There is also a running commentary on architecture, orphans, classism, unrequited love and all the forms it can take, plus internal vs external beauty. Truly this is a piece of historical fiction I know next to nothing about French history so it was kind of interesting to see the parallels and explanations that he was giving the 1830s Paris readers, of the medieval 1400s Paris in which the book takes place. That said, I readily admit to using a teaching guide so I could at least follow and try to absorb what Hugo was trying to tell his readers. The rest includes architecture, history, society, more architecture, more social commentary, more history etc. I knew from reading a number of modern reviews that Notre-Dame de Paris is a tiresome read at times, but even I wasn’t ready for the ratio of story involving the characters – very small – vs. This is especially true when the author takes an entire section (literally) of the book just to describe the view from the cathedral rooftop. I tend to find classic novels a huge struggle to read. Approx 500 pages but differs between versions* Shaped by a profound sense of tragic irony, it is a work that gives full play to the author’s brilliant imagination and his remarkable powers of description. The setting of this extraordinary historical novel is medieval Paris: a city of vividly intermingled beauty and ugliness, surging with violent life under the two towers of its greatest structure and supreme symbol, the cathedral of Notre Dame.Īgainst this background, Victor Hugo unfolds the haunting drama of Quasimodo, the hunchback Esmeralda, the gypsy dancer and Claude Frollo, the priest tortured by the specter of his own damnation. The complete and unabridged translation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo