The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Renée loves literature so much that her cats have been named after famous pieces of literature. However, she also loves films, especially American blockbusters. For Renée, films represent escapism and nostalgia.

Renée’s husband Lucien became very sick in 1989 and died in 1990. She recalls how her employers hardly noticed Lucien’s death and reflects that:

The fact that we might be going through hell like any other human being, or that our hearts might be filling with rage as Lucien’s suffering ravaged our lives, or that we might be slowly going to pieces inside, in the torment of fear and horror that death inspires in everyone, did not cross the mind of anyone on these premises. (70)

Three weeks before Lucien died, he summoned his strength and brought Renée to a showing of the film The Hunt for Red October, a film she still treasures as a final happy memory with her husband.

Renée listens to a radio broadcast of a sociologist who identifies the balance of sophisticated literature with baser entertainment as emblematic of contemporary intellectualism. Renée is annoyed that she could be labeled as emblematic of the society she has tried to subvert.