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Just received an email from Gallic Books re The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbary:

The Book
Renée is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building, home to members of the great and the good. Over the years she has maintained her carefully constructed persona as someone reliable but totally uncultivated, in keeping, she feels, with society’s expectations of what a concierge should be. But beneath this façade lies the real Renée: passionate about culture and the arts, and more knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful but emotionally void lives.

Down in her lodge, apart from weekly visits by her one friend Manuela, Renée lives resigned to her lonely lot with only her cat for company. Meanwhile, several floors up, twelve-year-old Paloma Josse is determined to avoid the pampered and vacuous future laid out for her, and decides to end her life on her thirteenth birthday.
But unknown to them both, the sudden death of one of their privileged neighbours will dramatically alter their lives forever.
By turn moving and hilarious, this unusual novel became the top-selling book in France in 2007 with sales of over 900,000 copies to-date.

Sales Points
• The French publishing phenomenon of 2007 – from an initial print run of 4,000, sales of over 900,000 in hardback.
• Translation rights sold to 34 countries.
• Cited in Paris Match magazine in ‘highlights of 2007’ along with the i-phone and facebook.
• Winner of the prestigious 2007 French booksellers award.
• To be published in English simultaneously in UK and US.
• Published in Italy in October 2007 with sales to date of 400,000.

Publicity and Promotion
Review coverage in The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Observer, The Financial Times and Mail on Sunday; article in Bookseller and PN.

The Author
• Muriel Barbery teaches philosophy.
• L'Elegance du herisson is her second novel. Her first book, Une ourmandise (Gallimard, 2000) has been translated into twelve languages.

THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG Muriel Barbery

PUBLICATION STORY

• ‘The publishing phenomenon of the decade’ Le Figaro

• The Elegance of the Hedgehog is Muriel Barbery’s second novel, first published in France in August of 2006, with a print-run of only 4,000 copies.

• The book was published without great fanfare by Gallimard in the autumn that also so the publication of the eagerly awaited Les Bienveillantes by Jonathan Littell. Attention was focused on the noise and immediate sales success of Littell. Meanwhile the Hedgehog quietly went on selling.

• The book took 35 weeks to reach the number 1 bestseller spot. It has now spent longer in the French bestseller lists than Littell or Dan Brown and sold over 900,000* copies in trade paperback.

• It is entirely a word-of-mouth and bookseller-supported success. Both the chains and the independents backed the book from the beginning, turning it into a real long-seller i.e. one of those rare books whose sales are not huge on publication, but build dramatically over time.

• Hedgehog has won both the French booksellers’ prize and the Georges Brassens prize, both reliable indicators of books that have become truly popular with the reading public without quantities of hustle, pr and spin (wonderful word ‘fricotage’) from the publisher.

• Hedgehog is popular in France with readers of both sexes and all ages. It has been described as a ‘gift-seller’, as it is frequently bought as a present.

• The positive nature of the book has led to it being prescribed by Parisian psychotherapists to help patients out of their depression.

• By December 2007 it had overtaken sales of Les Bienveillantes.

• Hedgehog is about how deceptive appearances can be, and how casually judgmental we are of others. It is about the life-enriching power of culture and the arts and how these are not the preserve of an educated elite.

• Renée and Paloma seem to live by the dictum ‘pour vivre heureux, vivons cachés’ – a happy life is a hidden life. Renée hides her true self, as does Paloma who is far brighter and wiser than her years.

• Renee appeared briefly in Une Gourmandise, Barbery’s first book.

REVIEW PRAISE

• ‘The publishing phenomenon of the decade’ Le Figaro

• ‘A philosophical tragi-comedy’ Madame Figaro

• ‘Word-of-mouth amongst booksellers and readers is what has sold this book. And the secret of its success seems to be hidden with in its pages, like a genie in a lamp’ Nouvel Observateur

• ‘the revelation of the year’ Le Figaro

• ‘…beyond her refreshing optimism and the contagious delight she takes in handling the French language, her book is…a lesson, if not a philosophy lesson, then one in aesthetics and moral dietetics. The reader is not simply entertained, but also nourished. Which explains why so many people want to give it as a present. Because it’s a pleasure that one wants to share. Giving it to someone is akin to pinning a badge to their lapel. The insignia of the companions of the hedgehog: epicurean swine who wallow shamelessly in the delights of art and culture.’ Nouvel Observateur

