What's in being a geek? What do you do when you are highly intelligent, without any proper credentials, in a society of snobs who will not let you into their circle where you can talk to people who are mentally on your level? You hide. You pretend to be dumb and of dull wit, so that people will not accuse you of impudence and try to "put you in your place". You hide and try to create a loophole of a place where you can pursue your mental and spiritual interests undisturbed by a world that is unfair and would not let you be, otherwise.
This is the world of Renee Michelle, the witty, highly intellectual concierge of a luxurious apartment building in Paris, inhabited by people all too full of themselves., esp. the insufferable wives of rich, well educated men, and their spoiled, neurotic children.
A concierge that owns two tv sets: one in the concierge room that will loudly play rubbish all day, soap operas, commercials, talk shows...so that people will think, she is there and doing her job, and one in the backroom, hideout where she "disappears into the world of art" and watches documentaries and such, and reads books on philosophy from the library. Accompanied by a cat named Leo, as in Leo Tolstoi...
Until, one day, a friendly, unassuming but equally intelligent and witty Japanese-Russian moves in upstairs who owns two cats called Kitty and Levin, after two characters in Tolstoi's novels...
How I love this book! I have rarely enjoyed a novel this much! And there must be more to it than my shot of French blood. ; )
You can read more on this book, incl. several lengthy quotes from it, on my blog, there is a series on "The elegance of the hedgehog".
This one is a bestseller in France, as well as in the New York Times. Has anyone else read it? I am not finished yet but near the end.