Murdered by Disney. (Hunchback of Notre-Dame, The - Victor Hugo)

Member Name: Bryn Pearson

Product:	Hunchback of Notre-Dame, The - Victor Hugo
Date:	20/04/01 (83 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: beautiful, poetic, human

Disadvantages: initially hard to get into.

If you have had the misfortune to see the Disney cartoon, banish it from your mind. This book has suffered greatly from being mauled by the cartoon version.

A bit about the plot then. For a start, there are many characters whose lives intertwine. There is a young writer who attends the festivities and sees Quasimodo corwned for his ugliness, and who later also sees Esmerelda. It si through this poor writers eyes that we first meet the key characters.

Quasimodo was abandonned as a child, left on the steps at Notre Dame cathedral and taken into the care of Frollo the archbishop.
Here he lives, seldome coming out, a thoughtful but ugly man who has no way of expressing himself and who has known little affection.

Esmerelda is a gypsy girl who dances for money and who is quite niave. She has fallen in love with Phoebus, a handsome young man who turns out to be cruel and heartless. Esmerelda cannot see beyond surfaces. She is blinded by physical beauty and very young - she does not really know what love is. As the story unwinds, we learn more about her past, her true parentage and her sorry fate.

Archbishop Frollo is a repressed man, full of desires that his religion forbides. He is obsessed with Esmerelda, in a very unhealthy way. While he has been fairly kind to Wuasimodo, he is capable of much cruelty. he also has an interest in alchemy and some very strange thoughts about the significance of architecture.

Esmerelda falls in love with Phoebus and is used by him. Quasimodo falls in love with esmerelda but cannot win her affections. It is a complex tangle of emotion that cannot possibly end well.

Notre Dame de Paris (as it is titled in French literally "our lady of Paris and obviously means the cathedral but could reflect on the characters.) is a beautiful, often perplexing book filled with alchemy, strange sights and bizzarre characters, from the dark and troubled Frollo, to the physically ugly but soulful
Quasimodo, the beautiful, foolish Esmerelda, and a host of strange and wonderful figures. Rich, surprising and finally heartrending, this is am amazing book that needs rescusing from the merciless clutches of Disney. Full of human passion and failings, unrequited love and tragedy, this book captivated me and the ending left me close to tears.

Hugo is an unusual writer and takes some getting into. Unlike modern authors, he takes his time filling in the little background details that really add colour. His books are all slow to get going, and you have to work a bit to get into the reading style. Its is well worth the effort though, and his stories unravel into panoramic masterpieces that will haunt you for a long time after you have finished reading them.

If you like Victorian authors such as George Eliot, or Charles Dickens then you may well enjoy the pace and style of Hugo. If you like fast modern books then this most certianlyisn't going to suit you. Oddly enough, i think Hugo has a great deal in common with Mervyn Peake - a similarity of style, the length of description and the slowness of pace that will omtimes errupt into unexpected action.

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