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4.16 AVERAGE
4.16 AVERAGE
Oh my gosh! This is honestly the greatest book ever written. This is my favorite book. There will never be anything else that can surpass it! The story line is so beautiful and well done and enchanting. The ending is so beautiful and poetic. It is so sad! I love this book! I love this book! I love this book!
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
4.75 stars.
What a wonderful book. The characters were brilliantly crafted, and the world of 19th century France was brought vividly to life. Reading this book led to many tears, and also a few laughs. I finished reading only moments ago, and I am currently feeling like I lost a dear friend, but he was only a real man inside my head.
The translator of my copy (Wraxall) was an idiot. He seems to have missed the point that the reader is using a translation because he/she does not understand French. Therefore, it makes absolutely no sense to leave passages untranslated. I should not have had to google the last paragraph just to find out how it would end. I didn't deduct stars for the translator (that's unfair to Hugo and his masterful work), but I'd give the translator 2 stars. Most of his translation was well-phrased, but the failure to translate large passages cannot be overlooked. The lost 1/4 star is for Waterloo and that theological section.
What a wonderful book. The characters were brilliantly crafted, and the world of 19th century France was brought vividly to life. Reading this book led to many tears, and also a few laughs. I finished reading only moments ago, and I am currently feeling like I lost a dear friend, but he was only a real man inside my head.
The translator of my copy (Wraxall) was an idiot. He seems to have missed the point that the reader is using a translation because he/she does not understand French. Therefore, it makes absolutely no sense to leave passages untranslated. I should not have had to google the last paragraph just to find out how it would end. I didn't deduct stars for the translator (that's unfair to Hugo and his masterful work), but I'd give the translator 2 stars. Most of his translation was well-phrased, but the failure to translate large passages cannot be overlooked. The lost 1/4 star is for Waterloo and that theological section.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
Strong character development:
Yes
This book is HEFTY and no one can stop Victor Hugo from his luxuriously-paced, absurdly detailed detours from the plot when you least want them, but oh, it is so worth it all. One of those books that I wish I could go back and read again for the first time all over.
Definitely takes a lot of time to finish this. I still loved the movie more than I liked this. There were too many backstories and scenes which were really dragging at places. I realised why they weren't all included the movie. Give it go if you like historic class literature. This was one long nice ride.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Don't quite know what to say that probably hasn't been said before. Amazing, wonderful, powerful, absorbing. Sad to see it end.
It's not that Hugo goes off on long lectures about the Napoleonic Wars, or tells the long history of a nunnery, or gives a long lecture and history about the sewer system underneath Paris. In fact, I liked those. Tangential non-narrative writing works well in Moby Dick and War and Peace. And just plain stupidly long books don't scare me anymore. If I die, I die.
And it's not that he tells such a convenient story, where everybody does just what they need to to be perfect or evil or whatever, and characters illustrate real humans by doing stuff real humans never ever really do. Lots of authors do that too. Like Ayn Rand. Hugo used these characters that are like nobody who ever lived to demonstrate God exists, but whatever. I don't mind.
IT'S THAT HE MAKES IT LIKE FRANCE HAS MAYBE FIFTEEN PEOPLE TOTAL AND EVERY TIME YOU TURN AROUND YOU'RE GOING TO RUN INTO THE SAME COP, OR SAME SWINDLER, OR SAME CHAIN-GANG-MATE, OR SAME GUY YOU SAVED WITH YOUR SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH FROM UNDER A HORSE CART THAT YOU RAN INTO EVERY OTHER PLACE YOU WENT IN FRANCE.
God that's annoying.
I understand about conservation of characters, too. And that unlikely coincidences are OK, because after all there's a reason we're hearing the story about this guy - this is the guy who an unlikely coincidence happened to. But, like, twenty-seven bazillion times?
I'd read a story about someone who won the lottery. People do win the lottery, though the odds against it are astronomical. I might read a story about someone who won the lottery twice. If Garcia-Marquez was writing the book, I'd read a story about someone who won the lottery once a week. That's not the point.
Imagine a story where it's not about winning the lottery, but the hero happens to win the lottery every six to eight years in the fifty years of the character's life we follow.* And this story was supposed to teach us all a lesson about the real world.
Well, I'd tell that story to go to hell.**
* Yes, I know he didn't win the lottery. Ever. Nor were all the ridiculously improbable things all good. It's just that each one was as improbable as winning the lottery.
**Still, I'm too intimidated by the book's reputation to give it fewer than 3 stars. And for whatever reason, I stayed entertained.
And it's not that he tells such a convenient story, where everybody does just what they need to to be perfect or evil or whatever, and characters illustrate real humans by doing stuff real humans never ever really do. Lots of authors do that too. Like Ayn Rand. Hugo used these characters that are like nobody who ever lived to demonstrate God exists, but whatever. I don't mind.
IT'S THAT HE MAKES IT LIKE FRANCE HAS MAYBE FIFTEEN PEOPLE TOTAL AND EVERY TIME YOU TURN AROUND YOU'RE GOING TO RUN INTO THE SAME COP, OR SAME SWINDLER, OR SAME CHAIN-GANG-MATE, OR SAME GUY YOU SAVED WITH YOUR SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH FROM UNDER A HORSE CART THAT YOU RAN INTO EVERY OTHER PLACE YOU WENT IN FRANCE.
God that's annoying.
I understand about conservation of characters, too. And that unlikely coincidences are OK, because after all there's a reason we're hearing the story about this guy - this is the guy who an unlikely coincidence happened to. But, like, twenty-seven bazillion times?
I'd read a story about someone who won the lottery. People do win the lottery, though the odds against it are astronomical. I might read a story about someone who won the lottery twice. If Garcia-Marquez was writing the book, I'd read a story about someone who won the lottery once a week. That's not the point.
Imagine a story where it's not about winning the lottery, but the hero happens to win the lottery every six to eight years in the fifty years of the character's life we follow.* And this story was supposed to teach us all a lesson about the real world.
Well, I'd tell that story to go to hell.**
* Yes, I know he didn't win the lottery. Ever. Nor were all the ridiculously improbable things all good. It's just that each one was as improbable as winning the lottery.
**Still, I'm too intimidated by the book's reputation to give it fewer than 3 stars. And for whatever reason, I stayed entertained.
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated