beautiful private mansion with a court and an internal garden, divided in eight luxurious flats, all inhabited, all huge. I am a widow , not tall, ugly, fat , I have corns at my feet and ,if I think about certain self- destructives mornings , the breath of a mammoth. I didn’t study , I was always poor , discreet and insignificant.”
”The smartness of the hedgehog” is difficult to be seized ; certainly you must be able to look beyond because it express itself in a discreet way, quietly. A barrier of aculeus can cultivate the grace safe from other eyes.
It is in Paris, in a elegant building inhabited by wealthy families of upper middle class. The doorkeeper Renče, from her claustrophobic porter’s lodge, witnesses a luxurious life that runs fast. Fat, frumpy , ungraceful and Tv addicted she brings perfectly all social prejudice of her condition ,if she would have been not that far from indiscreet eyes she could be defined a unsuspected autodidact from a refined culture. She adores the classical music and Dutch art of the XVII century, she can dissert of philosophy , she is keen on Japanese culture and she loves so much Tolstoj that she called her cat “Lev” . And yet the true Renče chooses the secrecy , because apparently she conforms to the stereotype that her role gives to her. In the same building , some floor upstairs, lives Paloma. Twelve years old ,a slow deputy’s daughter who is an eccentric genius and a bored girl, Paloma wears the mask too : she pretends to be a poor girl as all her friends, but secretly looks with a critical and several eye the neighbours and their environment . Then she writes a diary, weaves considerations and poetries and, to don’t grow up cynical and superficial like all the adults she knows , plans her suicide. One day, yet, a new lodger , Monsieur Kakuro Ozu , will give life to the fairy tale and will let Renče and Paloma’s fates meet, till they will discover the electives affinities.
This is the contexture of the novel that has been the literary event of 2007 in France and who has its main ingredients in a smart irony, high- minded, solid philosophical and literary references.
“The smartness of the hedgehog”, conceived by the thirty-eight years old Muriel Barbery ‘s pen, teacher of philosophy , is a social comedy with sweet and sour flavour, a journey into the horror of the true loneliness, into the lack of genuineness in human relationships; the goal is the search of beauty , authentic and not displayed , hidden in trivial actions of all days.
This is a timed and never boring book , that offers many starting points of consideration.
It gives us the chance to have a reflection upon our stupid, misleading and limiting preconceptions ; it’s a whipping and biting analysis of our times seen from the bottom ( a porter’s lodge ) and from the top ( Paloma’s fifth floor ); a two-hands story that turns out involving . It is so much involving that lends itself a second and deeper reading.
Girlpoison - Camy (translated by Mrs. Lindstrom)
Planned and developed by Mrs Lindstrom with the help of Nailedtoacross, Legolas di Mirkwood,
Shikaia590 and Maia.Editor in chief: Mrs Lindstrom, Graphic Project: Dan[616]
