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A review by manjala
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo
2.0
This is a typical example of a classic gothic novel. The writing style is very dramatic, the characters all have tragic stories (Especially Quasimodo, poor guy). The thing that I found most enjoyable was the fact that there were some philosophical elements included in the story; such as the comparison between books and architecture, and how it's all connected to the development of human philosophy.
While I actually really liked some of the characters in this story (Claude Frollo for example, even though he has major issues...), I feel like the book would be much better if it was at least half as long. The fact that the story read so terribly slow sometimes was also part of the reason it took me so long to finish reading. Victor Hugo's writing style consists of very (!) long descriptions and long sentences, and he spends a lot of time describing the world (in this case the city of Paris) around the events and characters.
While this is normally something I enjoy in a book, I feel like the main reason I didn't like this is because of the translation. I read it in my native tongue, which is Dutch, and it made me uncomfortable to read sometimes. My version also had a lot of parts written in Latin and French, and that also hindered the enjoyment of reading this.
All in all it is a classic worth reading, but be prepared to spend a lot of time reading about buildings and losing focus in some scenes.
While I actually really liked some of the characters in this story (Claude Frollo for example, even though he has major issues...), I feel like the book would be much better if it was at least half as long. The fact that the story read so terribly slow sometimes was also part of the reason it took me so long to finish reading. Victor Hugo's writing style consists of very (!) long descriptions and long sentences, and he spends a lot of time describing the world (in this case the city of Paris) around the events and characters.
While this is normally something I enjoy in a book, I feel like the main reason I didn't like this is because of the translation. I read it in my native tongue, which is Dutch, and it made me uncomfortable to read sometimes. My version also had a lot of parts written in Latin and French, and that also hindered the enjoyment of reading this.
All in all it is a classic worth reading, but be prepared to spend a lot of time reading about buildings and losing focus in some scenes.