The Hundred-Foot Journey

The Hundred-Foot Journey,
by Richard C. Morais

I found this at the library and thought I'd read it before seeing the movie, as is my habit! Turns out that Richard C. Morais wanted to make a film even before and while he was writing the book.

I loved the first half of the book...the colorful depiction of Indian cooking, Hassan's relationship with his family and then Madame Mallory, and the process of running a restaurant in India and then France.

But AD (after the deaths of both Hassan's feisty father and the equally feisty Madame Mallory), the book slumps. It takes us, very quickly, through Hassan's trajectory of becoming one of Paris' top chefs. Much of the fancy French cuisine, heavily butchery and innards-focused, does not sound very appealing to me. The second half of the book focuses on the Paris restaurant scene and the process and snobby politics of earning Michelin stars.

Hassan seems more devastated by the death of another character than his own father or most significant mentor. Morais also confesses that he didn't go to India until after he'd begun writing the novel, and then only for 10 days. This is evident to me, not in the way he describes Indian cooking but rather how he describes (or fails to) the culture. After Hassan moves to Paris, he's hardly even Indian any more. This doesn't seem realistic to me. I was hoping to have the author touch on the perspective of an Indian chef learning and practicing French cooking, and that just doesn't happen.

I've heard great things about the movie, so I'm looking forward to seeing that. I understand from friends that Madame Mallory does not die in the movie, and Hassan's also more in touch with his Indian roots.

Bad Marie: My alterego?

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I had to read this book, if for no other reason than the great title. It's a classic example of a book with an unlikable main character who ends up to be almost (but not quite) sympathetic.

As the book opens, Marie is getting drunk at work, while taking care of a 2-1/2-year-old, Caitlin. She falls asleep in the bathtub with Caitlin, and the parents come home to discover her passed out, naked, in the tub. Caitlin's mother Ellen is Marie's so-called "friend," who hires her even though she has just served 6 years in jail for protecting her bank robber boyfriend. Ellen happens to be married to Benoit Doniel, the French author of Virginie at Sea, the book that was Ellen's lifeline while she was in prison.

Ellen is more than a bit naive, as she gives Marie a 1-week notice and tells her to keep her paws off her husband, even though Marie has a history of sleeping with Ellen's boyfriends. Of course, Marie initiates an affair with Benoit Doniel, as she idealizes him as a literary hero, and they end up running off to Paris, Caitlin in tow.

On the airplane to Paris and in the city itself, Marie is disillusioned to discover that Benoit is even more amoral and directionless than she is (and also without a franc to his name). Throughout it all, she is ever steadfast and committed to Caitlin, the one constant she seems to love and cherish.

Marie says what she thinks and does what she feels like, with no regard for the consequences. She's not really "bad," but possesses very little conscience. She truly does not believe there is anything wrong with taking what belongs to others, although when confronted with Benoit's dishonesty and lack of morals, she finds fault with the same weaknesses.

Dermansky is a French film fanatic, and she apparently styled this book after characters in French films. Perhaps I would have loved this book more if I were a French film fanatic myself. As it was, it was a great read for my day sick in bed!

The Elegance of the Hedgehog: The elegance of editing (a bit too much philosophy for my liking)

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I was in third grade, I decided that I wanted to be called "Rene" instead of Marie. We had a copy of the Renoir painting, "Girl with a Watering Can" in our living room, and my dad used to call the girl Rene. I wanted to be that girl. Add to that the fact that my third-grade teacher allowed us to adopt any name we wanted, and he would honor that. Great fun for a third grader, so I was "Rene." I cannot recall reading any other books with a "Renee" or "Rene" as a main character, so Barbery attracted me in the beginning.

As soon as I finished this book, I raced to Goodreads to jot down quotes that I liked--beautiful combinations of words that moved me, like these:

--"If you have but one friend, make sure you choose her well."

--"Moments like this act as magical interludes, placing our hearts at the edge of our souls: fleetingly, yet intensely, a fragment of eternity has come to enrich time...When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things."

--"This pause in time, within time ... When did I first experience the exquisite sense of surrender that is only possible with another person? The peace of mind one experiences on one's own, one's certainty of self in the serenity of solitude, are nothing in comparison to the release and openness and fluency one shares with another, in close companionship ..."

--"In the end, I wonder if the true movement of the world might not be a voice raised in song."

And I also complained to Mike (who finished this book a few weeks ago) that I did NOT like the ending. He responded that he knew I wouldn't like it.

What to say about a book that makes me appreciate words, art, and sliding Japanese doors in a way I've never done before? It makes me want to slow down and focus on the beauty of the world. But the same book also caused me to skim over passages of the protagonists' philosophies about art and other topics.

About a quarter into the book, I realized that I was reading this book with American sensibilities, so I asked Mike about this. I couldn't understand why Renee felt that she could not reveal her intelligence and personality to the rich people in the apartment house she managed. The American in me had a very hard time understanding this (as have many other reviewers, it seems). He explained that when he was in his British boarding school, the boys treated the house cleaners (Yorkshire lasses) in the very same way, as if they were invisible, and if any one of them had showed any sign of intelligence, they would have been perceived as "putting on airs." That helped me understand this novel a bit more.

One of the Goodreads reviewers mentioned the "fetishizing of Japanese culture." Really? Just because Japanese art and customs are admired in this novel, it means they are being "fetishized"??? (which is not a word!) Other reviewers felt that Paloma and Renee were total snobs, looking down on everyone else while feeling that they were outsiders. This is partly true, but I have to admit I enjoyed some of the snobbery about language and grammar. And how dare someone who is rich and privileged not know how to speak in proper sentences??? There simply is no excuse for that, as Paloma or Renee would say.

So, in summary, I could have skipped the long philosophical passages (I enjoyed philosophy in college, but I am done with that!). The book began to get much more interesting once Kakuro appeared and Paloma and Renee met. I enjoyed the burgeoning friendships between unlikely characters; the appreciation of Japanese art and culture; the interesting female characters (Renee and Paloma); and the subtext about snobbery and the class system. But the ending! Meh!!
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