Book Club: Elegance Week 3

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Book Club: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery – Week 3

Hosted by The Book Wheel and Love at First Book

Welcome to Week 3: Today-July 21 – Summer Rain Ch 1- Profound Thought 13 (pages 173-238)

Alright, so we’re moving along through the book, now more than halfway. . .

Please go ahead and start (or continue) the conversation!  Remember to come back to continue to respond to others who comment throughout the week (and month)!  Write as much or as little as you please, and don’t forget to link your own blog if you have one!

Only post about Summer Rain Ch 1-Profound Thought #13, please!  Spoilers totally allowed for those chapters, but no spoilers for the remainder of the book, please!  Save those for the later posts.

Haven’t finished Summer Rain-Profound Thought #13 yet?  Come back when you’re done and join in the conversation!

There’s still plenty of time to join us if you want to!

Thanks for reading,

Rebecca and Allison

45 thoughts on “Book Club: Elegance Week 3”

  1. Ok, so I’m totally loving this book.

    I can see it being the perfect reread, too, because of all of the vocabulary and the philosophy intertwined with the story. I think you’d be able to pick up many nuances the second time around that we might be missing on a first read.

    I also loooooove the music being played in the bathroom! That’s just hilarious! Renee was scared to death! I did a little googling and here’s a fun fact: In Japan, many women run the sink water while going to the bathroom because of the embarrassment of the sound. So there’s an invention in most of the bathrooms that women can press to drown out the sound, not with music, but with flushing noise. There’s plenty of other “Japan fun toilet facts” on Wikipedia, but I’ll stop with that one! 🙂

    I can’t wait to finish this book and see what happens next!!!

    What about you guys?

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  2. Well now things are getting interesting. Renee is so used to being in her own little box, whether put there by others or self imposed, she doesn’t know what to do with herself. New hair, new clothes (well borrowed from a dead woman), and dinner with a man. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

    I got a little laugh out of the part when Renee & Mr. Ozu meet for the first time and the first line of Anna Karenina causes a subtle connection between them. I know a certain someone who has spent months listening to that book while not enjoying it at all.

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  4. This book is beginning to make me laugh out loud. The scene with Maman fighting over the lingerie and each of the women leaving with one half of the set reminded me of the Friends episode where Monica got into a fight over her wedding dress and I could not stop laughing. Not to mention the bathroom humor and the quality of toilet paper and a singing flusher!

    I was optimistic that the suicide girl would change her mind in one of her Profound Thoughts, but then she went back to normal so I’m not so sure. While I’m excited about Renee and Mr. Ozu’s blooming friendship (romance??), I was kind of hoping for more of a connection between Renee and the suicide girl – probably because I want her to live 🙂 But it’s not too late for that!

    Oh, and I/m hoping for a showdown between Renee and her tenants. Because you just KNOW some of them are going to find out about her and Mr. Ozu and it’s going to be a big thing. Okay, I’m guessing, but I think it’s a good one, maybe?

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    • Oh yeah, the lingerie scene!!! It’s sooooo like that Friends episode!!! It also makes us look so silly as shoppers. Like we care so much about underwear and so much less about life and people in general.

      I felt the same way about our teen. There was a point where I thought: wow, she’s seeing the light. But then the next time around, she was depressed (or so it seemed according to her thoughts) and it made me sad again. I do still have hope for her.

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    • I also have hope but the fact is that she finds more and more assertions that tell her that life is not worth living: the episode with the psychologist, for example.
      And I’m also looking for a meeting between Renée and the girl! I can’t believe that, afther the conversation between Ozu and the girl, she doens’t feel more interested in Renée – I would have spied her or something!

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  6. Well, I have to say that I my favourite part so far has been “the dinner” in Ozu’s home.
    Everybody knows that it’s very difficult to feel comfortable in a extranger’s house, and even more if you are a smart woman pretending to be only a portress, and that it’s very difficult to turn an embarrassing situation (asking for the toilet, and then the music, the door, etc.) as a natural one that can happen to any body. So good for Ozu, he looks like a man everybody would feel comfortable with.
    I still haven’t thought about romance between the both of them, but it would be great if Renée can make a new friend, one with she can talk about toilets as well as about Tolstoi 🙂
    Let’s see what happens next.

