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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Victor Hugo’s writing is sublime.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame compares and contrasts the grotesque and the beautiful… and the variations between. As is Hugo’s talent, a multitude of characters weave in and out of the story, creating a tapestry with depth and meaning.
Thanks to Mr. Disney (who has created a fairly decent, though rudimentary, replication of this book) we are aware of the comparisons of Claude Frollo and Quasimodo (“Who is the man, and who is the monster?”); the age-old cliché of not judging a book by it’s cover. But Hugo’s take is so much more complex than this. EVERY character in his book is contrasted with the figure of Quasimodo. And against Quasimodo, every figure falls short and appears deformed. (Example: Even Claude Frollo’s name is a play on his inner deformity. “Eia! Eia! Claudius cum claudo! [Hey, Claude with the cripple.]” p. ___)
Quasimodo is braver than Gringoire (but then … who ISN’T braver than Gringoire – that Spineless Chicken!). He is the savior to Esmeralda that Phoebus should have been. His beauty (or lack thereof) is compared to Esmeralda, but her beauty cannot save her from being blind to Phoebus’ shallowness, something Quasimodo can clearly see:
“On waking one morning she saw in her window two vases full of flowers. One was in a bright, handsome crystal vase but cracked; it had let all the water escape, and the flowers it contained were faded. The other vase was of earthenware, rude and common, but had kept all the water, so that its flowers remained fresh and blooming. I know not whether it was done to convey a message, but La Esmeralda took the faded flowers and wore them all day in her bosom (p. 378).”
We can even find a comparison with King Louis XI. Quasimodo was King of Fools… but perhaps a better king even so.
Hugo has taken the most abhorrent, ugly, grotesque (thing) he could imagine and compared it to every other character in his novel as if to weigh the scales … and in the end, “It” alone stood most beautiful, most holy, most true.
Layer this with the comparison of Quasimodo and the structure of Notre Dame, both pieced together in haphazard fashion, yet standing as a symbol of strength and security.
“And it is certain that, between this creature and this edifice, there was a sort of mysterious and pre-existing harmony (p. 148).”
***
Some would say that Hugo has his digressions. To me, those chapters were perfection in their own right. Perhaps my favorite was “The Book will kill the Edifice” discussion.
“Printing! And make no mistake about it! Architecture is dead, irrevocably dead, killed by the printed book, killed because it is less durable, killed because it is more costly (p.186).”
“The Bible resembles the pyramids; the Illiad, the Parthenon; Homer, Phidias. Dante in the thirteenth century is the last Romanesque church; Shakespeare, in the sixteenth, the last Gothic cathedral. Thus to recapitulate briefly, the human race has two books, two registers, two testaments: architecture and printing, the stone Bible and the paper Bible… The press, that giant engine, incessantly gorging all the intellectual sap of society, incessantly vomits new material for its work. The entire human race is its scaffolding. Every mind is its mason... Every day a new tier is raised… Certainly, these too are structures, growing and piling themselves up in endless spirals; her, too, there is a confusion of languages, untiring labor, incessant activity, a furious competition of all humanity, a promised refuge for the intelligence against another deluge, against another submersion by the barbarians. It is the second Tower of Babel of the human race (pp. 187-88).”
* I also loved Book III, i the “Notre Dame” chapter!
The Hunchback of Notre Dame compares and contrasts the grotesque and the beautiful… and the variations between. As is Hugo’s talent, a multitude of characters weave in and out of the story, creating a tapestry with depth and meaning.
Thanks to Mr. Disney (who has created a fairly decent, though rudimentary, replication of this book) we are aware of the comparisons of Claude Frollo and Quasimodo (“Who is the man, and who is the monster?”); the age-old cliché of not judging a book by it’s cover. But Hugo’s take is so much more complex than this. EVERY character in his book is contrasted with the figure of Quasimodo. And against Quasimodo, every figure falls short and appears deformed. (Example: Even Claude Frollo’s name is a play on his inner deformity. “Eia! Eia! Claudius cum claudo! [Hey, Claude with the cripple.]” p. ___)
Quasimodo is braver than Gringoire (but then … who ISN’T braver than Gringoire – that Spineless Chicken!). He is the savior to Esmeralda that Phoebus should have been. His beauty (or lack thereof) is compared to Esmeralda, but her beauty cannot save her from being blind to Phoebus’ shallowness, something Quasimodo can clearly see:
“On waking one morning she saw in her window two vases full of flowers. One was in a bright, handsome crystal vase but cracked; it had let all the water escape, and the flowers it contained were faded. The other vase was of earthenware, rude and common, but had kept all the water, so that its flowers remained fresh and blooming. I know not whether it was done to convey a message, but La Esmeralda took the faded flowers and wore them all day in her bosom (p. 378).”
