The Elegance of the Hedgehog

by Muriel Barbery

asthenic

salvoes.

insidious

All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way is the first line in Anna Karenina

affable,

chez nous.

ossification

the dance of the seven veils—oh

bumpkin

the Gaullists will start singing the Internationale—clearly,

magnanimously,

mores

lurid

Melanie K...

expiate

sanctimonious,

dolt

dregs

agnès b.

Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside, she’s covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary—and terribly elegant.

clairvoyant.

clandestine

erudite

We never look beyond our assumptions and, what’s worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we just meet ourselves. We don’t recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were to become aware of the fact that we are only ever looking at ourselves in the other person, that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy.

As for me, I implore fate to give me the chance to see beyond myself and truly meet someone.

traiteur—were

benighted

Gone with the Wind,

hare-brained

Lenin.

Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice,

fits and starts

élan

Achille Grand-Fernet,

Glenn Miller

(Que le jour recommence et que le jour finisse / Sans que jamais Titus puisse voir Bérénice)

epithets,

split infinitive

Jakobson,

rabble

consonance

apposite