The Elegance of the Hedgehog
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Narrated by:
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Barbara Rosenblat
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Cassandra Morris
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By:
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Muriel Barbery
About this listen
Renee Michel is the 54-year-old concierge of a luxury Paris apartment building. Her exterior (short, ugly,and plump) and demeanor (poor, discreet, and insignificant) belie her keen, questing mind and profound erudition. Paloma Josse is a 12-year-old genius who behaves as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter. She plans to kill herself on the 16th of June, her 13th birthday.
Both Renee and Paloma hide their true talents and finest qualities from the bourgeois families around them, until a wealthy Japanese gentleman named Ozu moves into building. Only he sees through them, perceiving the secret that haunts Renee, winning Paloma's trust, and helping the two discover their kindred souls. Moving, funny, tender, and triumphant, Barbery's novel exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.
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Editorial reviews
The Elegance of the Hedgehog tells the story of a life spent in hiding. Madame Michel is the concierge of a luxurious Parisian apartment building, tending to the plants, signing for packages, and polishing the brass, retreating when she can to her rooms on the first floor. She keeps a television blaring where the tenants can hear it; she zealously polices her speech and gestures to keep from giving herself away. What is the secret she hides? Madame Michel is an intellectual. She knows Kant, but she's separated by class from other people who do, so she discusses his work with herself while we listen in. Her musings are voiced by Barbara Rosenblat, who lends an air of theatrical irony an auditory raised eyebrow to her descriptions of class blind spots and philosophical rabbit holes.
The other pole of the story is Paloma Josse, a 12-year-old tenant in the building, voiced by Cassandra Morris with an appropriate measure of sarcasm and outrage. Paloma is a wildly precocious girl raised in privilege who has all the gifts of intellect and all the faults of a pre-adolescent. She's grandiose she favors us with excerpts from a journal titled "Profound Thoughts". She's happy to throw stones at glass houses, and even plans to burn hers down, with the aim of teaching her family a pithy lesson about deprivation. She describes the currently deprived in terms that, while well-intentioned, condescend and distort. She is, in other words, a burgeoning intellect in serious need of the influence of an adult she can respect. An adult, perhaps, like the 54-year-old concierge on the first floor. But it takes more than a ride in an elevator to truly meet a woman who has spent her life in hiding. The novel takes two world views, both meticulously constructed from sound philosophical materials, and happily pulls them apart. Rosalie Knecht
Critic reviews
"An exquisite book in the form of a philosophical fable that has enchanted hundreds of thousands of readers." (Italian Elle)
"Kinetic minds and engaging voices." ( New York Times Book Review)
"By turns very funny and heartbreaking". ( Publishers Weekly)
"Life-affirming." ( Time)
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Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) was the greatest writer ever to come from Brazil and one of the masters of nineteenth-century fiction. Susan Sontag calls him "the greatest writer ever produced in Latin America", surpassing even Borges. Harold Bloom says that Machado is "the supreme black literary artist to date". And Allen Ginsburg calls him "another Kafka". And The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas is his masterpiece, a dazzling, tragic, and profound novel that belongs next to the greatest works of his contemporaries Melville and Dostoevsky.
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A hidden masterpiece
- By C. Park on 08-09-18
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The Schooldays of Jesus
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
David is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simon and Ines take care of him in their new town, Estrella. He is learning the language; he has begun to make friends. He has the big dog, Bolivar, to watch over him. But he'll be seven soon, and he should be at school. And so, with the guidance of the three sisters who own the farm where Simon and Ines work, David is enrolled in the Academy of Dance. It's here, in his new golden dancing slippers, that he learns how to call down the numbers from the sky.
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SEXUAL PERVERSION PRESENTED AS BRILLIANT
- By Amazon Customer on 09-29-18
By: J. M. Coetzee
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44 Scotland Street
- By: Alexander McCall Smith
- Narrated by: Robert Ian Mackenzie
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
The brilliant Alexander McCall Smith became an international sensation with his New York Times best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels. His award-winning wit, made famous through that series, is fully on display in 44 Scotland Street.
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Smith's answer to Maupin
- By Amazon Customer on 10-23-05
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The Door
- By: Magda Szabó, Len Rix - translator
- Narrated by: Siân Thomas
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Intense, brilliant and moving, The Door is a compelling story about the relationship between two women of opposing backgrounds and personalities: one, an intellectual and writer; the other, her housekeeper, a mysterious, elderly woman who sets her own rules and abjures religion, education, pretense and any kind of authority. Beneath this hardened exterior of Emerence lies a painful story that must be concealed.
