We met on Wednesday July 28th at 6.0pm at The Punch Bowl in Warwick – thanks again to Angie and all the staff for making us so welcome. We had read 
by Muriel Barbery. This novel, originally written in French is part philosophy and part novel. It took France by storm when it was published as being very different from run of the mill novels.
The group was very split, some enjoying the book and others finding it hard going. Most people who perservered with the book found the second half more enjoyable than the first part. The arrival of a new character, Monsieur Ozu, a wealthy Japanese businessman lifts the book from a group of essays on life, philosophy and the use of language to a real story.
The book is told from the point of view of Madame Michel(Renee), a concierge in an exclusive building of apartments. Renee lives a life of subterfuge, pretending to be the person the tenants expect from a typical concierge, dour and not terribly bright. In some ways she is almost invisible, she does her job and watches her tenants, but secretly she is in fact a woman of excellent taste, cultured and well-read. Her only friend, Manuela, knows and understands her.
The story is also told from the point of view of Paloma, the twelve-year-old daughter of wealthy parents, tenants in Renee’s building. Paloma is convinced that life as an adult will be so unsatisfactory and dull that she has decided to kill herself on her thirteenth birthday by setting fire to her flat. Her sister, Colombe, is a grade A student, studying philosophy, Paloma does not think much of her true intellect.
The two voices are very distinct, and the musings entertaining. It is slightly remeniscent of Sophie’s World. Paloma is studying Japanese at school, so is very keen to get to know Monsieur Ozu. Between them they realise that there is more to Madame Michel than meets the eye, and M Ozu, not being French, is able to flout convention without causing offense. He gets to know her as a person and from here, the story really takes off with some funny moments, particularly an incident with a musical toilet.
Two of the group read the book in the original French, and the rest of us were sure that much must be lost in transaltion. We do not have concierges in the same way as the French, and much of the pholosophy of language is about structure and grammar with subtleties of meaning which just are not translatable.
We thought that some of the philosophy was just to show how clever the author is rather than the character, and the choice of a Japanese businessman was partly to make him as exotic and un-French as possible. Teresa felt that he should have been considerably less scrutable!
Would we recommend this book to a friend? Frances, Inge and Denise probably would, the other members of the group were not so sure.
Our next book is ‘The Lacuna’ by Barbara Kingsolver and we will meet at the Punch Bowl again on Wednesday 1st September at 6.0pm
