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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
قرأتُها لأني فقط أردتُ أن أقرأها !.
ويبدو أني سأعود إليها ثانية :)
ويبدو أني سأعود إليها ثانية :)
Never ever read a tragedy without knowing from the outset that this is what you’re getting yourself into.
Notre Dame De Paris is a better name for this novel than the common one, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. Even so, a better name would have been The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. Strangely enough, I’m not certain that the Ugly in that title would be the hunchback, though he is continually described by the author and the populace of Paris as a demonic blight on the eyes that would sour the milk at a look and cause miscarriage or birth defects just by proximity.
The Good - Esmeralda, a girl of such exaltant beauty that everyone immediately thinks she is an angel or a demon in female form. She is pure in heart and body but romantically blighted to the point of idiocy. Hard to root for.
The Bad - Archdeacon Frolo starts out helping orphans and gets so caught up in alchemy and the study of magic that he is already half gone when he sees Esmeralda and goes mad with lust. After he corners her and threatens her life if she won’t belong to him a half a dozen times in this novel, one begins to think the shame is on the other characters rather than him for allowing this to go on so many times over.
The Ugly - Maybe the hunchback, who is deaf and prone to good intentions and bad luck could fall in this category. He keeps accidentally killing people who are trying to help his cause and helping the people who he should know are evil. His mind is lucid, though his motives are waffling and shallowly expressed. Better put in this category is Captain Phoebus, the handsome naive who chases every pretty woman until it becomes inconvenient. (Spoiler) After trying to take Esmeralda to bed and finding she only wants to get married, he’s done with her and finds his way back to his actual fiancee, never to acknowledge her in public again.
In Les Mis, Hugo spends half of this book talking about the history of Napoleonic battles and the need to update the sewer systems of Paris. In The Hunchback, he spends his literary energy on the history of the economic growth of Paris and lamenting the architectural changes that have supplanted the once beautiful buildings which are no longer existant. When one starts the book, these feel like distractions. Get back to the story, the reader decries. When the story comes to a conclusion, the reader is left feeling that the architectural history was the best bit of the whole experience.
Notre Dame De Paris is a better name for this novel than the common one, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. Even so, a better name would have been The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. Strangely enough, I’m not certain that the Ugly in that title would be the hunchback, though he is continually described by the author and the populace of Paris as a demonic blight on the eyes that would sour the milk at a look and cause miscarriage or birth defects just by proximity.
The Good - Esmeralda, a girl of such exaltant beauty that everyone immediately thinks she is an angel or a demon in female form. She is pure in heart and body but romantically blighted to the point of idiocy. Hard to root for.
The Bad - Archdeacon Frolo starts out helping orphans and gets so caught up in alchemy and the study of magic that he is already half gone when he sees Esmeralda and goes mad with lust. After he corners her and threatens her life if she won’t belong to him a half a dozen times in this novel, one begins to think the shame is on the other characters rather than him for allowing this to go on so many times over.
The Ugly - Maybe the hunchback, who is deaf and prone to good intentions and bad luck could fall in this category. He keeps accidentally killing people who are trying to help his cause and helping the people who he should know are evil. His mind is lucid, though his motives are waffling and shallowly expressed. Better put in this category is Captain Phoebus, the handsome naive who chases every pretty woman until it becomes inconvenient. (Spoiler) After trying to take Esmeralda to bed and finding she only wants to get married, he’s done with her and finds his way back to his actual fiancee, never to acknowledge her in public again.
In Les Mis, Hugo spends half of this book talking about the history of Napoleonic battles and the need to update the sewer systems of Paris. In The Hunchback, he spends his literary energy on the history of the economic growth of Paris and lamenting the architectural changes that have supplanted the once beautiful buildings which are no longer existant. When one starts the book, these feel like distractions. Get back to the story, the reader decries. When the story comes to a conclusion, the reader is left feeling that the architectural history was the best bit of the whole experience.
Overall, I’m glad I read it and I enjoyed the story. I’ve probably only seen the Disney movie once, a long long time ago. It was easy to see why it was turned into an animated film. But I still had the experience I did with Les Miserable and Moby Dick, where the authors interject interesting parts with pages of history lessons whose relevance is not apparent until later and kind of interrupt the exciting parts. Like two pages explaining why there’s non police force, right when they’re trying to break down the doors of Notre Dame. Also, Frollo is an !ncel creep who kills the lady who doesn’t return his interest. Even Quasimodo is possessive of Esmeralda. Is there a feminist retelling from Esmeralda’s point of view?
dark
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
For some reason, I own this in French, but have only read it all the way through in English.
Jemig, wat een bevalling. De eerste helft vond ik echt héél saai. Veel, heel veel architectuur en beschrijvingen van het Parijs van vroeger. Pas richting het einde was het boek vermakelijk, spannend en emotioneel. Maar vond ik dat die hele worsteling waard? Nee.
Omdat ik Les Miserables prachtig vond, had ik nu ook hele hoge verwachtingen, maar het was voor mij teleurstellend.
P.s. lijkt totaal niet op de Disneyfilm mocht jij je dat ook afvragen haha.
Omdat ik Les Miserables prachtig vond, had ik nu ook hele hoge verwachtingen, maar het was voor mij teleurstellend.