We can even find a comparison with King Louis XI. Quasimodo was King of Fools… but perhaps a better king even so.
Hugo has taken the most abhorrent, ugly, grotesque (thing) he could imagine and compared it to every other character in his novel as if to weigh the scales … and in the end, “It” alone stood most beautiful, most holy, most true.
Layer this with the comparison of Quasimodo and the structure of Notre Dame, both pieced together in haphazard fashion, yet standing as a symbol of strength and security.
“And it is certain that, between this creature and this edifice, there was a sort of mysterious and pre-existing harmony (p. 148).”
***
Some would say that Hugo has his digressions. To me, those chapters were perfection in their own right. Perhaps my favorite was “The Book will kill the Edifice” discussion.
“Printing! And make no mistake about it! Architecture is dead, irrevocably dead, killed by the printed book, killed because it is less durable, killed because it is more costly (p.186).”
“The Bible resembles the pyramids; the Illiad, the Parthenon; Homer, Phidias. Dante in the thirteenth century is the last Romanesque church; Shakespeare, in the sixteenth, the last Gothic cathedral. Thus to recapitulate briefly, the human race has two books, two registers, two testaments: architecture and printing, the stone Bible and the paper Bible… The press, that giant engine, incessantly gorging all the intellectual sap of society, incessantly vomits new material for its work. The entire human race is its scaffolding. Every mind is its mason... Every day a new tier is raised… Certainly, these too are structures, growing and piling themselves up in endless spirals; her, too, there is a confusion of languages, untiring labor, incessant activity, a furious competition of all humanity, a promised refuge for the intelligence against another deluge, against another submersion by the barbarians. It is the second Tower of Babel of the human race (pp. 187-88).”
* I also loved Book III, i the “Notre Dame” chapter!
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read this book back in my teens. As I read this again, I am taken by the characters. Those who are preists, kings, guards, nobles, etc have the vices or greed, lust, selfcenteredness, etc. The truly noble characters in the book at the deformed hunchback and the shunned gypsy girl. It is interesting to analyze this juxtaposition.
The thing that keeps me from giving the book 5 stars are the lengthy secons on the history of the city of Paris and the buildings. These sections detract from the story itself.
The thing that keeps me from giving the book 5 stars are the lengthy secons on the history of the city of Paris and the buildings. These sections detract from the story itself.
Victor Hugo was already a famous author when his Notre-Dame de Paris was published in 1831. He had already written a manifesto, of sorts, on Romanticism in the preface to a play that was never performed. That was the play Cromwell from 1827. In that preface he wrote, at length, as he is wont to do, about different eras having different genres of literature which embody that era's expression of what is best or most essential about humanity. The "primitive" literature is the "ode" of Genesis. About this earliest poet, Hugo writes,
The second period was embodied in the epic of Homer. It is characterized by nations, wars, trade, and paganism. It is the introduction to the third era, characterized by the introduction of Christianity and its slow takeover of the Roman empire, where we find (Euro- and Christian-centric) comments most directly bearing upon this novel. About the grotesque:
The whole preface to the play is worth reading and is characteristic of his style in Notre-Dame de Paris as well - an extended monologue by a brilliant, and drunken, history professor type. The exuberance with which he relates the educational, historical information in the novel is redeeming, for it would otherwise have been very tedious except for people researching medieval Paris.
However, in the quote from the Cromwell preface, we have the premiss of the novel. A beautiful, honest, if rather warped and simple, soul is embodied in Quasimodo. He is structured like the Notre Dame cathedral itself, with outgrowths; deep, twisted roots; resonant chambers; and super-human strength. As Hugo was writing this new kind of literature into existence, in its pages he was reflecting on the passing of the old "book of architecture" being replaced by the "book of printing." That whole digression is either going to annoy you or you will embrace the drunken professor's ramblings and engage in the edification being provided. Hugo's achievements themselves being made possible by humanity arguably forgetting how to read buildings and cities (exemplified by the highly-educated priest/alchemist of the novel) with the advent of the mass-produced, printed word.
