Dear Friends,
We return again to The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, where the clandestinely clever concierge Renée seeks eternity in the ordinary, and the intelligent but immature Paloma seeks to discover if life is worth living. We ended last week with a cliff hanger: Monsieur Ozu sent Renée a book!
I thought you all would like to know that yesterday I made the trek all the way from where I’m staying in the fifteenth arrondissement of Paris, to the Rue de Grenelle in the sixth arrondissement— the location of our summer novel! I can confirm that the area is rather lux, and fittingly the bottom floor of the supposed apartment building has been taken over by Prada— with Saint Laurent across the street! It was fun to wonder around the streets and imagine Paloma’s take on them. I plan to watch the movie when we finish the book, and I’m curious about whether or not they filmed the movie at this exact location or not. We’ll see!
This week we read the section entitled “Summer Rain.”
What struck me most in this section is the significance of human connection. Renée undergoes something of a spiritual awakening as her friendship grows with the new resident of 7 Rue de Grenelle. Renée describes her growing connection with Monsieur Ozu in religious terms. In last week’s section she described the moment when Ozu quotes Anna Karenina back to her as a “moment of grace.” And in this week’s chapter “Saints Alive” (perhaps that is what she is becoming!) she finds herself praying as she prepares for dinner with Ozu, and describes something like a baptism afterward; a summer rain, after which she is reborn. One little detail that I loved is that just like the teacher who called her from mere existence into life, Monsieur Ozu insists on calling Madame Michel by her name rather than her title. Through relationship, a new life is made possible.
By contrast, Paloma’s journals have become darker, precisely because she has several experiences of alienation in her human relationships. Early in the section, Paloma seems to show some signs of leaving behind her plans to end her life and burn down the apartment building. She would regret it, she thinks, because she would hate to inconvenience a man as good as Monsieur Ozu, and because she wants to see his grand-niece grow up. Both of these movements away from despair come as a result of her human connections. By contrast, it is two upsetting interactions, one with her sister and one with her mother’s psychotherapist, that lead Paloma to despair about her search for a reason to live.
And of course, amidst these scenes are many delightfully quotable passages, but I shall end this email with one about Summer Rain, the title of this section:
Do you know what a summer rain is?
To start with, pure beauty striking the summer sky, awe-filled respect absconding with your heart, a feeling of insignificance at the very heart of the sublime, so fragile and swollen with the majesty of things, trapped, ravished, amazed by the bounty of the world.
And then you pace up and down a corridor and suddenly enter a room full of light. Another dimension, a certainty just born. The body is no longer a prison, your spirit roams the clouds, you posses the power of water, happy days are in store, in this new birth.
Just as tear drops, when they are large and round and compassionate, can leave a long strand washed clean of discord, the summer rain as it washes away the motionless dust can bring to a person’s soul something like endless breathing.
That is the way a summer rain can take hold in you— like a new heart, beating in time with another’s.
Discussion Question: What is different about Madame Michel’s relationship with Ozu to the other inhabitants of the building? What has it called her into new life?
Can’t wait to hear what you all thought of this week’s chapter!
Warmly,
Joy
p.s. this is where I finished my reading yesterday… the Luxembourg gardens!
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