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I first tried reading this about 10 years ago and stalled out 100 pages in. That's the point where Hugo drops the moderately interesting (if still very wordy) narrative and goes into a massive rant about the loss of medieval architecture in Paris. This made it a perfect case for an audiobook, and it's much easier to power through a book when you're passively consuming it. Plus, the current shop project featured many, many hours of grinding, so I was going to be bored no matter what. Might as well be bored in the name of cultural literacy!
So, having finally consumed the whole thing, I am here to say that it is a very weird book which I cannot recommend. I really don't understand why it has the cultural cachet that it has. The plot is all over the place, and frequently interrupted with more rants like the one mentioned above. It's as if Hugo read Atlas Shrugged and decided what was needed was more 50 page speeches. The characters are mostly all unpleasant people being banally terrible, or blank enigmas at best. Lots of antagonists, but I'm still not sure who the protagonist was. Large parts of the plot revolve around ugly Roma stereotypes, which turns even the otherwise-unobjectionable Esmeralda into hideous propaganda. (Which is still ruining lives to this very day, so don't tell me "it was from a different time".) In the end most everyone dies, nothing is changed, nothing is accomplished. Gringoire is the only one who maybe learns from his experiences at all, and that's a minor postscript.
Bleh. And to make the whole thing weirder, Disney thought this would make good material for a happy musical? I had to watch that to complete the experience, and, wow. Based on a title, indeed! It wasn't bad on its own, if still not great, but very little of the original story remained. It didn't even end with Esmeralda being hung as a witch, minutes after her tragically brief reunion with her mother, who herself is killed trying to prevent the execution, all while being watched by the equally rapey Frollo and Quasimodo, the later of which pushes the former to his death off the roof of the cathedral, only to disappear and be found as a skeleton years later embracing the skeleton of Esmeralda, who can't escape from the men obsessed with her even in death.
Er, spoilers.
So, having finally consumed the whole thing, I am here to say that it is a very weird book which I cannot recommend. I really don't understand why it has the cultural cachet that it has. The plot is all over the place, and frequently interrupted with more rants like the one mentioned above. It's as if Hugo read Atlas Shrugged and decided what was needed was more 50 page speeches. The characters are mostly all unpleasant people being banally terrible, or blank enigmas at best. Lots of antagonists, but I'm still not sure who the protagonist was. Large parts of the plot revolve around ugly Roma stereotypes, which turns even the otherwise-unobjectionable Esmeralda into hideous propaganda. (Which is still ruining lives to this very day, so don't tell me "it was from a different time".) In the end most everyone dies, nothing is changed, nothing is accomplished. Gringoire is the only one who maybe learns from his experiences at all, and that's a minor postscript.
Bleh. And to make the whole thing weirder, Disney thought this would make good material for a happy musical? I had to watch that to complete the experience, and, wow. Based on a title, indeed! It wasn't bad on its own, if still not great, but very little of the original story remained. It didn't even end with Esmeralda being hung as a witch, minutes after her tragically brief reunion with her mother, who herself is killed trying to prevent the execution, all while being watched by the equally rapey Frollo and Quasimodo, the later of which pushes the former to his death off the roof of the cathedral, only to disappear and be found as a skeleton years later embracing the skeleton of Esmeralda, who can't escape from the men obsessed with her even in death.
Er, spoilers.
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So yeah, there was much confusion as to why Disney wanted to make a cheery musical out of this, *and make Phoebus a good guy*.
Because beautiful people are good and ugly people are bad, unless they're lovably deformed and also sexless, or something.
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