The Elegance of the Hedgehog/A Review

Many years ago, on a rainy day, I walked through a bookstore and discovered Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. I hadn't heard of it before—I should have, but I hadn't. I brought it home and made that book my own personal discovery. My touchstone. My measure. My source of redemption when the world seemed too scarred or dark.

The same thing happened yesterday, when I finally found time to read The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Sure, indeed, tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) had discovered this second novel by Muriel Barbery before I did—but I hadn't spoken to a soul about it, I hadn't read reviews of it, I hadn't stumbled upon a blogger's commentary, and so it wasn't on any of my must-buy lists. It was simply there, face up, at a bookstore, and I had the urge to bring it home.

Yesterday I read this story of the autodidact concierge who lives the clandestine life of an undiscovered intellectual in Paris. She has a best friend who comes to visit. She befriends a brilliant, beauty-seeking twelve-year-old named Paloma. And then a distinguished Japanese man moves into her building and asserts the possibility of being truly known, truly seen.

I was sitting by a screened-in door as I read this book. The day was perfect. The phone rang and I did not answer. Emails pinged; I left them unattended. The book, which moves slowly, sumptuously, across the terrain of ideas and time, takes such an unexpected turn at the end that I found myself crying. Just sitting there in the breeze, sobbing. For the beauty of the story. For the courage of Barbery. For the very idea that so many people out there have already embraced this story of ideas and heart.

Read it, if you can.

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The Books on my Shelves

The fabulous Holly Cupala of Brimstone Soup tagged me on this meme, and since I was musing just yesterday about bookshelves and friendships, it seems an appropriate Sunday launch. The question is, What's on your bookshelf?, and the specifics are these:

Tell me about the book that has been on your shelf the longest...

A beaten, brown thesaurus (the pages unbound now and out of order) and the bible my mother gave me. In fact, however, most all of my books have been acquired during the last 20 years. I was not a bookish kid (I was a writerly one, not a bookish one, which is truly not the right order of things) and did not come from a bookish family, which is not to say that I did not come from an educated one. It's simply that the home that I grew up in was not furnitured with books.

Tell me about a book that reminds you of something specific in your life ...

Natalie Kusz's Road Song was the first memoir I ever bought—the first I ever read. I was pregnant with my son. I was in a Princeton bookstore. The book was revelatory (you can write about your life? like this?) and I wrote to Ms. Kusz, never expecting a response. A few weeks later, one came. "As I am sure you know (because, judging from the elegance and insightfulness of your letter, you must be a writer yourself), writers are in the business of attempting to expose the human condition in such a way that our description resonates in the souls of other humans ... " A writer myself? Not then. Just someone who loved the sound of words, their puzzling together. By announcing to me a new genre—memoir—and by suggesting to me a possibility—an actual writer—Ms. Kusz and Road Song changed my life.

Tell me about a book you acquired in some interesting way ...

This past Friday six books arrived in a brown box, chosen by an editor with whom I've lately had the privilege of corresponding. I had mentioned that I sought, in my life, books that "put faith in the reader." She responded with generosity and with a telling eye and ear. Every one of these six books appears to be my kind of book. You'll be hearing about them here, over time.

Tell me about the most recent addition to your shelves...

Since the books in that box aren't yet on my shelves (but on the coffee table, where I will leave them until they are read), the newest books were three: Book of Clouds, The Frozen Thames, and The Cradle. I've written of them all here. Book of Clouds also, in its way, changed my life, my way of seeing what is possible in story.

Tell me about a book that has been with you to the most places...

Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. I've read it several times, in several places—in El Salvador while visiting my husband's family, in Orlando while helping to oversee a corporate launch conference, on the train to New York City.

Tell me about a bonus book that doesn't fit any of the above questions...

Two books that I felt strongly should win the Pulitzer Prize did, and they sit eloquently on my shelves: March by Geraldine Brooks and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. There were shouts of joy here when both were announced. Both winners aren't just enormously talented writers. They are gracious people, which counts just as much.

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