The Hunchback of Notre Dame

While reading, I was considering the merits of abridged versions of classical works, but at the end - FUCK.

My only experience with this tale was Disney - I knew their version was rot-your-teeth, sugar coated but duuuuuuude.

SPOILER ALERT:
In the late 1400s, a priest is infatuated with a gypsy girl who is in love with a soldier who is a P.O.S. (except when compared with the priest then he comes out favorably). The soldier is about to get lucky with the gypsy girl when the priest intervenes and stabs him. The gypsy girl is arrested and sentenced to hang as a witch. The hunchback (saved and raised by the priest) is also infatuated with the gypsy girl - he at least respects her bubble and moreso seems to recognize her as a human being - and show more thus rescues her from the scaffold temporarily protecting her with the sanctuary of Notre Dame ('cept that's the priest's crib!). The gypsy ends up "escaping" the church to find her long-lost mother grieving in a self-inflicted, weather-exposed dungeon (prayer cell). The guard catches up with her - her mother's skull is bashed in while the gypsy hangs. The hunchback pushes the priest off the ramparts of Notre Dame then finds and cuddles up with the corpse of the gypsy, rotting together. The soldier survived and marries (fate worse than death for him).

I wish I could call this a caricature, but that would imply that it's exaggerated - this is the depth of absurdity that society had reached and the descent continues.

But apparently it's really about the importance of preserving architecture from earlier ages. Aye, aye Hugo. show less

On my themed reading list, The Hunchback of Notre Dame should have been in another category (e.g. A Book More Than One Hundred Years Old) because this is not A Classic Romance. At some point in a romance both parties in said romance have to love each other. Not only is this requirement never fulfilled, it was destined to fail due to the limitations of the novel's protagonists.

The four main characters of The Hunchback of Notre Dame are each flawed - either naive about love (Esmeralda), incapable of being loved (Quasimodo), incapable of love (Phoebus) or forbidden to love (Frollo). Each person in this quadrangle loves someone else within it who does not return their love. Three will pay the ultimate price for their attachment (four if you show more agree with Hugo's humorous view of Phoebus's fate). Although their destinies are evident at the outset of each romance, what makes the novel worth reading is the accumulated tragedy that results from Hugo's interweaving of each character's individual tale.

Like Les Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame suffers from Hugo's verbosity, which is particularly noticeable at climactic moments. At these times a character hesitates to act or launches into an extended (and unrealistically lengthy) dialogue. Hugo might have thought this generated suspense; for me, it had the opposite effect. The novel is also a good candidate for abridgement. There are several chapters, such as both chapters of Book III and the additions to the 8th edition, that are bereft of plot and can be skipped without any impairment in understanding or enjoyment of the novel. The introduction to my edition discusses Hugo's efforts to control the profits from his novel, and these chapters are evidence that the narrative suffered for his efforts.

Despite these complaints, I enjoyed the novel - it just needs to be read with an understanding that it was written in a time when it didn't have to compete with myriad entertainment alternatives and an acceptance of the deleterious effects of that environment. show less

Una maledizione e una benedizione.
La maledizione è per chi sceglie i brani da inserire nelle antologie scolastiche, scelte così insipide, noiose, inutili, che hanno tenuto una lettrice incallita come me lontana dal Hugo per tutti questi anni.
La benedizione invece è per lui, il grande Victor, per la sua scrittura meravigliosa, piena di humour persino nei punti più grevi e didascalici del racconto, per la sua penetrazione psicologica dei personaggi, per la sua abilità pittorica e architettonica nel descriverli.
Perché la Esmeralda, la piccola zingara, è descritta in modo pittorico, è un quadro pieno di luce e di colori, mentre Quasimodo è pura architettura, nelle sue membra deformi.
Da leggere, e inserire nelle riletture periodiche show more di cui non si può fare a meno per non perdere il senso della propria lettura. show less

While this was all too frequently a tedious read, I am, on the whole, very glad I stuck with this novel. Hugo's witty humor and overall tone made even the most superfluous scenes moderately enjoyable, and the plot, once firmly established, proved to be rather gripping. The strongest aspects of this book, however, were the characters. Hugo's characters showcase the wide capacity for contradiction within human nature by being alternatively commendable and ignoble, pitiable and disdainful. Even when they have the best intentions, they are immensely and authentically flawed, making them exceptionally intriguing and occasionally loveable.

I was prepared for the novel to be vastly different from the Disney film, more serious and 'grown-up'. In the end the distance was probably less than I was expecting. Although naturally more complex, the novel is comic and carnivalesque in a way that feels somewhat Disney. All the characters are somewhat comically grotesque, and few of their actions feel truly human.

I suppose the difference is in the absence of 'good' and 'bad' characters. Esmerelda and Phoebus are as comic and irrationally-driven as everyone else, and Frollo is more screw-eyed than he is evil. The hunchback himself is no protagonist, and to my mind no more interesting than other fringe characters like Clopin, Pierre and the mad mother in the cell.

Gosto de tudo em Victor Hugo, a escrita descritiva em excesso, o fatalismo do romantismo, a crítica ao patriarcado, e, acima de tudo, ele saber o quanto o leitor se preocuparia com a Djali. Rá!
Sério, O Corcunda de Notre-Dame é impecável tanto como entretenimento quanto obra de arte.

This book is an epic, and yet surprisingly quick read. I won’t try to compare it to the one adaptation I’ve seen of the hunchback story (that being the disney animated version) as it has been more than a decade since I’ve seen it and the two don’t seem compatible or even really comparable. The characters all seem, and this is despite the many fantastical elements hinted at, very real. Claude Frollo is deeply flawed and at the same time incredibly bright, a slave to his lust for Esmeralda and the inescapable rational truth that he will be crushed by his obsession. Esmeralda herself is an interesting creation, exotic beauty on the outside, ignorant but well meaning child in her actions. But for me, the story rests on two sets of show more shoulders. One being Quasimodo, the only really ‘pure’ character in the book scarred by his own birth and the ignorance of his age. And two, Hugo’s own narrative voice that creates a Paris so vividly described and realistically inhabited that the events described, as incredibly horrific or at times magnificent, seem plausible, or even real. show less