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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
Super boring which makes it hard to stay focused
adventurous
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What can I say? This classic work of fiction is phenomenal. It's not as great as Les Miserables, but it also doesn't take as many narrative detours. The last ~100 pages or so, in particular, are extremely engrossing. The climax at Notre Dame and the end of Esmeralda's story are almost perfectly written.
Plus a half star, because it wasn't so bad, and Hugo definitely can write, but the first 200 pages was really boring.
One of my favorite things to do back when I taught Lit / English classes was to discuss the real stories of Disney movies and other adaptations of fairy tales. Kids always love getting the truth and The Hunchback of Notre Dame is another great example of an epic book whose darker parts got stripped away by Disney.
I recently read ‘How to read literature like a professor’ and there was a great examination in there on the relationship between physical appearance and morality in lit as in - the witch is ugly, the evil Russian spy will have a scared face etc. Hugo’s novel was mentioned as one of the first to create a physically deformed character with a good heart.
This was a reread for me during a trip to Paris where we stayed right across from Notre Dame so that definitely added a lot... and made the long / dry history of Paris, history if the cathedral, and history of France chapters a little more palatable.
I recently read ‘How to read literature like a professor’ and there was a great examination in there on the relationship between physical appearance and morality in lit as in - the witch is ugly, the evil Russian spy will have a scared face etc. Hugo’s novel was mentioned as one of the first to create a physically deformed character with a good heart.
This was a reread for me during a trip to Paris where we stayed right across from Notre Dame so that definitely added a lot... and made the long / dry history of Paris, history if the cathedral, and history of France chapters a little more palatable.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
Nuestra Señora de París es un clásico literario de Víctor Hugo. Si bien la historia está lejos de ser para niños, vale la pena leer la novela. Si tienes hijos, lo recomendado es que lo lean ya en su pubertad o adolescencia; especialmente si tuvieron la desgracia de ver la película de Disney, la cual destroza la historia en todas las formas posibles.
La novela cuenta una historia bastante sombría que muestra diversas bajezas del comportamiento humano. En ocasiones pareciera que hay personajes de más, pero finalmente Víctor Hugo hace uso de todos ellos para armar la trama completa.
Para los estándares actuales, la historia por ratos se torna un poco lenta y, en un capítulo entero, extremadamente descriptiva con la arquitectura, sin embargo, sigue siendo una historia que debe formar parte de tu colección.
La novela cuenta una historia bastante sombría que muestra diversas bajezas del comportamiento humano. En ocasiones pareciera que hay personajes de más, pero finalmente Víctor Hugo hace uso de todos ellos para armar la trama completa.
Para los estándares actuales, la historia por ratos se torna un poco lenta y, en un capítulo entero, extremadamente descriptiva con la arquitectura, sin embargo, sigue siendo una historia que debe formar parte de tu colección.
I gave this book such a low rating because it unsettled me. If you are the type of person who loves gothic horror you’d love this book. I wasn’t quite ready for how creepy it was but I finished it nonetheless. Honestly good writing but just not my favorite genre.
“We must, if it be possible, inspire the nation with a love of its national architecture. That, its author here declares, is one of the chief aims of this book; it is one of the chief aims of his life.” - Victor Hugo, introduction to Notre Dame de Paris
Hugo’s heartbreaking story of Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bell-ringer of Notre Dame, Esmeralda, a young, naive gypsy, and Claude Frollo, an archdeacon spiraling into a state of madness, achieves that very goal. Hugo paints a vivid picture of the architecture in late 15th century Paris that inspires a grieving in the reader of architecture long gone.
Though this novel had a slow start for me, I ended up loving it so much (although not quite so much as Les Misérables). While I assumed that like so many other Disney movies, the source material of The Hunchback of Notre Dame was much darker than the children’s movie that bears the same name, I never expected how gut-wrenching the ending would be: “Oh, all that I have loved.”
If you’ve been wanting to read Hugo, but are intimidated by the length of Les Misérables, I would recommend reading Notre Dame de Paris to get a taste of Hugo’s beautiful writing.
Hugo’s heartbreaking story of Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bell-ringer of Notre Dame, Esmeralda, a young, naive gypsy, and Claude Frollo, an archdeacon spiraling into a state of madness, achieves that very goal. Hugo paints a vivid picture of the architecture in late 15th century Paris that inspires a grieving in the reader of architecture long gone.
Though this novel had a slow start for me, I ended up loving it so much (although not quite so much as Les Misérables). While I assumed that like so many other Disney movies, the source material of The Hunchback of Notre Dame was much darker than the children’s movie that bears the same name, I never expected how gut-wrenching the ending would be: “Oh, all that I have loved.”
If you’ve been wanting to read Hugo, but are intimidated by the length of Les Misérables, I would recommend reading Notre Dame de Paris to get a taste of Hugo’s beautiful writing.