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Challenging, but an engrossing, literary work.
- By Earnest on 09-05-17
By: Magda Szabó, and others
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The Razor's Edge
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Great War changed everything and everyone, and Larry Darrell is no exception. Though his physical wounds from the war heal, his spirit is changed almost beyond recognition. He leaves his betrothed, the beautiful and devoted Isabel; studies philosophy and religion in Paris; lives as a monk, and witnesses the exotic hardships of Spanish life. All of life that he can find - from an Indian Ashrama to labor in a coal mine - becomes Larry's spiritual experiment as he spurns the comfort and privilege of the Roaring 20s.
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An Classic of Love and the Desire for Meaning
- By Eric on 01-06-17
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A Tale of Love and Darkness
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.
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His life was interesting, but not his memoir
- By DR Harle on 01-27-19
By: Amos Oz
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Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
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Where Have You Been All My Life, Thomas Mann?
- By Virginia Waldron on 03-30-17
By: Thomas Mann
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Wicked Autumn
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- By: G. M. Malliet
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Max Tudor has adapted well to his post as vicar of St. Edwold's in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip. The quiet village seems the perfect home for Max, who has fled a harrowing past as an MI5 agent. But this new-found serenity is quickly shattered when the highly vocal and unpopular president of the Women's Institute turns up dead at the Harvest Fayre. The death looks like an accident, but Max's training as a former agent kicks in, and before long he suspects foul play.
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Just OK
- By Jeanne on 08-05-21
By: G. M. Malliet
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The Sunday Philosophy Club
- An Isabel Dalhousie Mystery
- By: Alexander McCall Smith
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
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Overall
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Story
New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith, winner of the first-ever Saga Award for Wit, has entertained millions with his beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency mysteries. Now this phenomenally popular author introduces a fresh series, brimming with the charm and humor his stable of dedicated fans can't get enough of.
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Advice For Prospective Listeners
- By DCinMI on 02-18-13
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Amulet
- By: Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews - translator
- Narrated by: Adriana Sananes
- Length: 4 hrs and 7 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A tour de force, Amulet is a highly charged first-person, semi-hallucinatory novel that embodies in one woman's voice the melancholy and violent recent history of Latin America. Amulet is a monologue, like Bolaño's acclaimed debut in English, By Night in Chile. The speaker is Auxilio Lacouture, a Uruguayan woman who moved to Mexico in the 1960s, becoming the "Mother of Mexican Poetry", hanging out with the young poets in the cafés and bars of the University.
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Read The Savage Detectives first
- By Alicia Grega on 12-05-13
By: Roberto Bolaño, and others
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The Bad Seed
- By: William March
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
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There's something special about eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark. With her carefully plaited hair and her sweet cotton dresses, she's the very picture of old-fashioned innocence. But when their neighborhood suffers a series of terrible accidents, her mother begins to wonder: Why do bad things seem to happen when little Rhoda is around?
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loved it
- By CoCo B.M.J on 07-23-19
By: William March
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More Die of Heartbreak
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Ramiz Monsef
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Kenneth Trachtenberg, an eccentric and witty native of Paris, travels to the Midwest to spend time with his famous American uncle, a world-renowned botanist and self-described "plant visionary". After numerous affairs and failed relationships, the restless Uncle Benn seeks a settled existence in the form of marriage - but tying the knot again opens the door to a host of new torments.
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A great book
- By John A. on 03-16-22
By: Saul Bellow
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A Closed Eye
- By: Anita Brookner
- Narrated by: Prunella Scales
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Born to elegant but frivolous parents, Harriet grows up ignored and unguided, and retains a curious innocence that neither her marriage to Freddie Lytton, nor her friendship with the beautiful Tessa can dispel. Freddie is far older than she is - a companion rather than a lover - and slightly disapproving of Tessa and her irresponsible, attractive husband, Jack. Yet all four are bound together: by their backgrounds, their children, by Harriet’s unspoken feelings for Jack and by the tragedy that lies in wait for all of them.
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The Late Great Ms. Brookner
- By David P on 05-15-16
By: Anita Brookner
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An Available Man
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- By: Hilma Wolitzer
- Narrated by: Fred Sullivan
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When Edward Schuyler - a modest and bookish 62-year-old science teacher - is widowed, he finds himself ambushed by female attention. There are plenty of unattached women around, but a healthy, handsome, available man is a rare and desirable creature. Edward receives phone calls from widows seeking love, or at least lunch, while well-meaning friends try to set him up at dinner parties. The problem is that Edward doesn’t feel available. He’s still mourning his beloved wife, Bee, and prefers solitude and the familiar routine of work, gardening, and bird-watching.
