Mariah Devereux Herbeck recently published an article in Dalhousie French Studies titled “(Re)casting the Concierge in Muriel Barbery’s L’élégance du hérisson.”
Devereux Herbeck writes that Barbery’s successful 2006 novel may provide the first instance in French literature of a female concierge who narrates her own story.
Through textual analysis, Devereux Herbeck demonstrates that the theatrical lexicon characterizing Renée’s narration sets the stage, so to speak, for a (re)examination of the often stereotypical image of the French female concierge and the role that she has been cast to play in French literature, and by extension, French society.