Oh! How lucky you are that there is somebody who loves you!

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo
First published in 1831

Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary
These are the bullet points I made in the back of my book. I think they summarize it pretty well. 

- Paris, 1482- Pierre Gringoire's ill-fated play
- Quasimodo crowned Pope of Fools
- Esmeralda dances in the square
- Quasimodo tries to kidnap Esmeralda; Pierre tries to stop it; fails, Phoebus (a captain) succeeds
- Q arrested, then flogged
- Pierre taken by Tramps; escapes hanging by 'marrying' Esmeralda
- Esmeralda gives Q water when he is on the pillory
- Esmeralda falls for Phoebus; meets him at night; Archdeacon comes, too; jumps out and stabs P
- E is arrested with Djali (her goat); tortured; made to confess to stabbing P
- On E's hanging day, Q saves her, whisks her into Notre-Dame (Sanctuary!)
- They hang out for a while; the Archdeacon is still crazy over E (he loves her; made Q try to kidnap her that one time)
- Parliament decides to hang E anyway (screw sanctuary)
- The tramps revolt to try to save E; Archdeacon and Pierre Gringoire whisk Djali and E away
- Q fights the tramps because he thinks he's protecting E (who is, in fact, already gone)
- Pierre Gringoire runs off with Djali; the Archdeacon tries to make E love her; she refuses
- Archdeacon leaves her with the Sack Woman, a recluse, who hates E, because gypsies stole her child
- We realize that (DUN DUN DUN) E IS her child (no one is surprised)
- She tries to help her daughter escape being hung (for a crime she didn't commit, btw) and she almost succeeds, but dummy dum E calls out madly to Phoebus, who ignores her, and gets herself captured and hanged
- When Q sees E hanged, he throws the Archdeacon off the side of the church (to be clear, to his death)
- Q is found years later entombed with E
Spoiler Over: Continue Here

Okay, so how are we feeling after that plot summary? Rosy and excited? So so chipper? I read this one in a day, in part because of my aforementioned birthday plan, and in part because once I started, I could tell it wasn't going anywhere happy ever, and I mostly just wanted to be done with it. 

I did in some ways enjoy the reading of it, but I felt like there was so much darkness, and really not a lot of light. Which is cool, I guess; I mean lots of book don't have any light, but I like to have some FLICKERS here and there, just to, you know, keep me from thinking the world is a cesspool of sadness. 

Quasimodo was a great character, and I get how it's so painful and poignant that he's really quite sweet, and he just wants someone, anyone, to love him (thus, the title of this blob). But in the end, NO ONE DOES, and even though he gets to die with Esmeralda (WHAT A WIN, btw), she never warms to him, and the Archdeacon basically uses him as a pawn (did I mention that he's the one who adopted Q, and how he got the whole bell-ringer of Notre-Dame gig? Or that Q is deaf from bell-ringing? Well there, now I did.) So no one gets anything they want, and just about everyone dies, and most of them in ways that are Pretty Darn Gruesome. Other titles for this book could have been: 

That book where no one loves anyone back
The story of how Quasimodo is wonderful and everyone should BE SO LUCKY as to be his friend
That time where Esmeralda almost dies (a bunch of times) and escapes hanging only to be hanged

or perhaps, quite simply: 

Love - it gets everyone killed in the end

Who loves whom?
Here's an incomplete list of the unrequited affections people have in this book: 

Archdeacon (Claude Frollo) -- La Esmeralda - he hates this with every fire of his being, because he's a man of the church and all, and she's basically a witch. But he pursues her and ruins her life (and his) anyway, because, you know, the heart wants what it wants. Reminded me of the creepy preacher in The Scarlet Letter. 

La Esmeralda -- Phoebus (Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers) - she goes hard for this dude, and she's all into the concept of a soldier in uniform, and ultimately he is just the Woooooooorst. He tries to sleep with her, gets himself stabbed by the Archdeacon (WHOM HE TOLD COULD WATCH THEM, HELLO CREEPY), then Doesn't die, but this "doesn't matter" in the eyes of the law because what Esmeralda is convicted of (and then hanged for) is killing him. Yeah. So like I said. The worst. 

