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A review by ishevlin
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
2.0
I found this book about 2 years ago at a little local shop and was compelled by the plot (young, intelligent girl contemplating suicide), and by the prospect of reading a current book in translation, but I put it down after the first few chapters because I found the characters oppressively boring, and the thinly veiled philosophical essays seemed like indulgent flights of authorial fancy. In short, the characters' endless twittering about clandestine intellectualism and class immobility seemed woefully outdated and overstated.
Recently a friend asked me why I had hated the book so much, and I picked it back up to double check. Yeah, it turns out the characters are still irritating, and I still don't like them nearly as much as I want to, and it goes on way too long, especially when characters express their beliefs, observations, and "Profound Thoughts". There's not nearly enough humor to balance out the lofty, meandering musings, and it really does seem at times like the author put the characters on the page just to spout her own "Profound Thoughts"
BUT: somewhere in the last 50 or so pages enough pathos and humanity finally emerges to make it worth finishing. I know a lot of people loved this story, and I'm waiting for someone to tell me why they loved it, in the hopes that a different perspective might make me like it a bit more...
For now it gets one star for being finished, and a second for the few, enjoyable passages at the end.
Recently a friend asked me why I had hated the book so much, and I picked it back up to double check. Yeah, it turns out the characters are still irritating, and I still don't like them nearly as much as I want to, and it goes on way too long, especially when characters express their beliefs, observations, and "Profound Thoughts". There's not nearly enough humor to balance out the lofty, meandering musings, and it really does seem at times like the author put the characters on the page just to spout her own "Profound Thoughts"
BUT: somewhere in the last 50 or so pages enough pathos and humanity finally emerges to make it worth finishing. I know a lot of people loved this story, and I'm waiting for someone to tell me why they loved it, in the hopes that a different perspective might make me like it a bit more...
For now it gets one star for being finished, and a second for the few, enjoyable passages at the end.