I read books very casually, just like "The Grace of the Hedgehog" was attracted to the title. The book was well received after publication, translated into different languages and sold well in various countries, sold more than two million copies in two and a half years, and was adapted into a film in 2009.
What is "the elegance of a hedgehog"?
On the outside, she was covered in thorns, an indestructible fortress in the true sense of the word, but my intuition told me that from the inside, she was as delicate as a hedgehog, a small animal disguised as a lazy creature who liked to enclose herself in no man's land, but with extraordinary elegance.
The book is very "scattered", looking not at the plot, but at the feelings, perhaps related to the fact that the author is a professor of philosophy. The novel is written in the form of a crossover of the narration of the concierge Renee and the log of the rich girl Paloma, and the writing is elegant and full of good sentences. Some people say that this is one of the must-read works of "Wenqing", I think everyone who loves books will find resonance in it, right?
Muriel Barbery (born 1969) is a professor of philosophy and a well-known best-selling author in contemporary France.
The concierge is the janitor of the apartment.
Renee is the concierge of a building in the high-end residential area of Paris, France, with a total of eight families, except for the third and fourth floors divided into two sets (each set of 200 square meters), the remaining first floor of a household, each set of 400 square meters, living in parliament, diplomats, lawyers, food critics and so on.
My name is Renee, and I am fifty-four years old. For twenty-seven years I have been working as a porter in a beautiful apartment at 7 Rue Grnerler, a beautiful residential building with a courtyard and garden, divided into eight extremely luxurious, landlord-filled, spacious apartments.
Renee maintains an "entrenched image of a concierge" in front of her employer: old and frail, ugly in appearance, grumpy, widowed, rude, with a fat cat, and the TELEVISION always on.
However, Renee has a hidden side. The concierge was her haven, and most of the time she hid in a small room deep in the corridor, reading books, watching movies, voraciously acquiring knowledge, and mesmerizing herself for the wonders of art.
Coming from a poor background, she fell in love with reading under the inspiration of her elementary school teacher. He left school at the age of twelve, returned home to do farm work, married at seventeen, and worked as a concierge with her husband, Lucien, who died of cancer on Christmas Eve in 1989.
I read books about history, philosophy, economics, politics, society, psychology, education, psychoanalysis, and of course literature. History is of interest to me, and literature has taken up my whole life. My cat's name is Lev because that's Leo Tolstoy's name.
Renee lives in seclusion and has only one good friend: Manuela, a maid who cleans the homes of the rich, Portuguese, and moves with her husband to France. Every Tuesday and Thursday, Manuela would come to the concierge to have tea with Renee and eat her homemade pastries. In Renee's eyes, Manuela was a true "nobleman".
Whenever Manuela appeared, my room instantly became a palace, and the snacks of the Dalits became the king's feast. Just as storytellers turn life into a brilliant river of pain and sorrow, Manuela turns our lives into a warm and joyful epic.
Renee loves to drink tea and always makes and tastes tea when she meets Manuela.
The tea ceremony, the same movements and the same tasting can be clearly and clearly repeated, to achieve a simple, real and exquisite feeling, suitable for anyone, with very little consumption, can become a tasteful aristocrat, because tea is the drink of the rich, but also the drink of the poor, so the special advantage of the tea ceremony is that it opens a quiet and harmonious crack for us on the absurd road of life. Yes, everything is empty, the lost soul weeps for beauty, and the trivialities of the world surround us, so let's taste the fragrance of tea. There was silence everywhere, I heard the sound of the wind blowing outside, I saw the autumn leaves fluttering in the wind, and the cats sleeping peacefully in the warm sun. Take a sip of tea and time will sublimate.
The concierge is certainly familiar with every occupant. Every day, the concierge was clear about who came in, who left, who was with, and when.
On the second floor is the house of Congressman de Broglie.
Mr. de Brogley, a conservative who was reluctant to even greet divorced women, was "the perfect example of the rigidity of political thought."
On the third floor are the Merris family and the Rosen family.
On the fourth floor are the Saint-Nices family and the Badowaz family.
Renee liked the diplomat's daughter, Olympus Saint-Nice.
She did not want to marry a rich man, nor did she pursue fame and fortune, nor did she want to become a diplomat, nor did she want to have the status of a star. Olympus Saint-Nice wanted to be a veterinarian.
On the fifth floor is the Arden family, and the youngest son, Jean Arden, is an incorrigible addict.
On the sixth floor is the House of Councillor Jos, a family of four plus two cats (called "Constitution" and "Parliament" respectively).
On the seventh floor is the Paliers, an arms industry magnate.
Palier mother and son are arrogant and rude, and Renee cannot even tolerate the misuse of punctuation by Madame Sabina Palière.
The rich have an obligation to be beautiful. Otherwise, they might as well die.
That's right, Renee pursues beauty.
