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Eva's Reviews > The Elegance of the Hedgehog
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
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That so many people love this book makes me fear for the future of literature. It is one of the most pretentious, banal "novels" I've ever read. In fact, "novel" is too good a word for its bloggishly self-indulgent, smugly insipid meanderings. Actually most blogs are much more interesting than this book. The two main characters (the concierge Renee and the young girl, Paloma) are hypocritical snobs who accuse others of snobbery. This intolerance is forgiveable in a child perhaps, but not in a 53 year old concierge. Renee whines about her lot constantly (and not in an amusing way -- she's incredibly tendentious and judgemental). She vaunts her superior intelligence, is very self-involved, and yet fancies herself compassionate.
The world view of the book is conservative. Renee worships the accepted canons of Western art, music, and thinking. She herself epitomizes the upper-middle class women she regards with such scorn. She is one of the most obnoxious characters I've come across in a book. The author expects the reader to sympathize with Renee, but she is boring and self-pitying, among other faults.
Both Renee and Paloma (the girl) think themselves unconventional, yet they are extremely ordinary in their views. They are humorless (this is NOT a funny book) and mean; they mock everyone they know and regard themselves as superior beings. All of their thinking is cliched, and their stale opinions are expressed with narcissistic melodrama and hyperbole, in elevated tones and stilted diction. Actually, the concierge and the 12 year old girl sound pretty much alike. The characterization is that thin. The book is full of stereotypes. Asia and Asians are characterized as "mysterious" and "inscrutable!" It makes France (or French culture) look bad .
The book has no tension but it does have some contrived action as well as a ludicrous red herring. The prose is riddled with sentimentality and cuteness, and the awkward "plot" serves as a skeleton for a host of trite, sophomoric ideas. A few basic philosophical problems are rehashed in reductive ways, and the narrators imagine that they invented these ancient conundrums.
Oh, and the writing is terrible: affected and clumsy. Forget le mot juste! Words are misused throughout. In the last twenty pages, the concierge weeps quite often and I guess the reader is supposed to sob along, but it's bathetic, anything but moving. The only emotions I felt were disgust and anger.
With so many wonderful books to read, why are so many people reading (and liking) this drivel?
The world view of the book is conservative. Renee worships the accepted canons of Western art, music, and thinking. She herself epitomizes the upper-middle class women she regards with such scorn. She is one of the most obnoxious characters I've come across in a book. The author expects the reader to sympathize with Renee, but she is boring and self-pitying, among other faults.
Both Renee and Paloma (the girl) think themselves unconventional, yet they are extremely ordinary in their views. They are humorless (this is NOT a funny book) and mean; they mock everyone they know and regard themselves as superior beings. All of their thinking is cliched, and their stale opinions are expressed with narcissistic melodrama and hyperbole, in elevated tones and stilted diction. Actually, the concierge and the 12 year old girl sound pretty much alike. The characterization is that thin. The book is full of stereotypes. Asia and Asians are characterized as "mysterious" and "inscrutable!" It makes France (or French culture) look bad .
The book has no tension but it does have some contrived action as well as a ludicrous red herring. The prose is riddled with sentimentality and cuteness, and the awkward "plot" serves as a skeleton for a host of trite, sophomoric ideas. A few basic philosophical problems are rehashed in reductive ways, and the narrators imagine that they invented these ancient conundrums.
Oh, and the writing is terrible: affected and clumsy. Forget le mot juste! Words are misused throughout. In the last twenty pages, the concierge weeps quite often and I guess the reader is supposed to sob along, but it's bathetic, anything but moving. The only emotions I felt were disgust and anger.
With so many wonderful books to read, why are so many people reading (and liking) this drivel?
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June 30, 2009
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June 30, 2009
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Diane
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rated it 1 star
Aug 14, 2009 09:26PM
right on Eva! Should have listened to you in the first place and not spent one second on this waste of trees.
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You nailed it. My own take: Spiteful, misanthropic tripe in which erudition is confused with intelligence, self-absorbed intolerance calls itself sensitivity, and cliches are passed off as profundities. A really unpleasant reading experience, overall.
I completely agree. This was one of the worst books I've ever read.
I completely agree with you! Untolerable, misplaced snobbery!
I gather you didn't like the book! Your review was very extensive and I appreciate the detailed review; your information helps a lot, but now I'm not sure what to do. I promised my friend, Ellen, I would read this, but from your review, I'm hesitant to do so. I'm like the reviewer Isabelle, who often has opinions very contrary to the mainstream; I too, wonder why I think so differently from others. Everybody is recommending this book, but I usually prefer literature to contemporary popular fiction. I enjoy a good story and I know there are or will be some contemporary fiction that will become classics in their time, but all the popular books in the past few years in the genre or style of "The Time Traveller's Wife," which are very good books, still don't fill that place inside me like Homer, Shakespeare, Kafka, Austen, Sappho, et al. do. Maybe I'll visit your profile and check out your other reviews and books and see if our tastes match, then I can figure out whether to waste my time on the book or not. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts; I'm glad I saw this before buying the book.
I love your review. It captures my own experience perfectly.
I didn't read any reviews of this book before I read it, but now I wish I had. What a profoundly stupid novel. I was irritated the entire time. My own views here
I'm 100 pages in. Every time I pick it up to read on I'm reminded why I put it down the last time - it's infuriating. I feel sorry that there are people out there who live such a bitter existence.Your review was completely on the money, and really well put.
Completely accurate review. I kept waiting to like the characters but they were sio overly pleased with themselves that it was difficult to care about them. The author seemed far more preoccupied with impressing the reader with vocabulary and philosophical understanding than she was in telling a compelling story.
