Hello Tim!
Yes, it is the recurring theme for this week:
The decreasing temperatures of recent days, the relentless countdown still right in front of us, and we are in no way ready for the impact now.
A Hedgehog
But still, despite all the stress pouring over us, I don’t see the reason to stop reading novels as a hobby. Quite the opposite, in fact. After spending a practical thirteen hours in school, I found that it is therapeutic to have something extracurricular to read.
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| People aim for stars, and they end up like godfish in a bowl. |
However, I’m not sure if we should classify The Elegance of a Hedgehog as a novel. True, it’s got characters, plots, and settings, but it is also largely proportioned with philosophical essays. There are two main characters, Paloma, a thirteen-year-old girl who saw the world in its ugliest form and thus has been cynical. She was so upset at the word that she had decided, on her coming birthday, she would burn down the whole department and go down in flames with the bricks and walls, in which the act represents her malcontent for the world. But just you wait...
There was also Renée, the seemingly quotidian concierge of the Parisian apartment Paloma lived in. She was not what most others in the book thought she was, though. She was born with great intelligence, but a tragedy in her childhood times convinced her to shy away from the gazing eyes of the world and resolved to become a concierge who had to deal with all the antics of the rich residents who took her “inferior job” for granted.
The two of them had nearly given in to the thought that the world is in its final form- beyond fixing. Now let’s introduce a crucial secondary character to the story!
Like how the whole universe works, when something seems to go wrong, one would appear and, like a cogwheel that spurs the machine to go on once again, or a wrench that screws a loose bolt tight to stop the gadget from making an orchestra of disconcerting creaking sounds, and fix the problem. The said cogwheel in this book is named Kakuro Ozu, a Japanese businessman who moved into the department, he sees people for who they really are, under the façade named money that people have been hiding behind.
I cannot say I understand the whole book. The parts involving philosophy are just too incomprehensible for me, either if it’s from a monologue of Paloma or Renée. They took turns talking about concepts like art, the perception of the world, and eccentric behaviors of people in the upper class, all of which were accompanied by a myriad of symbolism and metaphors. Sometimes I get what they are talking about, but for many of the cases, I would have the puzzled scowl on my face even after reading the same passage for two times. Throughout the book, I was curious where the title of the book, “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” (in its original language, « L’élégance du hérisson ») came from. The inquiry was solved when Paloma offered her first opinion on Renée the concierge, “Madame Michel (Renée) 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 of the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent creature, fiercely solitary – and terribly elegant,” I liked the slight tinge of poetry mingled within.
I forgot to mention how this book ended up on my shelves. Back in middle school, I had a classmate who introduced me to this book, in a translated version. Right then, he wanted to improve his spoken English skills, so in English, he told me that it is a book about a girl who was upset with the world and decided to commit suicide on her birthday. There’s nothing more than that, but since he was a classmate with a rather mysterious aura around him, I knew that what he reads must be something worth a try.
I Cut My Hair
Or more specifically, I went and had my hair cut.
As I recall, the last time I had gone to a barbershop was the beginning of June! I have deliberately let them grow like untended vines; I heartily took in any derisive account or negative comments the others (i.e. basically everyone I know) because I know what they say must be true. It is not normally obvious, but I have the natural curls once my hair grows to a certain length, and it usually starts with my overgrown sideburns. I didn’t know what gave me the idea at first, but I was just insistent on letting them grow until winter. Now it’s November, and I went to the barbershop in the morning, and after a dozy thirty minutes, accompanied by the distinctive sound of the buzzing razors and the snipping scissors, I got a new hairstyle!
It’s still horrible, apparently.
I didn’t get a good look at myself in the mirror, so I wasn’t sure. But when I noticed that no one was willing to offer a comment other than a simplistic ‘Oh, you got your hair cut’ and I got that clear.
Other than the fact that our photo shoot would take place tomorrow, I was unfazed by my supposedly ‘terrible hair,’ for there was literally no way I could have made it better; What is cut off is cut off.
End
I just came back from a stuffy mini hotpot dinner, and I am too full to eat even a breadcrumb. I need to go out for a walk.
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| Extra: Patrick in his banana suit on Halloween, eating a banana. |
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| When Sophie grows up and found out that I had posted pictures of her on my blog, she's going to kill me. |
Sincerely,
Hugo
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