I found the story to be very engaging and disturbing. The life stories of his characters, some drawn quite closely from historical resources, are astounding for sometimes how modern they seem and at other times for just how foreign they are. The public is given bread and circuses, and loves/fears religious spectacles, like trials where torture of the presumed guilty (because accused by a person of standing) is wholly unremarkable. These are horrible, brutal times and people's understanding of the world, each other, and what was to be expected from both correspond to that. Christianity and torture were flip sides of one coin. This was set in Paris in 1482. In just a few years, this same brutal and highly stratified society will have "discovered" the "new world" and started on the genocide of the people living there. Perhaps I am way off, but this novel seems to help one understand just how this was possible. Those who perpetrated it, in many ways like us, are largely pre-scientific, illiterate, and don't consider human life to be valuable at all outside of a very small subset of the whole population.
I really enjoyed the philosopher/rogue character, who preferred the goat to the girl, and many others. All characters were clearly presented, complete personalities; we find out how they made their decisions, how they dressed, spoke, interesting tidbits of their pasts, etc. Realism to a high degree, but... Also, there were fantastic happenings and descriptions all the time. I also enjoyed, though it got rather long, the descriptions of the various regions of Paris itself. How the city grew; where it executed its criminals, its students, its laws; the description of many different facades and especially that of the cathedral of Notre Dame. I really want to take a Victor Hugo tour of Paris to try to see in person some of what he so vividly described in the novel.
I highly recommend this book. It is at times a difficult survey class on Paris, but even then there will be a phrase or sentence which is so well done and surprising that it is worth the effort to read all those pages. The story has lots of elements of fairy tales, particularly in its unrelenting harshness of the events, that make it less suitable for younger readers. The main female protagonist is no role model for young women - being as she was, wholly taken by the vapid, womanizer in a uniform and in turn, wholly oblivious to those around her who acted honorably and to love itself. Our novelist was the only one, other than the priest/alchemist, who showed any sympathy to Quasimodo, and in that, people today may be fairly said to have a larger heart and better understanding than the average person in 15th-century Europe.
I read this as part of a Back to the Classics Challenge for 2017, in the category of Classic Set In a Place You'd Like to Visit.
His lyre has but three strings—God, the soul, creation; but this threefold mystery envelopes everything, this threefold idea embraces everything. The earth is still almost deserted. There are families, but no nations; patriarchs, but no kings. Each race exists at its own pleasure; no property, no laws, no contentions, no wars. Everything belongs to each and to all. Society is a community. Man is restrained in nought. He leads that nomadic pastoral life with which all civilizations begin, and which is so well adapted to solitary contemplation, to fanciful reverie. He follows every suggestion, he goes hither and thither, at random. His thought, like his life, resembles a could that changes its shape and its direction according to the wind that drives it. Such is the first man, such is the first poet.
The second period was embodied in the epic of Homer. It is characterized by nations, wars, trade, and paganism. It is the introduction to the third era, characterized by the introduction of Christianity and its slow takeover of the Roman empire, where we find (Euro- and Christian-centric) comments most directly bearing upon this novel. About the grotesque:
Christianity leads poetry to the truth. Like it, the modern muse will see things in a higher and broader light. It will realize that everything in creation is not humanly beautiful, that the ugly exists beside the beautiful, the unshapely beside the graceful, the grotesque on the reverse of the sublime, evil with good, darkness with light. It will ask itself if the narrow and relative sense of the artist should prevail over the infinite, absolute sense of the Creator; if it is for man to correct God; if a mutilated nature will be the more beautiful for the mutilation; if art has the right to duplicate, so to speak, man, life, creation; if things will progress better when their muscles and their vigour have been taken from them; if, in short, to be incomplete is the best way to be harmonious. Then it is that, with its eyes fixed upon events that are both laughable and redoubtable, and under the influence of that spirit of Christian melancholy and philosophical criticism which we described a moment ago, poetry will take a great step, a decisive step, a step which, like the upheaval of an earthquake, will change the whole face of the intellectual world. It will set about doing as nature does, mingling in its creations—but without confounding them—darkness and light, the grotesque and the sublime; in other words, the body and the soul, the beast and the intellect; for the starting-point of religion is always the starting-point of poetry. All things are connected.
The whole preface to the play is worth reading and is characteristic of his style in Notre-Dame de Paris as well - an extended monologue by a brilliant, and drunken, history professor type. The exuberance with which he relates the educational, historical information in the novel is redeeming, for it would otherwise have been very tedious except for people researching medieval Paris.