Aesthetics, if we meditate a little seriously, will find that aesthetics is nothing more than a legacy of the Middle Way, similar to the spirit of Bushido. The knowledge of moderation is deeply ingrained in our hearts. At every moment of life, this kind of moderate understanding enables us to understand what is the quality of life, to enjoy life with strong needs at a time when everything is harmonious. I'm not just talking about beauty exclusive to the realm of art. Anyone like me who pursues the greatness of small things will pursue beauty, know to dig out the essence of the heart, and under the beautification of daily clothing, beauty appears in some ordinary way, making people believe that beauty should be like this, and even believe that beauty is so.
Paloma is the youngest daughter of the sixth-floor Councillor Joss family, twelve years old, and a wealthy family.
She thinks she's brilliant and sees through the world.
Those who were close to my family all followed the same path: when they were young, they tried to reward their ingenuity, to extract knowledge like lemons, to find elite positions, and then to spend their whole lives wondering why they had worked so hard to end up with such a meaningless life. People believe that chasing the stars pays off, but in the end they end up like goldfish in a fish tank.
She sees her family as cowardly, hypocritical, insensitive, and hard-hearted.
His father was a member of parliament.
At dinner yesterday, Dad's guests said something like this: "Those who can do things, those who can't do things, those who can't teach, those who can't teach, those who can teach, those who can't teach, those who can' ”
Her mother, a doctor of literature, likes to drop her book bag and takes care of the family's plants every day.
Every morning, she would scrutinize the twenty pots of green plants in the room, and always muttered a lot of nonsense, treating the world around her coldly.
Mom thinks Paloma is always hiding and takes her to a psychiatrist. Dr. Ted treated mom for ten years, and mom took anti-depression medication for ten years. Paloma believes that Ted is cheating on the world, and she secretly exposes his disguise.
Although I know that some adults wear masks that are both sweet and gentle, their hearts are ugly and cold. Although I knew that I only needed to puncture a small hole in the mask and the mask would fall, I felt sad when it all happened in a cruel way.
My sister's name is Colomb and she is studying for a master's degree. The boyfriend, Tiber, is a college classmate, she reads philosophy, and Tiber reads math. In Paloma's eyes, the Tiber family is also arrogant and hypocritical. At a party, she pointed out Tiber's father's erroneous statement about Go, and was reprimanded by his father.
For me, what scares me about Colombe is that I feel like she doesn't think most of the time. Everything that Colombe shows is like feelings, she is so contrived, so false, I wonder if she really has feelings.
Even Grandma, Paloma, thought she was a bad old lady, who spent her life playing tricks, entertaining VIPs, and spending money on insignificant, hypocritical and selfish things.
She despised French cuisine.
If you want to hear my opinion, think about it, French food, how pathetic. So many talented chefs, so many cooking methods, so many sources of ingredients, but make such greasy food, sauces, meat fillings, snacks, these things will only eat a big belly! Tasteless... Even if it's not greasy, it's extremely pretentious: three simple carved red-skinned white radishes, two scallops plus a seaweed jelly, placed on a plate similar to that of a monk, and a waiter with a weeping face, which is not strange enough to starve to death.
She didn't like coffee, she liked tea; she didn't like newspapers, she liked comics.
She had excellent grades and looked down on teachers who had no real materials, and was punished for staying in class for two hours for bumping into the grammar teacher.
I think grammar is the way to beauty. When we speak, when we read, when we write, we feel very well whether we have made a beautiful sentence or whether we are reading a beautiful sentence. We have the ability to discern the beauty of sentence structure or essay style. But when we analyze grammar, we enter another level of beauty in language. Analyzing grammar requires stripping away the cocoon, that is, to see how the sentence is formed, to see how the sentence looks naked.
She foresees the fate of her classmates, who are filled with drugs and sex.
I wonder if you still have a concept of secondary schools in the upscale neighborhoods of Paris today? But frankly, this school is no more desirable than the school in the civilian neighborhood north of Marseille. Maybe worse, because wherever there's money, there's drugs — and it's not just that, it's not just one.
She thought life was absurd, and for that reason she was determined to end her life on June 16, her thirteenth birthday. She stole one of her mother's sleeping pills every month, and it had already gathered enough. Not only that, she also planned to burn down the apartment, it was a weekend, there was no one in the house, she would let the cat go, notify the fire brigade in advance, and burn the "goldfish tank" with one fire.
To welcome that day, Paloma wrote the World Movement Journal and Deep Thoughts to record the movement of the human body and objects, as well as her own "deep thoughts."
After Arden, a food critic on the fifth floor, died of a heart attack, his wife Anna sold the apartment. The apartment never changed occupants, and Anna was the first to sell the house.
The new tenant was Azu Gero, a Japanese man in his sixties whose father was a diplomat and whose mother died after giving birth to him, was a distant relative of Yasujiro Ozu. He made a lot of money in the business of importing audio into Europe, and is now retired, his wife died of cancer ten years ago, his daughter married to the British, and he has two grandchildren.
He had two cats, the female cat named Kitty and the male cat named Levin. Like Renee, he liked Tolstoy's novels, and the names of cats were all related to Tolstoy.
Ozu and Palomar become oblivious friends, keenly aware of Renee's extraordinary.
He thinks her cat is called Lev because of Leo Tolstoy, and we all think that it is extraordinary for a concierge to read Tolstoy's novels and books published by Wenhan Press. He even had conclusive evidence that she liked anna karenina and decided to give it to her.
