Tag: #murielbarbery
The Life of Elves — Muriel Barbery
A Strange Country — Muriel Barbery
Gourmet Rhapsody — Muriel Barbery
Although translated one year after The Elegance of the Hedgehog, this is actually Muriel’s first book and was published in French 6 years before. And that’s why i read it first.
I’m in two frames of mind about this book, my first one is that it’s an incredibly well written descriptive narrative that i thoroughly enjoyed, especially being a life long foody myself, to the point i found myself happily picking it up at every spare minute to read some more. However, my other frame of mind comes from my utter contempt for people who look at food as a medium for art when the best part of i billion people don’t get enough calories every day while many many more get absolutely no choice what to eat and very rarely have access to a full range of essential nutrients. At the same time, over 1 billion other people in the privileged developed world gorge themselves on highly processed foods to an obesity epidemic (creating an obscene amount of waste while doing so). A system of food preparation, presentation, advertising and marketing that caters for nothing but a ridiculous conception of what good food is. This system being pushed wholesale through advertising and television cookery programs: Master Chef being a prime example.
Good food is as it comes from the ground with the most minimal processing, just enough processing to maximise the digestion of the nutrients, and each meal should aim to be completely nutritionally balanced. Instead we have these so called master chefs, critics and their sycophants parading food on television that bears no resemblance to reality, is nutritionally corrupt in the extreme and does nothing but titillate people’s mouths and give them a spike of neurotransmitters that they fallaciously perceive as delicious while fuelling a pandemic of obesity and chronic diseases, causing years of suffering before sending them all to an early grave.
So yeah, i loved the writing and enjoyed reading it, but i really hated the main protagonist’s attitude to food, life and everything: the only thing he didn’t treat with utter contempt was his own gluttony and i was quite pleased when he died without the choux pastry he wanted so much.
Anyways, i’m certainly looking forward to reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog.
Muriel’s Page
#murielbarbery
The Elegance of the Hedgehog — Muriel Barbery
The Elegance of the Hedgehog is Muriel’s second book after Gourmet Rhapsody, and is actually the bread on a Gourmet Rhapsody sandwich. The Elegance of the Hedgehog is set in the same building as Gourmet Rhapsody and begins shortly before the death bed of Pierre Arthens, and quickly passes by his death with a simple thought from a 12 year old girl in another apartment:
Pierre Arthens for sure was truly nasty. They say he was the pope of food critics and a worldwide chapion of French cuisine. Well, that doesn’t surprise me. If you want my opinion, French cuisine is pitiful. So much genius and wherewithal and so many resources for such a heavy end result … And so many sauces and stuffings and pastries, enough to make you burst! It’s in such bad taste … And when it isn’t heavy, it’s as fussy as can be: you’re dying of hunger and before you are three stylized radishes and two scallops in a seaweed gelee served on pseudo-Zen plates by waiters who look as joyful as undertakers.
As a classically trained chef myself, i couldn’t agree more.
Once Pierre is dead, the story quickly moves on as Pierre’s apartment is soon taken over by a new, wealthy occupant.
So while Gourmet Rhapsody is certainly a good starter, you don’t need to have read it beforehand to enjoy the main course of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, you could actually read it when the Pierre’s death is spoken about in The Elegance of the Hedgehog, or even afterwards, as a desert, if you so wish.
But whether you read Gourmet Rhapsody or not, i highly suggest you read The Elegance of the Hedgehog. At it’s heart is Muriel having some fun with the juxtaposition of the poor concierge on the ground floor with the wealthy inhabitants of the apartments above; peeling back the curtains to see what’s really going on behind these closed doors, throwing in some great little rants, ideas, and wonderful, philosophical, food-for-thought concerning the disparity of rich and poor in society; and how each tend to live in completely separate universes, oblivious to each other, hopefully never having to meet on the stairs.
As i’ve previously mentioned in Night Train to Lisbon, i do enjoy philosophers who write novels, and if i had real books i’d happily put Muriel on the shelf next to Pascal.
Super good, and next up from Muriel will be The Life of Elves which i’ll be sure to get around to reading in the not too distant future.