However, in the quote from the Cromwell preface, we have the premiss of the novel. A beautiful, honest, if rather warped and simple, soul is embodied in Quasimodo. He is structured like the Notre Dame cathedral itself, with outgrowths; deep, twisted roots; resonant chambers; and super-human strength. As Hugo was writing this new kind of literature into existence, in its pages he was reflecting on the passing of the old "book of architecture" being replaced by the "book of printing." That whole digression is either going to annoy you or you will embrace the drunken professor's ramblings and engage in the edification being provided. Hugo's achievements themselves being made possible by humanity arguably forgetting how to read buildings and cities (exemplified by the highly-educated priest/alchemist of the novel) with the advent of the mass-produced, printed word.
I found the story to be very engaging and disturbing. The life stories of his characters, some drawn quite closely from historical resources, are astounding for sometimes how modern they seem and at other times for just how foreign they are. The public is given bread and circuses, and loves/fears religious spectacles, like trials where torture of the presumed guilty (because accused by a person of standing) is wholly unremarkable. These are horrible, brutal times and people's understanding of the world, each other, and what was to be expected from both correspond to that. Christianity and torture were flip sides of one coin. This was set in Paris in 1482. In just a few years, this same brutal and highly stratified society will have "discovered" the "new world" and started on the genocide of the people living there. Perhaps I am way off, but this novel seems to help one understand just how this was possible. Those who perpetrated it, in many ways like us, are largely pre-scientific, illiterate, and don't consider human life to be valuable at all outside of a very small subset of the whole population.
I really enjoyed the philosopher/rogue character, who preferred the goat to the girl, and many others. All characters were clearly presented, complete personalities; we find out how they made their decisions, how they dressed, spoke, interesting tidbits of their pasts, etc. Realism to a high degree, but... Also, there were fantastic happenings and descriptions all the time. I also enjoyed, though it got rather long, the descriptions of the various regions of Paris itself. How the city grew; where it executed its criminals, its students, its laws; the description of many different facades and especially that of the cathedral of Notre Dame. I really want to take a Victor Hugo tour of Paris to try to see in person some of what he so vividly described in the novel.
I highly recommend this book. It is at times a difficult survey class on Paris, but even then there will be a phrase or sentence which is so well done and surprising that it is worth the effort to read all those pages. The story has lots of elements of fairy tales, particularly in its unrelenting harshness of the events, that make it less suitable for younger readers. The main female protagonist is no role model for young women - being as she was, wholly taken by the vapid, womanizer in a uniform and in turn, wholly oblivious to those around her who acted honorably and to love itself. Our novelist was the only one, other than the priest/alchemist, who showed any sympathy to Quasimodo, and in that, people today may be fairly said to have a larger heart and better understanding than the average person in 15th-century Europe.
I read this as part of a Back to the Classics Challenge for 2017, in the category of Classic Set In a Place You'd Like to Visit.
Every time that I read Hugo, I wonder how he became so popular. The plot of the story is great, but Hugo buries it in so many rants about the society of the time. If you want to read it, I recommend that you find an abridged version.
Yay I finally finished!
Once Victor shuts up about architecture and boring stuff over the first 100 pages, the book moves along at a relatively quick clip. There are still random asides here and there that drive me a little batty, but they're easy to skim over. I liked the ending a lot. I liked seeing which bits Disney had specifically picked out from the text. But my favorite was the snark that sometimes popped up in the writing. For example, this quote:
"'Who's there?' called the scholar in the friendly tone of a famished dog disturbed over a bone."
and this one:
"The physician and the archdeacon then began one of those congratulatory prologues which, at that period, customarily introduced every conversation between scholars and which did not prevent them from most cordially hating one another. Moreover, it is the same today." HAHAHAHA nice. A++ Hugo. You go Vic Hugo.
