Big Words

A while ago I read "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery. It is a bestseller in France and has been translated into many languages, including my personal favorite, English. Translation into my native tongue, however, did not always facilitate my understanding of this complicated, yet I believe, beautiful story.

I was so overwhelmed at times by the vocabulary, I started to write down the words I did not know. Occasionally I would look them up but for the most part, kept them like a collection of strange, beautiful things.

peccadilloes

banlieue

ossification

expiate

erudite

Coué method

élan

duenna

quatrocento

deontology

phenomenologist

nascent

abnegation

penumbra

Maybe if I'd studied harder for the SAT, or read more Talmage and less Twilight I might have a better vocabulary and my Hedgehog list would not be so long. Also, I realize I may have just exposed the fact that I actually have the vocabulary of an 8th grader. (5th grader?)

However, there is a chance that "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" is actually a pretentious book with snobby characters who just don't want you to understand them, even as they practially beg to be understood.