The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo

Everybody has heard of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and everybody has heard of Quasimodo, the novel’s namesake (in the English version of the title anyway), and everybody has heard of Quasimodo’s cry of “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” Since the existence of a version of this story in the form of an animated family film, something decent people would let their children watch, has been tolerated, I’m guessing that not everybody has actually read this book.

That being said, this is a fascinating story (…for adults.)  Hugo wove some colorful characters who are continuously crossing paths, their lives intertwining, into the backdrop of a past Paris about which our disembodied narrator seems to be an expert. The setting is crucial to the story with the Notre-Dame cathedral as almost a character itself, and few details seem to have been spared.

The intensity of the raw human emotion, however, is even stronger than that of the detailed setting. The idiosyncrasies of each character are extreme: Quasimodo’s ugliness and pain, La Esmeralda’s innocence and beauty, archdeacon Frollo’s obsession and hypocrisy. They are all caricatures, but curiously believable ones with pasts and experiences that have shaped who they are. While the emotional natures of the characters may be somewhat exaggerated, they are rarely comic, with the exception, perhaps, of Pierre Gringoire, a philosopher-playwright who functions not unlike a Shakespearean fool.

That is not to say that much of the story is not amusing. The style is engaging and even entertaining. While I felt like I probably missed a lot of satire by being less in the know than a contemporary reader, there was still plenty of it to latch onto, proving that there are many aspects of human foolishness that never go out of fashion.

The plot of the novel is driven largely by the passions of the characters and by the ironies of a basically unjust world. (Anyone who wants to believe that the world is fair is likely to totally hate this book.) It is also characterized by a tremendous amount of violence, to which the writer/narrator seems curiously immune. Folks are tortured, hanged, smashed and crushed and meet other equally bad ends, and the complete lack of genuine justice is prominent enough to serve as a sort of violence itself.

Despite all of that horror, I was surprised at how much fun this book was to read. I had expected it to be a somewhat dry example of what we are told is important literature, but instead found it quite wonderful. I was disappointed with La Esmeralda, who I thought was kind of stupid, but had never heard of Pierre Gringoire, who I found to be a delightfully amusing character. While (minor spoiler alert) the ending of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is a bit of a bummer, the intensity and pace of the story kept me turning pages from the inviting beginning right up to that bitter end.

You might also like The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

 

 

Coming soon: On Literature by Umberto Eco and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

 

 

A Year of Books I Should Have Read by Now

The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny

Book 5 of the Amber Chronicles

 

Rumors of the death of this blog have been highly exaggerated! It’s just that any attempt at a writing schedule far too much resembles the title of the Roger Zelazny Amber novel I read most recently. Unfortunately, “most recently” in this case means weeks ago, but I still remember the book well as a fine installment in this entertaining series.

Oberon, “Dad” to Corwin, our narrator, is back, but since one of his sons is madly bent on destroying Amber so he can re-create it as he wishes, it’s not exactly a properly celebrated homecoming. The Courts of Chaos, a realm in a precarious balance with Amber, is taking advantage of a breach in the barriers between itself and Amber. Complete and total destruction seems imminent.

Corwin, who has had as his only goals the restoration of his own position in Amber and an eventual takeover of the king’s crown itself, has changed, grown and had plenty of time to think about his motivations. He exerts everything he has within himself, which turns out to be quite a lot, trying to save Amber. His adventures are full of the surreal twistings of reality that are so common among the blood of amber, and his especial prowess has him coming out on top as we’ve come to expect. Corwin has become less self-serving, however, and his pursuits are for the restoration of the land he loves and not for his own glory.

This book is as much fun as the rest of the Amber Chronicles that I’ve read, and really, these first five books are one long(-ish) story.  The fact that Corwin as a person changes throughout his adventures lends a credible depth to the series. While the fantasy elements are creative and interesting, the development of a sound, solid, believable character gives these books even greater quality.

I hope to get back to the pages of The Distractible Reader more often in the weeks ahead. I recently finished On Literature, a collection of essays by Umberto Eco, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. I feel like I’ve got a lot to say about both of these, so, with any luck, I’ll be able to organize those thoughts into readable sentences and paragraphs and post them here soon.

 

You might also like: Sign of the Unicorn and The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny

 

A Year of Books I Should Have Read by Now