Nice review. You and Isaiah made me extremely wary of reading this book in the first place and yet I went ahead and tried anyway. How sad for me that I had. I found myself writing a scathing review of my own out of sheer irritation. I haven't read anything quite so obnoxious since Eat, Pray, Love.
I have to agree with this line of opinion, the book was a great disappointment, trying to be something that it was absolutely not. I think you've said it all, Eve.
I realized the whole time I was reading it that the book was pretentious and that I would not recommend it, however, I liked it, maybe it hit the right spot at the time
I happened to love this book, but....I live in Europe. I'll just add that it is very different and that it has a very French/Euro perspective of life and I think this is why a lot of Americans don't like it. It's not for everyone. That's ok too! ;)
I also loved this book,unlike most of the reviewers.I agree that the plot was not the most interesting,but the writing was eloquent and had much deeper meaning than what appeared on the surface.Perhaps I identified with Rene,as I am a self educated person of an age of many heartbreaking life experiences. I also agree that Rene and Paloma were cut from the same cloth of intelligence,but have you never identified with another soul a lifetime of years apart? Maybe the difference in my opinion is a different life perspective.Try reading this again in a few more years,you may change your mind.
Couldn't agree more.
Its movie version is quite enjoyable for me. I always have difficulty reading novels no matter in English or my native language, chinese,except with the aid of movie, find myself poor in following the plot in words.
Clara wrote: "Wait a sec, I'm still trying to understand your point of view: you hate this book because the main characters have flaws? O.o"Not because the main characters have flaws. Because the flaws of the main characters are presented as virtues; moreover, virtues that the unwashed masses are too stupid and self-involved to appreciate.
Loved this review! Hear hear.
So glad I'm not alone. Well said.
You are entitled to your opinion but I think you're missing a lot by judging this book harshly.
You are entitled to your opinion but I think you're missing a lot by judging this book harshly.
I read 30 pages and threw it away, what a crap
Oh thank GOD!! I thought I was missing something on an epic scale. Thank you for recognizing the stodgy, ultra-conservative, unceasingly didactic, misanthropic and finally poorly-drawn characterizations and arc of this story. I'm stunned by the critical acclaim of this novel, it's so self-righteous and indulgent, and none of the characters have even basic nuance or awareness of the irony of their own pulpits ... ugh, there are few novels which have left me more irritated.
Pamela wrote: "Oh thank GOD!! I thought I was missing something on an epic scale. Thank you for recognizing the stodgy, ultra-conservative, unceasingly didactic, misanthropic and finally poorly-drawn characteriza..."Thank you for confirming my view! I'm discouraged by the many "literary" readers who loved this book. It was such tripe -- and pretentious tripe, too.
Eva wrote: "Pamela wrote: "Oh thank GOD!! I thought I was missing something on an epic scale. Thank you for recognizing the stodgy, ultra-conservative, unceasingly didactic, misanthropic and finally poorly-dra..."Absolutely. As for the comment that attempts to be wry suggesting that you "hate the book because the characters are flawed," I had to wonder if it was the author undercover--the comment lacked such basic understanding of your critique. Isn't it frustrating to carefully delineate the myriad issues you have with a book (poor writing, thin and repetitive characters, obvious set-ups for tedious, didactic monologues, an extremely weak and frankly meaningless arc) only to have someone come on, make a reductionist and incorrect summary of your meaning, and throw it back at you with a self-congratulatory "touche'?" ;-)
This book is right up there with The Bridges of Madison County in all-time over-popularity and acclaim, IMO.
Your review was outstanding, unlike this book!
I kinda liked the book - in the Danish translation there is a reference to Peer Bundgaard, a Husserl specialist - made me fell at home.
Eva I agree with you. I haven't completed the book (other things came up), but I'm determined to finish it. I found that Renee was a horrible person that looked down at others and was very critical. There was no traits that I could look at that could make me like her.
Yep. Terrible, awful ghastly. Really lazy 'denouement' - obviously she really could not think of a way out of the dead end she'd written hers into - I mean, where can characters like that possibly go? - so she takes the cheapest, easiest way out. A sort of suicide.
I feel like people say Americans don't like this book because it's very european. I'm european. Czech to be exact. My whole family is czech. I don't understand the hype about this book. It's so snobbish and hypocritical. It sometimes embodies the stereotype of snob French people we Czechs have. For me this book definitely doesn't embody european culture or people.
I love your review Eva, it was the worst book I've ever read. And I felt angry all the way through it. This book and the Little Paris Bookshop were the most difficult books I've ever read and both were French translated into English, so it made me wonder is it the translation that didn't work or do the French expect something different from their books.
Oh the bliss of not being alone in my loathing and utter despair that I was perhaps the only person on earth to see through this pretentious, stultifying drivel. Thank you!
I agree with most of what you've said, but I think the author intended to make them pretentious to impart a lesson. The conclusion itself tells us that. The concierge died after spending her life alone because she was to afraid to be hurt, which led her to have a snobbish attitude as a defense mechanism.The girl saw at the end that her decision to kill herself and her "deep" commentaries on life were just the pretentious fancies of a rich girl with nothing better to do and she decided to spend her life helping others instead of criticising them. If the author chose to write from this perspective it wasn't because she was sharing her views, but because she wanted to tell people that have this kind of attitude to wake up, stop "philosophising" and live their life.
It's French philosophy. You either love it or hate it.
Outside of the perception that Renee is conservative (unless this word means something else in France), this review is spot on.