Ozu Gorō takes the initiative and invites Renee to his house for dinner.
Renee was surprised, "Between neighbors? But I'm just a concierge. ”
Ozu replied, "You know, everyone can have two identities at the same time." ”
Manuela encouraged Renee to go to the feast, asked her to cut her hair, brought her clothes, and dressed her up. So, for the first time in her life, Renee went to the hair salon, her hairstyle completely changed, she felt that she had a new look, And Manuela said that she was a "lady without compromise".
The dinner was light and enjoyable and the two got along well. Renee found that she was like-minded with Ozu Gero: she liked Tolstoy's works, still life paintings of the Dutch School, Mozart music, Ozu Yasujiro's films, and so on.
What is both confusing and incredible with Mr. Ozu is that he has the enthusiasm and innocence of a young man, as well as the mind and friendliness of a wise man. I've never seen such a demeanor in the world; he seems to be able to see others in a tolerant way and is full of curiosity about others.
Naturally, there was soon a second reunion: Renee took Azojiro Ozu's "Sisters" videotape and went to the private theater of Ozu's house to watch it together.
Not long after, Ozu invites Renee to a restaurant to celebrate his birthday. This time, Renee's heart was sick, and she decisively refused Ozu's invitation.
It turned out that Renee had a beautiful sister Lisette, who left home at the age of sixteen to work as a maid for a rich family, and was abandoned by the rich family, giving birth to a child and dying, and the child died quickly.
From then on, I have firmly believed in the truth that the strong live and the weak die, and that the degree of pleasure and suffering is proportional to class status. Lisette is beautiful and poor, while I am intelligent and poor, and if I only want to put my intellect to work, but do not care about the question of class status, I will certainly be punished in the same way as Lisette.
The scene where Renee refuses Ozu's invitation is seen by Paloma, who suddenly opens her heart, cries, and spits at Paloma. Paloma told OzuGro about it.
Unexpectedly, at this time, Jean Arden came to visit Renee, who had quit drugs, found a job, and regained his life. He often thought of the flowers that Renee had planted in her backyard, and he came out of his way to ask Renee what kind of flowers were they? Renee was deeply touched: it was a camellia, a flower that could change her destiny.
Renee changed her mind and went to the banquet with Ozhiro. Ozu Gero thoughtfully sent coats, shawls, and leather shoes. Renee bathed and changed, put on her earrings, put on lipstick, she hadn't dressed up in a long time.
Ozu Katsuro came to the concierge to pick her up. At the door, they meet Yascent Rosen and Anna-Elena Merris, but they don't recognize Renee at all, and they grin their teeth and say hello to her.
Renee wondered why they didn't recognize her, and Ozu said, "It's because they've never seen you, and I, no matter what the circumstances, I can recognize you." ”
I was very surprised by the fact that this process was accompanied by an invisible force. Yes, the eye sees through, but does not observe; to believe, but not to question; to accept, but not to seek—no desire, no hunger, no conquest.
Glenn takes Renee to taste what he considers to be the best Japanese food in Paris, and he says to Renee, "You're not your sister, let's be friends, and we can even do everything we want." ”
Let's talk about Paloma.
As the days went by, the plan for "suicide on the thirteenth birthday and burning the house" slowly wavered.
Playing with Yoko, Paloma and Ozu's granddaughter, she finds yoko very different from her classmates, Yoko's future is unpredictable, and her life is full of freshness and possibilities. Paloma realized that she wanted to die because she believed that fate was what it was. But Yoko gave her a new idea, can she seize the opportunity to turn her life into a completely different life from her grandparents?
One morning, Paloma was having breakfast in the kitchen, and the roses were falling, and she heard this extraordinary sound. She suddenly thought, "To be alive is to hunt down that fleeting moment at any time." ”
When Paloma learned of Renee's mental trauma and watched Renee cry bitterly, she was very touched and had a new feeling, it turned out that she had been tired of life because she was useless to anyone around her.
For a moment, I think I have found my mission; I think I have understood, that is, if you want to save yourself, you must first save others, that is, save those who can be redeemed, those who are still saved, even if they cannot save others, do not be discouraged.
Renee and Ozu Goro stayed up all night after dinner, and the next morning, she went out shopping and was killed by a rash laundromat driver in order to save the drunken tramp Renran.
Renee's death awakened Paloma completely.
For the first time in my life, I felt the meaning of "ever", yes, really scary. It's a word we use a hundred times a day, but we don't know what we've said until we're actually faced with "never again."
Paloma said: What matters is not death, but what we are doing in the moment of death.
So, what is Renee doing in the moment of death?
I once met someone and I was getting ready to fall in love with him.
So, Paloma is approaching thirteen, what is she going to do?
Don't be afraid, Renee, I'm not going to kill myself, I'm not going to burn anything, Because, for your sake, from now on, I will pursue the "forever" of this "once." Pursue the beauty of this world.
(The picture in this article comes from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author.) In addition to the description, the picture is a still from the 2009 French film "The Grace of the Hedgehog")