Notre-Dame de Paris

1482

No cover

Victor Hugo: Notre-Dame de Paris (French language, 1967, Garnier-Flammarion)

512 pages

French language

Published April 29, 1967 by Garnier-Flammarion.

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4 stars (1 review)

In fifteenth-century Paris, a disfigured man named Quasimodo, who was abandoned as an infant in the cathedral of Notre-Dame and now lives in its bell tower, must come to the aid of a beautiful gypsy girl named Esmeralda after she repels the advances of the cruel archdeacon Don Claude Frollo.

13 editions

A true master of tragedy (and tangents)

4 stars

I feel like Hugo is a bit more focused on his plot in this book, compared to Les Misérables at least. He has some good tangents in there nonetheless, and very entertainingly sarcastic ones at that!

As with the beloved Brick, Hugo shows himself in The Hunchback of Notre Dame to be an expert at crafting tragedies that feel unearned yet entirely inevitable. The catharsis is strong!