in this section of the novel, paloma and renee still haven't met. however, we begin to see strong connections between the two characters right from the start. in these first chapters, both characters describe pets as totems. renee talks about the poodle as totem, and paloma, the cat.
page by page, we learn more and more as we receive glimpses into their everyday lives. i noticed that renee spends a good deal of time in this section talking about books, philosopy, learning, knowledge. she talks of being an autodidact and how she so desperately wants to understand all that she reads. on the other hand, in paloma's sections, she speaks of feeling or the lack of it in the case of her family. how her mother "cares" for the plants and children...feeding them but not necessarily in a nurturing or loving way. how colombe acts like a soldier...
i loved the quote on pg. 86...
"Don't we all deal with life the way we do our military service? Doing what we can, while we wait either to be demobbed or do battle? Some will clean up the barrack-room, others will shirk, or spend their time playing cards, or trafficking, or plotting something. Officers command, soldiers obey, but no one is fooled by this comedy behind closed doors: one day, you'll have to go out and die, officers and soldiers alike, the morons along with the wise guys..."
i found the section about renee and lucien to be so moving, the description of illness like a web, so poignant.
thinking vs. feeling. it made me immediately think of the meyers briggs profiles. how would paloma's and renee's profiles differ? or would they?
my absolute favorite part of this section was renee's chapter about the importance of ritual on pages 90-91. it is far too long to type here but i found myself reading that section again and again.
a critic for marie claire described the elegance of the hedgehog as a book that grow[s] quietly and then blossoms suddenly", and i have to agree. i finished this book some time ago, and i can speak from experience that this book only gets better.
6 comments:
hi... I think it is very nice
so good to hear. thank you for your comment.
good post, shari. i can feel we are getting very close to renee and paloma's meeting. i really like the parallels between each characters chapters - the cat/dog totems, the drinking of tea, even down to the mullet they both ate for dinner (albeit under very different circumstances).
i, too, loved renee's part about ritual. this was my favorite quote: "Elsewhere the world may be blustering or sleeping, wars are fought, people live and die, some nations disintegrate, while others are born, soon to be swallowed up in turn - and in all this sound and fury, amidst eruptions and undertows, while the world goes its merry way, bursts into flames, tears itself apart and is reborn: human life continues to throb. So, let us drink a cup of tea."
looking forward to the next post...
what i liked most about this part was how renee and paloma have similar interests... and in particular their love of japanese culture [tea, movies, manga]. this really appealed to me.
count me in on the ritual love...
i particularly liked on pg. 91 when she talks about tea:
I know that tea is no minor beverage. When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?
i also like how paloma talks about her father "constructing" himself. and how adults must do this... pg. 92. in a way this is also ritual. i also like how she compares her choice of tea and manga to his of coffee and newspaper "something elegant and enchanting, instead of adult power struggles and their sad aggressiveness". pg. 95
love the quotes you pulled em and lisa! thanks for sharing.
hope it's not too late to join in. i accidentally stumbled onto your site and as i have this book on my nightstand already, decided to start reading and join in with you.
i too like the ritual part and all the lines you quoted.
i also have a favourite quote by paloma on page 57:
..nothing is harder or more unfair than human reality: humans live in a world where it's words and not deeds that have power, where the ultimate skill is mastery of language. this is a terrible thing because basically we are primates who've been programmed to eat, sleep, reproduce, conquer and make our territory safe, and the onew who are most gifted at that, the most animal types among us, always get screwed by the others, the fine talkers, despite these latter being incapable of defending their own garden or bringing a rabbit home for dinner or procreating properly. humans live in a world where the weak are dominant. this is a terrible insult to our animal nature, a sort of perversion or a deep contradiction.
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