P.s. lijkt totaal niet op de Disneyfilm mocht jij je dat ook afvragen haha.
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Apparently Victor Hugo won't allow anyone in Paris to have a nice life.
Picking this book up was a long time coming. I finally got around to it and I'm pleasantly surprised, though it's far from being my favourite gothic classic.
The book has a few issues, pretty much all of which come down to the age of the work. Ableism, racism and misogyny run rampant from everybody, including the characters we're meant to be rooting for. Esmeralda, bless her soul, can't catch a break and is continually harassed, assaulted and is almost raped twice, already hard to read and becoming harder whenever she's referred to as a "child" or "girl" because mind you, she's only 16. The way her and specifically her body are discussed is deeply uncomfortable through today's lense.
But I could forgive that, because when reading classics you can't compare their sensibilities and social awareness to now (though it is important to learn from them). What I struggled the most with is the pacing, which would be going by nicely before grinding to a stop because we get two chapters describing the layout of Paris. At this point the fact that Victor will have been paid by the word becomes very apparent. The most frustrating part was that on a sentence by sentence level, the writing was beautiful and clear and vibrant. It just went on for far too long and always jumped in just when the plot was starting to pop off.
But I did finish the book, and I do think if you're interested then it's worth reading. Claude Frollo remains one of the most unnerving and chilling villains that I've ever read, a man sunken so deep into obsession that he is unwilling to accept no for an answer and then blames his victim for it, which leaves his character feeling eerily current. Gringoire is amusing and makes for good comic relief. The writing is genuinely beautiful and funny and gives interesting social commentary, some of which strikes home even to this day.
Despite the name, the book really isn't about Quasimodo. He's a secondary victim in the plot and has the misfortune of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time from the second he was born. He's given a surprising amount of humanity as the book progresses but in fairness the bar was set very low. A disabled character in a book written so long ago is never going to age well, but he could have been characterized a whole lot worse I guess?
Overall: A decent gothic classic with themes that are surprising in their relevancy, yet also as you might expect, very difficult to read in places due to a combination of heavy handed writing and things now considered problematic. I think if you take it with a fistful of salt you'll find a lot to like within this book. It isn't one I'll be likely to revisit anytime soon however.
Picking this book up was a long time coming. I finally got around to it and I'm pleasantly surprised, though it's far from being my favourite gothic classic.
The book has a few issues, pretty much all of which come down to the age of the work. Ableism, racism and misogyny run rampant from everybody, including the characters we're meant to be rooting for. Esmeralda, bless her soul, can't catch a break and is continually harassed, assaulted and is almost raped twice, already hard to read and becoming harder whenever she's referred to as a "child" or "girl" because mind you, she's only 16. The way her and specifically her body are discussed is deeply uncomfortable through today's lense.
But I could forgive that, because when reading classics you can't compare their sensibilities and social awareness to now (though it is important to learn from them). What I struggled the most with is the pacing, which would be going by nicely before grinding to a stop because we get two chapters describing the layout of Paris. At this point the fact that Victor will have been paid by the word becomes very apparent. The most frustrating part was that on a sentence by sentence level, the writing was beautiful and clear and vibrant. It just went on for far too long and always jumped in just when the plot was starting to pop off.
But I did finish the book, and I do think if you're interested then it's worth reading. Claude Frollo remains one of the most unnerving and chilling villains that I've ever read, a man sunken so deep into obsession that he is unwilling to accept no for an answer and then blames his victim for it, which leaves his character feeling eerily current. Gringoire is amusing and makes for good comic relief. The writing is genuinely beautiful and funny and gives interesting social commentary, some of which strikes home even to this day.
Despite the name, the book really isn't about Quasimodo. He's a secondary victim in the plot and has the misfortune of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time from the second he was born. He's given a surprising amount of humanity as the book progresses but in fairness the bar was set very low. A disabled character in a book written so long ago is never going to age well, but he could have been characterized a whole lot worse I guess?
Overall: A decent gothic classic with themes that are surprising in their relevancy, yet also as you might expect, very difficult to read in places due to a combination of heavy handed writing and things now considered problematic. I think if you take it with a fistful of salt you'll find a lot to like within this book. It isn't one I'll be likely to revisit anytime soon however.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Stalking, Sexual harassment
Moderate: Confinement, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Stalking, Murder
As with Les Miserables, Hugo gives a story of many characters and twists and turns. He also juxtaposes the good and pure with the evil that surrounds them. There is also a mother/daughter pair separate by circumstances.
It is story of demented sexual obsession, stalking, torture and murder. I frequently wondered who could read this book and have the idea to turn it into a Disney movie.
But as with Les Mis, Hugo doesn't disappoint. He drew me in and when he left a plot line hanging to move on to another part of the action, or on one of his tangents (Hugo does love his tangents) I was totally wrapped around his finger, waiting to find out what happened.
It is story of demented sexual obsession, stalking, torture and murder. I frequently wondered who could read this book and have the idea to turn it into a Disney movie.
But as with Les Mis, Hugo doesn't disappoint. He drew me in and when he left a plot line hanging to move on to another part of the action, or on one of his tangents (Hugo does love his tangents) I was totally wrapped around his finger, waiting to find out what happened.