Once Victor shuts up about architecture and boring stuff over the first 100 pages, the book moves along at a relatively quick clip. There are still random asides here and there that drive me a little batty, but they're easy to skim over. I liked the ending a lot. I liked seeing which bits Disney had specifically picked out from the text. But my favorite was the snark that sometimes popped up in the writing. For example, this quote:
"'Who's there?' called the scholar in the friendly tone of a famished dog disturbed over a bone."
and this one:
"The physician and the archdeacon then began one of those congratulatory prologues which, at that period, customarily introduced every conversation between scholars and which did not prevent them from most cordially hating one another. Moreover, it is the same today." HAHAHAHA nice. A++ Hugo. You go Vic Hugo.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
I love the fact that we get the chance to judge the main Hero from the beggining and then get to know him on a more personal level. It's interesting and it is something that sets the book apart from the others. Now that I think about it, I dont mind, I'm actually intrigued by this particular technique, I guess. I loved the idea of the platonic marriage between Esmeralda and Quashimoto, and somehow the action scene were written well and really worked. I am left with nice imagery from this book like the rich man who was followed by a bling, deaf and all sorts of ppl and I loved that în a symbolic way, and the ending was really impactfull, the final image, u know with the crumbelling bones But my praise for this book kind of ends here.
I can't get over the fact that this book is really really classist, rasist, kind of missoginistic, verry judgemental towards people's appearances and it honestly didn't do Paris any favour. I searched for any tipe of strength to power through this book but everytime it hot better and we got to witness some kind of wholesomeness from the hunchback, and my hope for this book was restored yet again a racist story began nasty remark or some kind of classist comentery had to come. And yeah, ure gonna come here and say It's a Classic, or that there is a reason that this is a masterpiece or whatever imma tell you that its a classic because we let it be. Let's just stop consuming these old stupidly rasist books and see if they get to stand the test of time. I personally think we should not let it go through. We know better now, even tho just because in that period of tine people used to be rasist, we should still be glorifying that. The fact that The author barely refers to Esmeralda using her actual name, just no, not a mood.
I could go in about the long description wich I sometimes loved, some about just Paris should have been left out. If he wanted to get across the gothic architecture preservation thing, an essay in his style leaving out all the noise could have been a masterpiece, but instead the cultural point about Gothic architecture of Paris became noise itself. I know Victor Hugo has a work solely for this subject but he should have left it at that. But I guess I didn't mind that as much , if all the negative issues about the things I discussed earlyer didn't exist, probably I would have had enough patience to really love, read and enjoy this book desirvingly. It's a shame bc I found the platonic relationship kind of whole some, it's a different kind of romance book, some detailed descriptions were a plus in my opinion, but the first Parts of it were unforgetably wrong and I cand get over those. If it wasn't for the audio version I wouldn't have made it through. If anyone has a retelling or a version without the racism and all the nasty thing in there I'll welcome it into my reading list but surely I won't be revisiting or recomending this book. Ever! To no one! And neither should you. Periodt.
By the way... Can we talk about the Esmeralda's mother plothole? How we come to find that she is not romani after all?
I can't get over the fact that this book is really really classist, rasist, kind of missoginistic, verry judgemental towards people's appearances and it honestly didn't do Paris any favour. I searched for any tipe of strength to power through this book but everytime it hot better and we got to witness some kind of wholesomeness from the hunchback, and my hope for this book was restored yet again a racist story began nasty remark or some kind of classist comentery had to come. And yeah, ure gonna come here and say It's a Classic, or that there is a reason that this is a masterpiece or whatever imma tell you that its a classic because we let it be. Let's just stop consuming these old stupidly rasist books and see if they get to stand the test of time. I personally think we should not let it go through. We know better now, even tho just because in that period of tine people used to be rasist, we should still be glorifying that. The fact that The author barely refers to Esmeralda using her actual name, just no, not a mood.
I could go in about the long description wich I sometimes loved, some about just Paris should have been left out. If he wanted to get across the gothic architecture preservation thing, an essay in his style leaving out all the noise could have been a masterpiece, but instead the cultural point about Gothic architecture of Paris became noise itself. I know Victor Hugo has a work solely for this subject but he should have left it at that. But I guess I didn't mind that as much , if all the negative issues about the things I discussed earlyer didn't exist, probably I would have had enough patience to really love, read and enjoy this book desirvingly. It's a shame bc I found the platonic relationship kind of whole some, it's a different kind of romance book, some detailed descriptions were a plus in my opinion, but the first Parts of it were unforgetably wrong and I cand get over those. If it wasn't for the audio version I wouldn't have made it through. If anyone has a retelling or a version without the racism and all the nasty thing in there I'll welcome it into my reading list but surely I won't be revisiting or recomending this book. Ever! To no one! And neither should you. Periodt.
By the way... Can we talk about the Esmeralda's mother plothole? How we come to find that she is not romani after all?