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Riquet à la houppe

Riquet à la houppe

Fairy TalesLiterary Fiction
Pages
192
Published
2018
Language
French

Synopsis

Déodat is born so grotesquely ugly that his parents struggle to look at him. He is also supremely, extraordinarily intelligent — an ornithologist by vocation before he reaches adulthood, more comfortable with birds than with people who cannot see past his face. Trémière is born achingly beautiful, and everyone around her assumes — because of her habit of silent, absorbed contemplation of the world — that she is stupid. When the two finally meet as adults, intelligence and beauty discover they speak the same language. A modern retelling of Charles Perrault's fairy tale 'Riquet à la houppe,' updating the original's distribution of gifts: in Nothomb's version, both characters carry their gift and their burden simultaneously, rather than exchanging them. Published by Albin Michel in 2016; the date 2018 reflects the English translation.

Prose complexity
7/10

Vibe

Thought-ProvokingWhimsicalPhilosophicalMelancholic
Coming of AgeSlow Burn

Genres

Fairy Tales Literary Fiction Magical Realism

About the author

A
Amélie Nothomb

Born in Etterbeek, Brussels, in 1966, Amélie Nothomb spent her childhood moving across continents — Japan, China, the United States, Bangladesh, Burma, Laos — as the daughter of a Belgian diplomat. Japan was the country that marked her most deeply: she has called it the paradise she was expelled from when her family left. She began writing at age twelve, producing manuscripts she has described as unspeakably bad, and completed seventeen novels before publishing a single one. Her debut, Hygiène...

Characters

DéodatProtagonist

Grotesquely ugly but supremely intelligent; an ornithologist who finds in birds the companionship that human beauty has denied him.

TrémièreProtagonist

Achingly beautiful and dismissed as stupid because of her habit of silent contemplation; her inner life is as rich as Déodat's, merely expressed differently.

All characters in Riquet à la houppe

Frequently asked questions

  • Which fairy tale does Riquet à la houppe retell?

    It retells 'Riquet à la houppe,' one of Charles Perrault's lesser-known fairy tales from 1697. In the original, Riquet is a witty but ugly prince who can bestow intelligence on his beloved; she can give him beauty in return. Nothomb eliminates the exchange and gives both gifts — and both burdens — to her two protagonists simultaneously.

  • How does Nothomb change Perrault's original story?

    In Perrault, the exchange of gifts is the mechanism: beauty gives intelligence, intelligence gives beauty. In Nothomb's version, neither character can give the other anything — they simply find in each other the first person who speaks their language. The novel replaces the magical economy with a philosophy of recognition.

  • Why does Déodat become an ornithologist?

    Birds, unlike humans, respond to him without reacting to his appearance. They offer him a form of companionship that his ugliness has made unavailable in human society.

  • Is the novel a love story?

    In part — but it is more precisely a novel about recognition: two people who have been systematically misread by everyone around them finding the first person who reads them accurately.

  • When was Riquet à la houppe published?

    Published by Albin Michel in 2016 under the French title 'Riquet à la houppe.' The 2018 date sometimes associated with it reflects the English translation or paperback edition.

  • What is the novel's philosophy of beauty and intelligence?

    Nothomb proposes that extraordinary beauty and extraordinary intelligence produce the same experience: isolation. Both gifts separate the person who carries them from ordinary social exchange. That shared isolation is what makes Déodat and Trémière legible to each other.

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