The Elegance of the HedgehogThe Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Rene is the concierge of a very wealthy apartment building in Paris. She is really intelligent and very well educated. She likes to read history and philosophy, but she pretend to be an ignorant, and turns on the TV out loud when some neighbour is climbing the stairs. On the other hand, Paloma is a brilliant teenager who lives in the same building and who is thinking in committing suicide in her next birthday.
Everything will change when one of the neighbours dies and an old and rich Japanese man comes to live to the building. The three of them meet and chat with the others and became close friends.
The book is really interesting, not only because of the complexity of the characters, but also for the funny and intelligent dialogues. Perhaps the most attractive parts of it are the digressions of René, the way she thinks about politics, religion, human condition and many other subjects. Perhaps it was not very easy to read for my level of English, but I think that it’s a really literary masterpiece.


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