• ‘She also says she writes in a disorganised manner – whereas what one particularly notices about the book is the structure of the alternating and carefully styled narration’ Le Figaro

• ‘prickly, funny, light and erudite’ Le Figaro

• ‘A sort of Life, a User’s Guide as seen from the concierge’s lodgings, a philosophical variation on Upstairs, Downstairs’ L’Express

• ‘A fine novel which shows how far everything hangs by a thread – particularly life’s certainties.’ Le Soir

• ‘funny and tender’ Le Soir

• ‘Barbery seizes those small pleasures of life, those perfect moments when sometimes everything hangs in the balance with all the timeless nostalgia of Marcel Proust…Funny, intelligent and aided by a melodious use of language, this story has a Japanese feeling to it: gravely light, as ethereal as a haiku.’ L’Express

• ‘delicious’ L’Express

• ‘The style of this novel is …prickly, ironic, with a melodious use of language. It does not flaunt its erudition. Muriel Barbery successfully handles serious matters with engaging lightness’ Le Figaro Littéraire

• ‘Muriel Barbery excels at depicting characters and showing up pretentiousness. The reader will be amused, surprised and moved by this philosophical tale: a users guide to life which is a delight on every level.’ Elle

• ‘Balancing on the high wire of cliché and finer feelings, Muriel Barbery handles philosophical paradox and social satire with rare dexterity. Enter number 7 rue de Grenelle, where you will find wit and good sense, and even suspense miraculously brought into the foyer of an apartment building.` Mme Figaro

• ‘A fresh, optimistic book. The author has succeeded in creating a true to life character with a convincing inner life. With this meeting of two characters, both embattled against the world, Muriel Barbery has written an intelligent fairy tale’ Figaro Littéraire

• ‘Muriel Barbery blends humour, lightness and a philosophical tale. A success.’ Lire

• ‘Indeed this novel where an intellectual concierge, a gifted child and a refined cleaning lady cross paths in a bourgeois apartment building is a multivoiced masterpiece’ Lire

• ‘To say that Muriel Barbery is gifted would be to fall short of the truth. She is like an organ, a one-woman orchestra. And every different stop can be heard, be it erudite, foolish, mocking, moving, polemic or truculent…Her use of humour is devastating. Even rarer is her sense of the unexpected. She makes the reader cry with laughter.’ Nouvel Observateur.

Le Figaro describes Muriel Barbery as being small and wanting to stay shyly in the shadows like a hedgehog!

INFORMATION ON THE AUTHOR

BIOGRAPHY

• The daughter of two teachers, she studied philosophy at the elite ecole normale superieur, but gave up a life as a career academic to train secondary school philosophy teachers.

• She lives above Omaha Beach in Normandy, with her husband, who worked closely with her on the book and is a psychotherapist.

• They have now left France for two years and are spending at least one in Japan, partly following in the footsteps of her favourite author, Nicolas Bouvier.

• MB’s literary tastes are as wide-ranging as Renée’s and Paloma’s. She really loves mangas, for example.

• As a child, her favourite books included ‘The Famous Five’ and ‘A Little Princess’ by Frances Hodgson Burnett. As an adult she loved War and Peace, Gone with the Wind and Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

• She feels strongly that knowledge is not the exclusive domain of one particular group of people. Educated in the most elite university, she entirely rejects intellectual snobbery, finding a more original, broader intelligence amongst her friends that have no further education, in contrast to university where the way of thinking is often very rigid.

WRITING THE BOOK

• Four publishers wanted her first novel, Une Gourmandise, which went to Gallimard.

• The idea for Elegance came to her when she happened to come across a passage in Une Gourmandise featuring Renée and she recalled her editor telling her that she didn’t necessarily have to have the concierge speak like a fishwife, she could have her sound like the Duchess of Guermantes if she wanted.

• Once she had Renee’s voice she knew she’d be able to write the story. She describes herself as a disorganised writer.

• She’s astonished at her success, and remembers cracking open the champers after the first 25k, thinking how amazing that was!

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Reading: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
Reading Challenge 2009: 8
2008: 4
2007: 10

eightlegs · Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 1:47 pm Post subject:

Sounds fascinating Glynis, might keep my eye out for that one!

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