Name: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Rating: 3.840740740740741 (135 reviews)
ISBN: 9780451527882

Victor Hugo

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

M. Sosotris

May contain spoilers.

I'm trying not to fanboy all over the place and rant and rave about how amazing Victor Hugo is because this book deserves a more measured review.

So bear with me.

This book was groundbreaking in its day for its depiction of the whole of existence within a specific time and place. We see scenes with Louis XI, and scenes with the poorest of the poor living in the gutters of Paris, and it has such an astute awareness of how everything in society is affected by everything else. Life isn't fair, good people are unjustly punished, the leaders aren't often in positions of power because they're good leaders, and the unfair actions of the Patriarchy can have devastating consequences on those who can't defend themselves against it.

I wish I could time travel back to 1831, bring Victor Hugo back with me, and have him write books on the modern age just so we could all benefit from his shrewd cultural awareness.

This book is extraordinary.

It's hard to bring it up without mentioning the Disney version, which is one of my favorite Disney animated films, so I will just say, yes, a great deal was changed when adapting this massive story. The Disney version's plot is VERY different from the novel's, but thematically (except for the happy ending) it hits on a lot of the same ideas. Frollo's self-destructive corrupt paradoxes are portrayed very well, for example.

But leaving the movie behind.

The characters are all memorable and they're all flawed. The only "good" character is perhaps Esmeralda, but even still, it's her attraction to the dismissive, womanizing Phoebus (who's handsome, but rather dead inside when it comes to the women he uses for short-term pleasure) that ends up tipping her over the edge to her destruction in the end.

Pierre Gringoire, the struggling poet who joins the Court of Miracles to save his own skin, and who basically just goes along with whoever has the most power so as to keep himself out of danger, is my favorite character. He's such a worm, but when you see how dangerous and unfair life in this century is, you can see why it's the cowards and corrupt who survive. Gringoire COULD have easily been the book's hero. If he had stood up to Frollo, he could have saved Esmeralda, but instead he saves the goat and flees into the night. He's ultimately useless, but he's a useless human being rather than a useless archetype in a collection of stock characters.

Speaking of heroes, Quasimodo is probably the closest thing the book has to a hero, but he's hardly the protagonist. He's very much a background character for much of the book. When Esmeralda gives him water while he's being humiliated unjustly on the pillory, the scene eventually ends and we don't see him developing feelings for her. He comes back for his triumphant moment when he saves her from execution, but we never get inside his head, really, except at the very end. We see that he is human, not animal, but he remains very much a mystery, up until he takes charge of the narrative.

Frollo is very much the book's protagonist, but he's so vile and evil that we don't much care for his company, especially once he makes his feelings for Esmeralda known. And yet, we do get to see his love for his adopted brother Jehan, a slacker troublemaker who would rather spend money on wine and women rather than his studies. But I love how, for as angry as Frollo gets at him, he ultimately always relents. And then we get his barely-hidden grief near the end after Quasimodo kills Jehan in the attack on Notre Dame. We cannot like Frollo at all. His predatory lust for Esmeralda, and his willingness to kill her if she doesn't return his horrifying advances ultimately lead to one of the darkest and most horrifying conclusions to a novel I've read in a long time. But again, Hugo gives Frollo depth and we can't help but see him as human rather than as a flat villain.

Esmeralda herself remains the one element that hasn't aged well. And yet, we can understand why she's so passive. She's a scared sixteen year old girl surviving on the streets of Paris. She is protected by those of the Court of Miracles, but she's not powerful in any way. The tragedy which she suffers through in the end is designed to cause the reader to get angry at Frollo and Phoebus, corrupt men who abuse and mistreat women, but she herself never becomes more than a flat archetypal ideal. She's sweet, innocent, and foolish, and gets destroyed by the horrible men who want her for her physical beauty. It makes for an incredibly powerful denunciation of sexual violence against women that still works today, but it doesn't make for an interesting character. She's an object, not a person. In that sense, I am glad that the Disney version gave her so much agency, and then the Broadway adaptation restored the tragic ending while keeping her agency in place.

Few books punch you in the stomach and make you feel anguish and joy and that very French righteous indignation that the French are so good at, but this books succeeds beautifully. Don't be turned off by the essays on Parisian urban growth or the clash between architecture and printing. They're important to what Hugo is doing. By the end of the book, Paris itself is a character. You know what it looks like, you can see how it fits into the changing world of the Renaissance, and the buildings themselves have a majesty and ephemeral beauty that you know won't last through the centuries to come. You feel like a citizen of this medieval city, and you care that much more about what happens to the characters. 

Hugo wrote this as a love letter to the Gothic architecture that was being torn down or painted over, so you must forgive his gorgeous loving descriptions of these fantastic backdrops. But that attention to detail brings out the incredible characters and struggles of this whole richly described world that much better. 

It's no exaggeration to call this one of my favorite books of all time.

