The Elegance of the Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery

There is a lot of discussions on Goodreads about this book. People either love it, hate it, or were so-so until the middle of the book when another character enters the scene. It is constructed in short chapters of varying lengths and consists of the musings of two females – one, a middle-aged lady and the other a preteen. Both are highly intelligent but both have experienced trauma, causing them to feel like the have to hide. Mostly they both live in their heads.

Many say this book is pretentious and I can see why. There is a lot of philosophical thought discussion. For example, Renee (the middle-aged concierge of a upper class apartment building) doesn’t know what phenomenology is so decides to read up about it (she is very curious and a voracious reader). At the end, she dismisses it as nonsense. I had forgotten what it was too – it is the study of consciousness or how individuals experience the world. Renee muses about it and I found her thought discussion and conclusions amusing. Others have commented that this book exposes the prejudices of Renee and Paloma towards the ultra-rich residents of the building; how each thinks that intelligence trumps money and how little the residents know how looked down on they are. But I found the observations the residents and the apartments fascinating.

When the new character comes onto the scene, things begin to unravel for Renee and Paloma and the last part had me in tears. Extreme poverty which Renee and her family had experienced, does change you. And class divisions do have inhibiting effects. The ending is beautiful – (some have said it wasn’t a surprise ending, but I don’t think that is necessarily so).

The Quiet American – Graham Greene

My first Greene and what a devastating novel The Quiet American is. I’m still thinking on it weeks after having read it. Some in the US say it is an anti-American novel, but I don’t think it is. It is an anti-colonialism novel. In sparse language, Greene shows the reader the effects of foreign occupation. The misery and hopelessness of the population, the heartlessness and business-as-usual attitude of the occupiers, and the bloody-mindedness of the small militia trying to oust them. Enter a new would-be occupier represented by Pyle. He is nauseatingly polite, young and ignorant. Dangerously ignorant. Vietnam is a war zone, and has been for some time. It is imperative that communism must not be established so another force must be instituted to set aside the Viet Minh. Terrible things happen. People die but they way the occupiers and would-be occupiers refer to them as necessary sacrifices. Death for the greater good. Absolutely sickening but you can still see this happening today. The narrator of the story is a world weary journalist who wants to continue to observe – be the outsider looking on. Not be involved. This is no longer possible after a shocking event forces him to make a necessary sacrifice, for the greater good. A powerful novel that still resonates today. Brutal and uncompromising. Excellence. I will be reading more Greene.

Candide by Voltaire

It must have happened for a reason and it’s all for the best. How many times have you encountered this reasoning or have thought or said it yourself? Well, I think I know where this has come from and Voltaire wrote a scathingly funny satire about it. This philosophical theory was put forward by Leibniz, a 18thc polymath who tried to close the argument around the problem of evil. Basically, his theory is that God chose the best of all possible worlds for man to inhabit (meaning there were worse options available) and that in order to activate will and bring out the best in humanity, there has to be evil. Voltaire demonstrated the stupidity of this theory by writing a story about a credulous young man who is beset with calamities which seem to get worse and worse. He tries in vain to believe what his former philosopher mentor taught him about the best possible world of all possible worlds and to have faith and be optimistic. But dear oh dear is he sorely tested! There are some laugh out loud moments and I especially loved the section where the hero of the story visits a man who is exceeding rich but has never known any troubles. It is revealed during the visit that he is in fact bored stiff. His library is viewed and the owner is frank with his visitors about his opinions about the various authors. Homer? People convinced me I would enjoy it but it induced a nearly fatal attack of boredom. Virgil then? I can think of nothing more flat and disagreeable! Oh but Milton! Surely you enjoy his work? That barbarian and coarse imitator of the Greeks??! Obscure and disgusting!  Oh how I laughed while reading this on the tram going home from work! One thing stuck me though. The hero’s love is described as the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. And other male characters thought so too. Thing!! And when she loses her beauty she is no longer a thing. But besides this minor point, Candide is well worth reading and is still chuckle-worthy after all this time.

The Tale of Genji – Lady Murasaki

Oh my, Genji! What a man. Sigh. That was the sound many ladies at the Japanese court of Emperor Kiritsubo made over his extremely handsome illegitimate son. This edition is only part 1 of 6, and the remainder of it can be found online. I am sufficiently engaged to want to read the rest. Written over 1000 years ago by Lady Murasaki Shikibu, a lady of the ancient Japanese Heian court, it is a tale of love affairs and the goings on of Genji, ‘the shining one’, and his friends. It is considered to be the first novel. During her lifetime, Japanese culture and society was flourishing while Europe was in the Dark Ages. Lady Muraskai wrote this in episodic form for the entertainment of herself and the other women of the court. It was a very formal society with strict protocols of behaviour and conduct. Yet on the other hand, the nobility had hardly anything to do when not engaging in court or religious ritual so what did they get up to? Lots of sexual intrigues and affairs! Genji spies on women and comes to them in disguise. Sometimes he makes love with his amours but other times, he sends coded messages and receives them in return. The contemporary reader might feel a little disturbed by these sexual goings-on and some reviewers on Goodreads mention the word rape. But I don’t think that word can apply. It is a very different and alien society to our eyes and it follows that the behaviour codes are very different and strange. And yet, human nature hasn’t changed that dramatically because the motivations and psychological insight that Murasaki demonstrates is understandable to readers in the 21st century. And after all this time, it still is a readable story with fun moments. I really enjoyed reading the introduction which outlines what is known about Murasaki’s life (Murasaki means purple in ancient Japanese and one of the characters name is Murasaki), and contains excerpts from her diary. And I am very happy to find that it is available online! She complains about wanting to escape drunken men and writes that she is chastised when she attempts it. And comments like this: “A LADY KOMA had very long hair, an agreeable lady in those days; now she has become like the bridge of a lute which has been immovably fastened with glue.” So delightful and some of her sentiments are ones we can still relate to.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K Dick

This classic science fiction novel by Philip K Dick is sad. It is a dystopian vision of what the world would be like post WW3. Absolute desolation. I think this is also a study about how humans relate to other creatures and machines once slaves but now independent. There is no indication that the androids were actually harmful to humans, just that they had broken free from slavery and now were uncontrolled. The humans live a very disconnected life from one another and show no empathy at all towards others  who are more badly effected by fallout. Yet humans need the empathy boxes to remind themselves they are human and better than the android slaves and dimwits. So what is Dick saying? Is he saying that humans are not humane and no better than other animals? That AI is in fact, being developed for a life of slavery? Dick mixes two genres which sort of work in this novel – the noir detective novel with scifi. There is the housewife, the mousey secretary and the femme fatale. There are lighthearted moments like televisions still needing antennae in Do Androids Dream but on the whole, this novel paints a damning picture of human destructiveness and selfishness.