I completed my Elegance of the Hedgehog experience. Indeed, this is a heartbreaking story. It’s more than your average outcast meets cool stranger finds redemption.
The story asks the big question: does life have any meaning?
The book does the only thing you can do with that question… contextualize it, swirl it around, test it. Ultimately it remains non-answered with a tilt towards “just when you think life does have meaning something happens to make you question it.”
This is book is loaded.
* All humans carry mystical bagage (fate!, rights!, free will!, God’s way!, rain god!)
* Western society romances the truth for children (where there’s a will, there’s a way!)
* Humans do what the environment shapes them to do (social circles, castes, roles in life, culture, family)
* Changing course requires changing the environment (circle of friends, physical change…)
* Beauty is…really hard to define
* Being lonely sucks but false relationships might suck worse
* Intelligence is not an end in itself, it is a biological tool to help us survive
About that last bullet point this passage from page 165-167 haunts me. And, yes, it’s personal.
“Fascination with intelligence is in itself fascinating, but I don’t think it’s a value in itself. There are tons of intelligent people out there and there are a lot of retards, too. I’m going to say something really banal but intelligence, in itself, is neither valuable nor interesting. Very intelligent people have devoted their lives to the question of the sex of angels, for example. But many intelligent people have a sort of bug: they think intelligence is an end in itself. They have one idea in mind: to be intelligent, which is really stupid. And when intelligence takes itself for its own goal, it operates very strangley: the proof that it exists is not to be found in the ingenuity or simplicity of what it produces, but in how obscurely it is expressed… It is not a sacred gift, it is a primate’s only weapon.”
Ouch. This is what I mean about this book non-answering the big questions. The author drives a stake through intelligence as a good to possess and recasts it as the simple tool it is. AND… here we are reading a philosophical book with poetic characters that wax about the meaning of life and profound thoughts!
So… is it just a biological weapon? and if so, how is this book a wielding of that weapon?
This is a trickier question than it might seem regardless of your take on the matter.
And on that note… I’m going to a giant book festival now to wield my weapon and probably keep this pathological search for meaning going for another day. and maybe that’s just it. if I stopped looking for or ceased creating meaning, how would I survive?
Social Mode 
What is the symbolism of the Camellias? What is signifigance of the title in Elegance of the Hedgehog?
My book group would appreciate any insight.
Thank you, Vivian Sabel
jssabel@earthlinnk.net
I’m not sure it’s so important that it’s Camellias. Though Camellias are frequently used in pop culture, flowers typically symbolize rebirth and nature and beauty – central themes of Hedgehog.
The title comes from one of the little girl’s profound thoughts. The idea that the hedgehog is elegant… would you normally think of hedgehogs as elegant? they are odd little creatures… like the main characters.
I think it teaches us that there’s beauty in everything and everyone – and we should try to look at things outside the blinders we wear every day.
In each person is a unique, secret being. Yet each of us neglects to see that in the vast majority of the people with whom we interact every single day.
The simplicity of life, its capacity to continue (rebirth) … perhaps that’s the significance of the camellia – how the simple things we notice can give us strength and purpose, just because they give us hope in their beauty and simplicity.
I think I’m changed after reading this book.
Kim,
I agree! Especially about the rebirth and finding beauty in simple things.
i, too, was changed in reading this book!
thanks for posting!
I finished reading this book just over a week ago, and I really enjoyed it. In fact, I found your blog through looking for various reviews of “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”, so I can read other peoples’ perspectives.
I mostly enjoyed the fact that the book’s morale was straight forward and beautiful: that there is a pocket of beauty in everything, and that what we dismiss as little pursuits such as proper language and grammar and the mere will to continue living are steps to attaining beauty.
I loved the film, too…………..
But I believe the author dislikes the film.
Has anyone else read the book and seen the film and can comment?
I think it a timely novel, in light of the frighteningly prevalent suicide rate among young people. Perhaps it offers some insight and some answer to the phenomenon. Anything that contributes to this is worthwhile.
Are these characters lives determined because of their class? Is that a question that the author wants us to look at? In other words, do the characters have free will? Renee exercises her free will in a constrained way by enjoying intellectual pursuits but she has no one with whom to discuss them. Her poverty requires her to work as a concierge, or does it? Isn’t she exercising her will by staying in this job? Without an education with a degree, she is unable to break out of her lower class mold. Does she create her own isolation or is it determined because of her station in life? Will Paloma exert her free will to find happiness in something which she is passionate, or will she continue to stagnate in a life that reminds her of a goldfish in a fishbowl?
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I have to write an in class essay on it. I really enjoyed it but it was difficult to fully understand the symbolism and beauty of each paragraph. But, that comes with wisdom, and I have only lived for a short time. I believe that a theme I could use is:
How each relationship that Renee embraces helps her live beyond the social ranks, gain the self-respect that she lost, and realize the beauty of love.
I was thinking about incorporating something about the prevention of Paloma’s suicide and how Renee helps Paloma discover the meaning of life, which is to embrace the beauty of each day, and true suffering.
Tell me what you think. (Anyone who finds this and is taking the essay NO CORYRIGHT)
I recently read the book, and loved it, but I also got a bid overwhelmed by constant onslaught of the symbols and motifs and allusions. Thanks to the comments, I think I now understand the camellias, but I’m still confused on exactly what the significance of the rain was?
Any other perspectives would be a huge help, thanks.
*a bit overwhelmed