The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Renée’s husband Lucien became very sick in 1989 and died in 1990. She recalls how her employers hardly noticed Lucien’s death and reflects that:

The fact that we might be going through hell like any other human being, or that our hearts might be filling with rage as Lucien’s suffering ravaged our lives, or that we might be slowly going to pieces inside, in the torment of fear and horror that death inspires in everyone, did not cross the mind of anyone on these premises. (70)

Three weeks before Lucien died, he summoned his strength and brought Renée to a showing of the film The Hunt for Red October, a film she still treasures as a final happy memory with her husband.

Renée listens to a radio broadcast of a sociologist who identifies the balance of sophisticated literature with baser entertainment as emblematic of contemporary intellectualism. Renée is annoyed that she could be labeled as emblematic of the society she has tried to subvert.

The diarist observes how, though a cleaning lady comes to clean the house every day, her mother cares for her plants herself. She believes that she cares for the plants in the same way that she cares for her children, which is to provide them the physical nutrients they need to survive. This creates an illusion of security because there is a world of other needs children have for their mental and emotional development.

Chabrot, personal physician to Pierre Arthens, who lives in the building, tells Renée that Pierre has 48 hours to live. He asks Renée to turn away all visitors except for Pierre’s nephew Paul.

The diarist and her sister Colombe don’t get along because she finds Colombe combative and loud. In the last few months, Colombe has developed an obsession with cleanliness and organization. Colombe’s new obsession reminds the diarist of a soldier’s attention to detail, leading her to the thought that everyone in society acts much as a soldier does—the soldier busies themself with small tasks or distractions as they wait for orders to go into battle and die. Everyone’s life is much like this since we will all eventually die, and we engage in daily distractions until it happens. The diarist believes that Colombe is internally chaotic and searching for an external way of organizing what she struggles with on the inside. The diarist is sometimes frightened that Colombe doesn’t express emotions.

Manuela stops by the concierge desk to have tea with Renée. Renée appreciates the routine of having tea. She recalls a book called Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura in which Okakura identifies the rebellion of Mongolian tribes in the 13th century for destroying the art of tea. Renée likes the routine of tea because it is a reliable form of beauty and pleasure when the rest of the world is full of chaos and conflict. While she has tea with Manuela and they discuss Pierre Arthens’s impending death, she is reminded of a time when she found Pierre’s youngest son Jean in the garden staring at the flowers in the courtyard. By this point in Jean’s life he had become addicted to drugs and was often found asleep in random places in the building. When Renée asked if he needed help, he declined, so she left him there alone, though she checked on him through her window. He stayed there for a long time, but before he left he came to Renée’s door to ask what kind of flowers they are. She told him they are camellias.

The diarist notices her father’s morning routine. He wakes up early to read the newspaper with his first coffee. She calls this routine “constructing himself.” Her mother tells her that Pierre Arthens is dying. The diarist has always found Pierre to be a nasty man, an indicator of his own self-hatred. The diarist wants her own morning routine and starts drinking tea and reading manga, which she finds more “elegant and enchanting” than coffee and newspapers (84).

Renée contemplates what constitutes life, which she refers to as a “phantom comedy” (88). As primates, people spend their time protecting their territory and struggling to move up the social ladder. The solution to the problem of the phantom comedy is art. Art can take on many forms, such as Renée’s film viewing or tea routines.

In the evening, Renée watches a film by Ozu called The Munekata Sisters. She appreciates the film because Japanese culture, unlike Western culture, honors living in the moment and taking joy from small but powerful images. One such image in the camellias growing on the moss on the temple, which one character explicitly points out as she talks with her dying father about a walk they took through Kyoto. The camellias represent pure, unadulterated beauty and a simplistic expression of the joy and meaning in life.

The diarist loves watching television. She watches a diving competition and is disappointed when she notices two synchronous divers slightly mess up their synchronous dive. She is angry that there isn’t perfection in human movement. She watched the dive to seek experience and reality but instead discovered a proxy.

Doctor Chabrot informs Renée that Pierre has died. She comforts Chabrot with a quote from War and Peace: “Everything comes at its appointed time” (101). After Chabrot leaves, Renée finds herself distracted from her reading thinking about Pierre’s passing. She hears classical music played in another room and is comforted by this art.

Renée reflects on the idea that education is what keeps humans from succumbing to their more animalistic impulses. She is personally offended when a note from one of the residents, Sabine Pallieres, includes a major grammatical error in the form of a misplaced comma. Renée believes that “[l]anguage is a bountiful gift and its usage, an elaboration of community and society, is a sacred work” (106). She feels that the wealthy have a responsibility to appreciate and maintain beauty because their wealth allows them to exist above those things in life that diminish beauty. Considering Sabine’s wealth, education, and her mother being on the selection committee of a publishing house, Renée finds Sabine’s grammatical error akin to blasphemy.

Colombe’s boyfriend’s parents come over for dinner. The father wants to play Go, a Chinese board game he incorrectly identifies as Japanese. When he also incorrectly states the ranking system of the players, the diarist corrects him. Later, her father admonishes her for rudely correcting his guest. The diarist likes Go because it replicates the consequences of life: You live or die. It also encourages building well over anything else. She decides that instead of deconstructing everything around her, she’ll start building things, like relationships.

Olympe Saint-Nice, the daughter of the diplomat on the second floor and one of the only people in the building Renée likes, stops by Renée’s apartment. Olympe likes chatting with Renée because Renée has a cat and Olympe wants to become a veterinarian. Olympe tells Renée about treating a neighbor’s cat named Constitution. Constitution has a bladder issue related to acute stress and anxiety for which the treatment is Prozac, just like a human. Olympe tells Renée that the Arthens apartment will be put up for sale.

In all of Renée’s years of working in the building, no one has ever sold their apartment outside of family inheritance. She is inexplicably upset at the prospect of the Arthens sale.

Renée finds solace in literature. She revisits Anna Karenina. She particularly likes the scene in the novel when Levin finds pleasure in the machine-like movements of the human body and mind while farming. Renée understands that “[f]reed from the demands of decision and intention, adrift on some inner sea, we observe our various movements as if they belonged to someone else, and yet we admire their involuntary excellence” (119). Renée also relates to Anna Karenina because one of the characters, Ryabinin, is trapped in society’s system.

The diarist goes with her family to visit her grandmother Mamie Josse at the retirement home. She doesn’t like Mamie Josse, whom she finds nasty and unworthy of her privilege. However, because she has resolved to build instead of seeing only destruction, she tries to find something about the situation to honor. Acknowledging that everyone eventually ends up old, the diarist decides that building is even more important because of the urgency of her youth.