Anna 

jelikož se jedná o povinnou četbu, kterou určitě musí přečíst i mnoho z vás, rozhodla jsem se k ní udělat recenzi trošku jinak než normálně. nebudu knihu hodnotit, pouze vyzdvihnu pozitiva a negativa :)

pozitiva:
- čtivost
- přímá řeč
- hlavní hrdinka je zároveň silná ženská postava
- děj je z větší části epický
- dobrá atmosféra

negativa:
- občas velmi zdlouhavé popisy
- autor odbíhá od toho, co chce původně říct
- nadávky, v autorově době to byla normální mluva
- ableismus - Quasimodo je v knize hlavně pro pobavení ostatních postav, Hugo ho ale popisuje jako laskavého člověka

shrnutí:
mně se knížka líbila. rozhodně tam byly věci, které by si v dnešní době autor napsat nedovolil, ale musíme brát v potaz, že to je 200 let stará kniha. četlo se mi to rychle a děj mě bavil. častokrát jsem se i zasmála, postava básníka Gringoirea byla skvěle napsaná a kapitoly z jeho úhlu pohledu mě moc bavily. celý děj se odehrává v paříži, atmosféra byla tedy moc hezká a já doteď občas myšlenkami do hugovy paříže zabloudím. 
pokud tedy máte knihu mezi maturitní četbou, doporučuji si jí přečíst.

John Sturrock

Tells the story of the hunchback Quasimodeo, bell-ringer of Nortre-Dame, the archdeacon Claude Frollo, and the gypsy dancer Esmeralda who wins Quasimodo's selfless devotion.

Notre-Dame de Paris

Caellum

Our good friend Mr Hugo is a difficult man for modern readers to appreciate and honestly, as dope as he was as a historical figure, I do find his prose exhausting. Hugo can and will go on a four page tangent about Paris architecture because honestly that's closer to his point than any of the narrative. He cares more about selling you on Paris than Quasimodo. But it's a wicked story, thick and delicious. And frankly? It's probably his easiest book to read. 

Tim A. Conrad

Retells in graphic novel format the classic story of Quasimodo, the hunchback who rings the bells of Notre Dame and who falls in love with a Gypsy girl.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Ilse

I really wanted to like this book. Ever since I watched the Disney movie I wanted to read Hugo's original unabridged version. Honestly, although his descriptions of Paris and the people living in the city are beautiful and highly interesting, and the story is way darker and more tragic (in a good way) than the Disney version, the writing is just so... dense. Now, I'm not opposed to dense works, I can work through a certain degree of wordy descriptions and have no problem whatsoever with books that number well over a thousand pages, but this was too much. 

"Our reader must excuse us" quickly became the moment for me to flip through the pages until the interesting dialogue and character interactions started again. The recurring descriptions pulled me out of the submersion of the story, making me not care about it nearly as much as I so wanted to. I'm still planning to try out Les Mis, if only because I already own a physical copy, but it's going to be a little while before I do

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being.' Set in medieval Paris, against the backdrop of the brooding Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Hugo's take on the classic story of Beauty and the Beast tells of the hunchbacked, grotesque bellringer, Quasimodo. Rejected by Parisian society because of his appearance, Quasimodo resides in Notre-Dame, harbouring a love for the only woman that pities him, a gypsy named Esmerelda. However, a sinister archdeacon also covets Esmerelda, and when his advances are spurned, he seeks to destroy her.

Giulia 

3.5/5!

Non c'è cosa migliore di leggere Notre Dame de Paris mentre si ascolta Notre Dame de Paris ❤️. Il mio voler leggere questo romanzo è derivato interamente dal fatto che amo alla follia il musical, io e Hugo non abbiamo mai avuto un bel rapporto xD. Nonostante questo devo dire che non mi è dispiaciuto. Ci sono dei punti troppo prolissi, altri in cui è chiaro che se non vi piace la storia dell'arte o l'urbanistica vi annoierete a morte. Ebbene, dopo aver letto il libro, aver visto non so quante volte il musical, una domanda mi sorge spontanea: come fa a piacervi Febo?! Capisco che nel musical sia portato in scena da un attore con una bella faccia, ma è una cargona! 
Mi dispiace dire che preferisco il musical al romanzo, sono due cose completamente diverse in quanto molte cose nel musical non vengono nemmeno prese in considerazione, ma le parti principali ci sono tutte quindi è una rappresentazione veritiera (e se sentite Matteo Setti e Giò di Tonno cantare non potrete non innamorarvene ❤️). 
L'unica pecca a livello di personaggi che ho notato, è stata in Esmeralda. Siceramente da una ragazza di sedici anni, zingara, che ha viaggiato il mondo, mi sarei aspettata un pelino più di intrapredenza. E di sale in zucca, ma vabbè quello non sempre è presente. Troppo bambina ed ingenua, non credo che nel 1482 le ragazze di sedici anni fossero così.

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

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