    By the way, I have taken the film out from the public library and I’m planning to finish the book and watch it this week. Will anybody else watch the film?

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    • oh yes yes, watch the movie, AFTER you read the book. it is so very very good. I remember watching it in a very small obscure art movie theater around Chicago. I was so entranced by these scenes with Renee and Mr Ozu that I really wanted to eat Japanese after the movie, and lo and behold, next door to the movie was a Japanese restaurant, and I’m not even kidding!!
      I guess we’ll have to add an extra week after reading the book here to compare between book and movie.

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      • Well I have to say that I’ve finished the book and yesterday I watched the movie with my boyfriend (he hasn’t read the book) and we liked it very much.
        I usually don’t like films after reading the book (and I know it, but I always want to watch it after the book), but this time I think it is so accurate and lovely 🙂
        Hope you like too, and I also vote for an extra week to comment the movie!

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        • Sorry Isi, you are voted down! 😛 But Allison and I think it is a fabulous idea that if people want to talk movie, we can just add it in to Week 4, since we’re discussing the entire book then anyway! 😀

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      • Thanks for the suggestion, but Allison and I (cohosts of the book club) are not going to add an extra week for the movie.

        Please feel free to compare the book to the movie in the week 4 comments, once the book is finished! 🙂

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      • Great idea! And something to keep in mind for the future. I’m not a big movie buff so a whole extra week of discussion would be a bit overkill, but I might try to watch it before the end of Week 4. No promises, though! I’m all for you guys talking about it next week!

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  7. I’m finding the book more fun as we read along. I think it’s part of the charm and the overall message of the story. At the beginning of the book, you have this characters that think a lot, overanalyze things, and that is part of their problem; but suddenly they “feel” life (in this case, Renée through Mr. Ozu), and they start to live instead of just think of living. That’s the lesson I’m getting from Renée.

    I laughed a lot with the lingerie story Paloma told, too.

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    • I also agree with James: the first part is only about the portress and the girl talking and talking about their thoughts, but now they are talking about their life.
      When I said on Goodreads and my blog in Spanish that I was going to read this book, a lot of people said they didn’t like the book and that they had to give up with it because it was boring; but it’s just because of this – the introduccion of the book, which is quite long, is about people who analyze life instead of living it.

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      • I love that: “about people who analyze life instead of living it”

        So well said!

        I think that the book has so many nuances that can only come alive when you REALLY read into them, and maybe not even on a first read.

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  8. So I’m finally up to date on the book, after having missed out on week 2. Personally, if I had to comment during week 2 I would have said I found the book a llitttlleee boring… but NOT anymore. I think it starts getting interesting, with a little humor thrown in.

    Like I said above, I laughed at the toilet scene, I thought it was really funny. I’m also glad the girl (no name yet? Incase I missread) found a friend in Monsieur Ozu, the same with Renee. Renee and Ozu does have a connection, I wouldn’t be surprised if something romantic develops there! What do you guys think?

    I also still hope “she” changes her mind about committing suicide, it would be a shame. I enjoy her profound thoughts!

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    • I agree a little with Mel because I also have noticed a big change between the 2nd and 3rd week in the book. Even though I found interesting the fact that the portress and the girl are “especial”, sometimes I got lost in their super profound thoughts and I wanted more action, that it’s just what we have now in this part.

      Regarding the name of the girl, in my copy you can read her name in the first sentence of the synopsis of the book (I hate when the synopsis gives away more that you are supposed to know!).

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      • I tried to separate the books by “part” but I couldn’t until the last 2. There were just too many pages in the first part (I think it was the first) that it might have been too much for some readers. But it worked out well for weeks 3 & 4, at least!

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  9. I’m having trouble finding an active link to your discussion of the last part of the book. I came back to see what you thought of the ending.

    Sorry if I end up double posting. I’m having trouble doing that, too.

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  10. Pingback: The Elegance of the Hedgehog: Book Club Begins Monday, July 1! | Love At First Book

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