The elegance of a hedgehog, by Muriel Barberry (book review)

I have rarely read such a deeply moving, thought-provoking and 'prone to put one into a philosophising state mind' book without being pretentious about it since Sophie's world.

The prose flows like melted ice cream. You simply want to hold on to it, your hand so keen that its warmth melted its chilly sharpness and, one gobbled it up all at once but at the same time I also wanted to prolong the reading of it somehow but despite myself, I had to finish it in such a few delightful hours. Even now my tears hardly dried up from the tragedy of the ending (I won't spoil it for you and I won't tell you).

If one has an excuse to mention obsure words like onomatopeia, this book has it all. Surprisingly, it did not have the usual line-up of suspect such as murder, sex and money in it (at least for the main protagonist).

If you are Nipponophile, you would simply relish (double-entendre included) this book, as though it was an array of delectable sushi on the carousel. For me it was a feast for both my inner culture snob as the author who is clearly passionate about art, music and literature.

I would dearly love to meet my own Kakuro (not in a salacious way) but in a detached communion with a soul with such refinement. I doubt that such a character does exist, which is to me somewhat reassuring.

I humbly urge you to read this book even if only for curiousity's sake because it is not a bestseller for nothing. This review could not do justice to its uncompromising explosion of hypocrisy and pretension but if you tend to be the latter yourself and a bit of a prejudiced either leaning to the right or left person, steer well clear off it, you will be depressed and unhappy after reading it. Be warned!