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Lovely book, easy read, wonderful characters
- By Molly-o on 02-17-12
By: Hilma Wolitzer
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What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
- Stories
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
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In "Books and Roses", one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers' fates. In "Is Your Blood as Red as This?", an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. "'Sorry' Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea" involves a "house of locks", where doors can be closed only with a key - with surprising unobservable developments. And in "If a Book Is Locked There's Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think", a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason).
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clever
- By jared rogerson on 03-15-18
By: Helen Oyeyemi
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What listeners say about The Elegance of the Hedgehog
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Overall
- txkimmers
- 08-01-10
Well, it's not "The Passage", after all...
This first half of this novel is all about two people who need each other that keep missing each other as they work hard at hiding from everyone else. Paloma and Madame Michel are hard to like at first, both very intelligent but alienated and snobbish in their own way as they judge the people around them. It isn't until the second half of the novel, with the appearance of the wonderful and gracious Mr. Ozu, that they come alive and connect-- and so does the novel for the reader.
I really loved this novel, even as I admit that I mentally checked out during some of intellectual discourses of Paloma and Madame Michel. There is a scene in which Paloma is having tea with Mr. Ozu and blatantly mentions to the reader that she is not even listening to what he is saying, but that being with him, the person, is a wonderful feeling. That is exactly how I felt with this book--I didn't always listen to the lecturing, but I developed a huge amount of affection for the characters. I also loved the sound of Barbara Rosenblat's voice and loved her performance, and that of Cassandra Morris. Highly recommend this book.
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- Evelyn
- 03-05-15
Thought provoking. Brilliant narrations.
What made the experience of listening to Elegance of the Hedgehog the most enjoyable?
The narrators were brilliant. They both assumed the role of their characters and were emotionally convincing. I thought it was an elegant and smart way to translate the book, in which the dialogue of each character was printed in a different typeface.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Elegance of the Hedgehog?
The juxtaposition of the reality of Renee's death and Paloma's realisation of her will to live.
Which character – as performed by Barbara Rosenblat and Cassandra Morris – was your favorite?
I find them both equally engaging and entertaining.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Made me laugh and, towards the end of the book, cry.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Nameless
- 03-20-22
Annoying voice and narrative
I couldn't listen for long as the young woman's voice is screechy and hard to listen to. I also couldn't get into a story when all the two main characters do is complain about the world and think they are better than everyone else. All in all, very annoying.
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-02-18
Simply Stunning
While this novel is not exactly an epic tale with excitement and adventure, it is a beautifully crafted tale that connects deeply with the reader on every page. From the organization of the novel to the text itself, every page is a gorgeous example of perfect literature, and it is most certainly a must read for everyone.
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- AnahitaAnahita
- 08-14-16
absolutely amazing!
one of the best novels I've ever read. you must listen to the audio book more than once. it surely isn't a difficult story to follow but a joy to go back to!
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- Teresa
- 11-30-18
Amazing narration!
It took a good deal of time to get going, but ended up being a very touching story about friendships, both new and old. Barbara Rosenblatt is a phenomenal narrator, and the young girl who narrates Paloma’s part was terrific as well.
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- Sanja
- 11-12-16
Heartwarming story about loneliness and beauty.
As story develops I liked it more and more, especially the inspiring end. Depression gone.
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- Albert Witts
- 03-20-15
Great until the end
Well narrated, and the story is excellent for 98% of the book, but the ending was unnecessary. I understand what she is trying to accomplish, but personally I felt it detracted from an otherwise great novel.
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- Victoria
- 04-13-12
A+, and then some!
For me, this story did not take flight immediately, but that was quickly overcome by the splendid narration, or should I say, enactment, of Barbara Rosenblat and Cassandra Morris. These two ladies added a fine layer of storytelling that would have sorely been missed had I simply bought the hardcopy. I felt like these characters were people I knew personally, and was sad to have the story come to an end. Of course this lovely creation by Muriel Barbery was superb. It is one of the best books I've listened to, and will hold a treasured place in my audible library. Thank you so much for this audible version. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
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- Teresa
- 06-30-19
Interesting "read"
Interesting slice of life from the views of a lonely, imaginative tween and a previously crusty, isolated by choice concierge, Their lives are changed by their accidental relationship.
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