Featured Reading Guide
Anna Gavalda
Camille is doing her best to disappear. She barely eats, works at night as a cleaner and lives in a tiny attic room. Philibert Marquet de La Durbellière is a stammering, erudite aristocrat who sells postcards outside a museum. One evening he overcomes his own excruciating reticence to rescue Camille, unconscious, from her freezing garret, and install her in the large, ornate apartment he is caretaking downstairs. He already has an unlikely flatmate, the foul-mouthed, talented working-class young chef, Franck, who is made more obnoxious by guilt about the beloved grandmother he’s had to put in a…
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Born in 1970, Anna Gavalda was a teacher whose collection of stories, I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere , shot her to fame. Her work, including another short novel, has been translated into thirty-six languages. The mother of two small children, she lives and writes just outside Paris.
topAbout the Book
Camille is doing her best to disappear. She barely eats, works at night as a cleaner and lives in a tiny attic room. Philibert Marquet de La Durbellière is a stammering, erudite aristocrat who sells postcards outside a museum. One evening he overcomes his own excruciating reticence to rescue Camille, unconscious, from her freezing garret, and install her in the large, ornate apartment he is caretaking downstairs. He already has an unlikely flatmate, the foul-mouthed, talented working-class young chef, Franck, who is made more obnoxious by guilt about the beloved grandmother he’s had to put in a home. Together, this curious, damaged little quartet may be able to face the world. Gorgeously original, full of wry humour and razor-sharp observation, redolent of Paris, its foibles, its food and its neglected corners, Hunting and Gathering is a universal story about despair, love and the virtues of ensemble-playing in a naughty world. It’s a big novel that you will not want to put down.
topStarting Points for Discussion
- One critic said of Hunting and Gathering that it ‘stops at nothing to make the reader feel good’. Do you agree?
- What do you think is the significance of the title Hunting and Gathering? What is each of the characters ‘hunting’ for?
- Why do you think that Camille and Paulette make such a connection? What have they found in each other that they were missing before?
- When the group decided to take Paulette to live with them, Franck says ‘It’s been months since I could look at myself in a mirror’. Why does he say this? What has changed?
- Art is often used as a motif in novels. What is the significance of Anna Gavalda’s use of art in Hunting and Gathering? Think in particular of the way that Camille’s drawings evolve throughout the novel. Can you compare Gavalda’s use of art to any other books you have read?
- In what ways would you say that Hunting and Gathering is a love story?
Other Books by Anna Gavalda
Consolation
Consolation ( La Consolante* ) was the bestselling French novel in 2008, …
I Wish Someone Were Waiting…
Following the publication of Anna Gavalda’s international bestseller, Hunting…
Suggested Further Reading
- Hotel World ~ Ali Smith
- The Wonder Spot ~ Melissa Bank
- Chocolat ~ Joanne Harris