by Victor Hugo

This Classic was originally written in French and I've found that the translation does make a difference. I have a paperback copy from Penguin, translated by John Sturrock and my first impression was that the writing was very poetic, but I got the free Kindle version from Gutenberg with a different translator because it's easier for me to read on Kindle and in this one, the first chapters felt overly wordy and dragged a little.

I persisted though. I've seen various film versions of this story and didn't recognise most of the names I was reading until we finally meet Quasimodo in chapter five, followed by Esmerelda, though Gringoire who falls foul of the Paris underworld does make an appearance in the old 1939 black and white Charles Laughton version. From Quasimodo's introduction the story digressed into the history of Notre Dame Cathedral.

This one takes a little patience because there are many digressions. Life in fifteenth century Paris under Louis the XI, individual character histories and other commentaries on the times all come together to form a very thorough picture of the circumstances surrounding the familiar story line, but they do break continuity.

The extent to which Quasimodo's story intertwines with Esmerelda's was never fully expressed in the movies. I found the connections very interesting indeed! And Frollo was given a bit of undeserved bad press, especially by Disney. Movies require a villain and a priest immersed in austerity isn't a sympathetic character, but his reasons for adopting Quasimodo were based in charity, not obligation.

Quasimodo's back story is revealed in reverse, first showing us his experience with the Feast of Fools, then later revealing how he came to be ward of Frollo, and after that his origins and how he came into Frollo's path. Then later we move forward.

While the book would never get commercial publication in today's publishing market due to the extent of the digressions, the story is well told as a whole and the Classic enthusiast is likely to enjoy the fullness of the description and depiction of the time and place and how it shapes the events of the plot. I'm glad to have read it now and will look on film repeats with a more detailed knowledge of the whole of the story.

A worthwhile Classic, for those who have the patience to assimilate a fair bit of history between story events.

I read the first few books a while back, like when they were first released, they were just meh then. I figured I would give it another shot. Great decision. I tried the audio editions of the books, spectacular decision. I found a few new narrators to enjoy, newer to enjoying audiobooks, and a new favorite books series.

Everytime there was a new narrator for one of these books I would cringe when I first heard their voices. I was worried it would ruin the story for me. It didn't, I enjoyed each of their reading styles, some more than others, but an all around positive experience. I must say I find that I hard time adjusting to new narrators when they switch mid series, like I get lost in the different pronunciations, reading speeds. I didn't have that with these. I must say that at first I did not like the first narrator's southern accent much in the beginning of the first book, but she grew on me.

I love the world these books are set in. There is so much to read about. So many awesome and fantastical elements to the story. The way the world works is nothing short of being one of the most interesting concepts I have read within the genre, urban fantasy. This isn't a place I would want to live in, but it sure is one I love to read about.

I used to not enjoy books about the Fae, but after reading these books and also the A Court if Thorns and Roses books I have very much changed my opinion. I now seek out books with them as a major part of the story. 

I read some of her Highlander books a while ago, thinking I may give then another read soon, while these books are still fresh in my mind. 

Does anyone know if any other series that follows the same characters and storyline throughout the series that has Fae characters? Preferably as the main, or one of the main focusses. I have read these, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and tried Merry Gentry books. I got bored with the Gentry books, has anyone read them? And do they get better after the first three installments?

This memoir touched my heart. Yes, Herschel Cobb is probably idolizing his famous grandfather, but so what -- I idolize my beloved, late grandparents a bit, too. 

Was the famously irascible Ty Cobb the old pussycat his grandson makes him out to be? Perhaps not. But for a few weeks, over the course of a few years, he was the child's life-line, as the boy suffered through physical and emotional abuse, as well as neglect from his parents. The elder Cobb was the man young Herschel needed in his life to survive, and probably saved him from turning into a violent or despairing man himself. 

So the story moved me. It was horrifying to realize that a child who came from a family with means could be just as badly abused--terrorized really--as a poor child. And he needed the love and support he received from his grandfather (as well as various aunts and his grandmother) as desperately as any child. 

It also makes me aware that some children never find their lifeline -- they survive by their own wits. Or the cycle doesn't break. So yes, it's the overlay of this being a "famous family," that drew me in to the memoir, but in the end, that mattered far less than the human connection told of within. Does it matter that it was a story about Ty Cobb? Not as much as it mattered that the boy, Herschel, survived. 

-cg

 

The deaf man was leaning, with his elbows on the balustrade, at the spot where the archdeacon had been a moment before, and there, never detaching his gaze from the only object which existed for him in the world at that moment, he remained motionless and mute, like a man struck by lightning, and a long stream of tears flowed in silence from that eye which, up to that time, had never shed but one tear."

That's done it. That broke me. And then Hugo slips this in:

Phoebus de Châteaupers also came to a tragic end. He married.

Every city during the Middle Ages, and every city in France down to the time of Louis XII. had its places of asylum. These sanctuaries, in the midst of the deluge of penal and barbarous jurisdictions which inundated the city, were a species of islands which rose above the level of human justice. Every criminal who landed there was safe. There were in every suburb almost as many places of asylum as gallows. It was the abuse of impunity by the side of the abuse of punishment; two bad things which strove to correct each other. The palaces of the king, the hotels of the princes, and especially churches, possessed the right of asylum. Sometimes a whole city which stood in need of being repeopled was temporarily created a place of refuge. Louis XI. made all Paris a refuge in 1467.

Hugo's writing is beautiful and it is likely to make the ending very hard to read.