Book Review - The Elegance of the Hedgehog

I'm starting a new section on books, starting with a French novel I recently read. Here's my review in the form of a paraphrase:

The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery

"i nearly fainted because i slipped and said something that indicated i read books! i couldn't bear to have the boss think that I, a lowly concierge could possibly have read Anna Karenina! these stupid bourgeoisie think they know everything. i cleverly disguise my intelligence with the elegance of the hedgehog, all quills on the outside and a soft underbelly. i suspect that monsieur so-and-so is also an intellectual and may have discovered my secret! i must maintain my secret so as to allow the bourgeoisie to continue in their foolish enterprise of believing me to be a lowly concierge. but ah, i love japan, anything Japanese: haiku, sushi (it is so much more elegant than french cuisine!), and manga."

i wonder if at the end of the book the narrator is revealed to have been an idiot for all her self-ascribed intellectual superiority. i think that's the only way it could redeem itself, and even then, it would only serve to belie the author's self-diagnosed superiority to the underclass it sets out to elevate...? (the author is a French professor of Philosophy)

hmm... too much for this time of the morning? maybe it's time for me to go back to school and take some lit classes

Rating: Aucune étoile!