I read this because I felt I had to read something by Hugo and Les Miserabvle is so epically large I am reading it in installments. That being said I decided to read teh Hunchback as it is smaller and I thought more parody than Les Miserable. You know what I found out? Hey it wasn't. But more on that later. The hunchback of Notre Dame really follows the lives of just two characters, Dom Claude Frollo an apathetic character, Pierre Gringoire a character who opens the story by being the philospher who knows all sides of the story more or less. Esmeralda of course the young beautiful VIRGINAL maiden, her love Captain Phoebeus the #1 asshole, (maybe more so than Claude Frollo, and of course the perpetual ghost, Quasimodo. The story begins with the commnecement of the king of fools, Pierre Gringoire the narrator if you will, displays his play and from there we begin to see Paris thru the eyes of the author Hugo, with his sweeping grand vision of his home city. The book is a veritable map of the Paris he knew and the Paris which he is describing in 1560. He then continues to describe the backgrounds of each character into which he weaves a splendid web of interconnectedness. There are times, when Hugo goes on tangents about the architecture and rants about why they tore it down. It almost seems like he wanted to write a history of Parisian architecture and decided to throw in a sort of love story.
Bitch Please!
As far as love stories go, this one kind of maybe really sucked. The whole story revolved around the insanely zealot priest Frollo,who's obsession with Esmeralda takes everyone on a whirlwind ride into despair and death. This was seriously depressing not even the beautiful language could bring me out of the continually growing abyss of "God why is this so sad." considering his next grand novel was titled "Les Miserable" and considering I have only read about half, this is me saying the title of this novel should have been "Les Miserable."
*SPOILER ALERT*
First of, fuck Dom Claude Frollo, how could he go up and kill Esmeralda, yeah I said it, he fucking hangs her just because she will not love him. And don't get me wrong she is dumb too, she falls in love with the most disgusting display of manliness Hugo could offer. Phoebeus is a douche and a coward. Frollo kills Esmeralda but Phoebus pretty much sentences her to death. Then theres Quasimodo who really can't help being ugly and I know, I get it he's too ugly to be loved, but thats wrong. Everyone deserves to be loved and if there is one thing that continues in every love story it is that love is redemming. As a realist Hugo understood that if Esmeralda kissed him he wouldn't become a prince, and that is the problem with this story. In condemming the love for the ugly he destroys Esmeralda. Quasimodo has been tormented for so long he is bitter and hateful but you can tell that with her love he could change. But she is shallow and falls in love with Phoebues a self deluded idiot who's main goal is just to get in her knickers and he will say just about anything to aachieve that goal. Meanwhile Frollo is in despair trying to fight his inner demons because he has lost his faith in everything. Which calls into account Hugo's atheism. First of God loves all his children, even or especially Quasimodo. Secondly a man without faith (even if it isn't God) will always fall into despair and become cruel for the disbelief in love leads into obsession and corruption. Then theres Hugo's manly display of women. Esmeralda is DUMB! She pretty much leads herself to the gallows at the end by calling out to Phoebeus and outing her hiding place where her mother had just hidden her. The asshole doesnt even turn as he wants nothing to do with her. Her mother dies in her vain attempt to save her and this after she has just discovered that the daughter she mourned for so long. I mean fuck then you got quasimodo who kills Frollo's beloved brother (although I can't say I didn't see that coming the boy was just too spoiled) then he kills his master, who definietly deserved it. Quasimodo alone now decides he too shall die and we;re not sure how that happens but in the end he does end up with Esmeralda in death. What of Phoebeus you ask, that ass gets married and supposedly thats his great "misery" but how can it be when he is swimming in gold, and has a beautiful wife and a position in the army guaranteed for life. No he needed to be punished for his cowardice but alas Hugo took pity on the rich. In the end the story was good and beautifully written but honestly just too unjustified. I wouldnt mind if they had all died, but if I had had just a semblance of justice for the mother of Esmeralda and for Quasimodo had Phoebeus been made to pay his cowardice it would have been better. This being said I expected to hate Frollo more but I kind of felt sorry for him, he really has no idea what its like to be an imperfect human being. In the end I liked it but felt unjustified. Read it if your into literature or if you want to know France otherwise...don't bother, read "Les Miserables" at least that one has a better ending.
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