So this is a really good translation. It sounds French, if that makes any sense – the words from the people sound like things that would come out of the mouths of my French friends (if they felt like talking about Tolstoy, which so far they have not shown any particular inclination to do) – but without the awkwardness that bugs me in so many translations of foreign novels. The Elegance of the Hedgehog is about a concierge who has spent her life pretending to be stupid so that nobody will notice her. She is fairly isolated, as you can…
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