Reviews

Sophisticated hedgehog

This is the latest in fashionable, book club novels. Muriel Barbery is a French professor of philosophy who turned to fiction and produced a runaway success. The Elegance of the Hedgehog topped European bestseller lists for months; recently translated, it's now also garnering high praise in English-speaking countries.

The book is constructed with alternating chapters (I seem to have read a lot of these recently!) by its two main characters, Renee and Paloma. Renee is a concierge who keeps her impressive intelligence hidden from the world, while Paloma is a precocious, equally intelligent twelve-year-old girl who lives in Renee's apartment building with her affluent family.

While this is a novel, Barbery uses the book to expound issues relating to class, image, and philosophy. Many of the chapters deal with various schools of philosophical thought, including one particularly contemptuous review of phenomenology (of all things). It's a sweeping, beautiful story with allusions to famous books, films and pieces of music, and this does makes it a sophisticated read in parts.

What spoiled it a bit for me was the utter self-absorption of the protagonists and indeed the novel, particularly in the first half. Paloma's world-weary disdain of everyone quickly got boring, and the eventual explanation for Renee's nervousness about letting her intelligence show was a bit of a disappointment. I'm also not convinced about the ending — without giving anything away, it felt like a cop-out to me. However, I seem to be alone in this: reviews are almost universally glowing. Perhaps I'm just a philistine!

Final note: an extra half star for the translator, Alison Anderson. It can't have been easy to convey Barbery's often wordy musings, but Anderson has done a credible job.

Read this if you enjoyed …

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

3½ stars

Hannah Pietsch

At the Movies with David and girls

Scrooge

David: For this long-time fan of Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol, the latest film adaption by director Robert Zemeckis, starring Jim Carrey, was no disappointment. By means of live capture animation, a rather understated Carrey was able to play not only Scrooge at all stages of his life, but also all three Ghosts.

Mia: The film was about Scrooge, who was a selfish old man and some ghosts helping him realise how selfish and bad he had been. I don't think it's for the younger kids, because there were some kids behind us that were crying and saying "I'm scared".

David: This is not a children's movie. Except for the almost unforgivable addition of some extraneous action sequences, the film follows the original in all respects: dialogue, visual illustrations, and social commentary are all fully faithful to the 19th century original without any dumbing down.

Maddy: I knew as soon as the movie started that I was going to enjoy it. I could tell by the swooping camera effects. It was pretty scary, especially the scene where the Ghost of Christmas Present disappeared. The Ghost of Christmas Past was nice, and the least scary.

David: We rather regret not take the option of seeing the film in 3D. Every scene is clearly designed to milk that third dimension for all it is worth. I reckon you would get your money's worth if you went to see it at Imax.

Mia: The movie was quite "doomy" until the end. I really liked the part where he got up and told the boy to go fetch him turkey.

David: Yes, this is a dark film for the most part. There are not many laughs, and some sections are downright terrifying. The ending is, however, "as light as a feather" as Scrooge describes it.

Mia: I quite enjoyed it. I give it four and half.

Maddy: I give it four.

David: If we could see it in 3D minus the unnecessary chase sequences, it would be a near-perfect film. As it is, I'm giving it four stars too.

David: & Maddy: 4/5

Mia: 4.5/5