Sometimes it’s the cover that captures you, sometimes it’s the title. It was the latter in the case of The Elegance of the Hedgehog. This book takes place in a Parisian building. It is alternatively narrated by two residents. The first is Renée, the concierge, who pretends to be much simpler than she is so she can avoid having meaningful interactions with tenants. The second is a twelve-year-old girl, Paloma, who is passively planning her suicide. Paloma is simultaneously likeable because she shows basic decency to Renée and unlikeable because her chapters, often titled Profound Thought X, are filled with the musings of a pseudo philosopher who has not actually experienced much life. Exhibit A: “Profound Thought No. 8: life goes by in no time at all, yet they’re always in such a hurry…But if you dread tomorrow it’s because you don’t know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it’s a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up becoming today, don’t you see?” Passages like this left me wondering, is that profound or just a long-winded play on words?

Renée and Paloma are largely operating in different universes until Kakuro Ozu, a Japanese filmmaker, moves in and adds a freshness to the otherwise dull building. The three of them build an unlikely but beautiful friendship with Kakuro helping Renée come out of her shell and Renée giving Paloma a place of refuge.

I quite enjoyed Renée as a narrator for her humorous disdain for everyone, her sheer panic when Kakuro finds out that she is cleverer than she lets on, and her dramatic storytelling. “This morning, while listening to France Inter on the radio, I was surprised to discover that I am not who I thought I was.”  Revelations like these mark Renée’s day and are the kind I often find myself having during the most banal of tasks.  

Perhaps my favorite part of this book was the end. It was bleak yet poetic, reminiscent of many French films I’ve seen. With such highbrow narrators, it was sometimes hard to get through, but I would recommend this for a few laughs and to make yourself think a little.