Phoebus -- La Esmeralda (but not really; he can't remember her name and starts referring to her as Similar); Fleur-de-Lis (but not really) - Even though it is despicable that Phoebus FORGOT Esmeralda's name, I thought it was kind of hilarious that he kept calling her Similar. Maybe also because she was SO GAGA for him that it literally gets her kilt. Which I know is tragic and all, but come on. Take a hint, Esmeralda. And also be NICER TO QUASIMODO. #kthanxbye

Quasimodo -- La Esmeralda - if there was a hashtag for this, it would be #shedoesntdeservehim. Period. End of sentence. 

La Esmeralda -- Phoebus - le sigh. See above. 

Pierre Gringoire -- La Esmeralda (but also really just her goat, Djali) - again, kind of hilarious, but also hello, RUDE? Dude pieces out and leaves Esmeralda with the Creepy McCreeperson, the Archdeacon and runs off with her goat, because she's the one he really liked in their relationship. Srsly? Srsly? 

La Esmeralda -- Phoebus - I think it was an accident that I wrote this one twice, but let's just leave it in to confirm that her obsession was (a) mis-directed and (b) got her killed. 

Ultimatums where all the choices seem pretty terrible. 
While this book was full of darkness and creepy gruesome violence, there were quite a few funny moments. I can see why people liked Victor Hugo as a writer. Here are some examples of (seemingly terrible) ultimatums that cracked me up. 

(1) The Archdeacon, who literally takes Esmeralda to the gallows on the night of their escape so he can gesture to them and then himself and say: 

The tomb or my bed! The choice rests with yourself - decide instantly. SPOILER ALERT: She chooses the gallows. Metaphorically and literally.

(2) King of the Tramps (a sort of merry band of banditti), to Pierre, when he has been captured by them and then is sentenced to death. 

You have four minutes to settle the affairs of your soul.
This was an alarming announcement. lolololol. 

No more boring us and no more bamfloozling us, either! I mean it!
I also very much enjoyed the parts where Pierre tried in vain to take pride in his play, which is happening when the book starts. (The people are Not Into It, and even though he runs through the crowd yelling "The play! The play! Give us the play!" to get it started again after the Cardinal arrives and interrupts it, they totally abandon it midstream and do their own thing.)

Pierre: I am the poet whose play was performed this morning in the great hall of the Palace.
King of Tramps: But, comrade, because we were bored by you in the morning, is that any reason you should not be hung tonight? LOLOLOLOLOLZ.

King of Tramps: I truly believe you are trying to bamfloozle us with your nonsense. Let yourself be hanged and make no more fuss. It was kind of hilarious how lightly everyone took hanging, but also SUPER MORBID how everyone came to watch the various acts of public violence. 

Cities as characters (Paris, Moscow)
Reading the way that Hugo makes Paris a character in this book made me think of Pushkin and his use of Moscow as a character. That being said, I could have done with several chapters fewer of Hugo waxing poetic about Paris and how 'writing is the new architecture'. 

Now, how precarious is the immortality of the manuscript? A building is an extraordinarily solid, durable, and resistant book! Oh, yes. So durable!

Gypsies and Chocolat
The gypsy storyline, and the back story of the Sack Woman having been a provincial Frenchwoman whose child was stolen by the gypsies when they came to town, reminded me of the gypsies and the 'boycott immorality' scenes in Chocolat. Also, IT WAS SO OBVIOUS THAT ESMERALDA WAS HER DAUGHTER. But no, she's busy locking herself in a cell in the town square and praying for fifteen years and hating Esmeralda whenever she comes by because "the gypsies ate her baby". When this finally got revealed, I was like, DUHHHHHH. #calledit

Jehan (is that a name?)
There were several people named Jehan in this book, and it just kept feeling to me like how when you make your NPR name, you stick your middle initial anywhere into your first name (Merkedith) and list the smallest city you've spent time in (Honfleur). I kept thinking, why is there an H in Jean? I guess it was a name, but it felt very annoying to keep trying to imagine how to pronounce it and stumbling over the H. 

Sanctuary cities
I like this line: Louis XI made Paris a sanctuary in 1467. Because it reminded me of how several American cities became sanctuary cities for protecting immigrants. Guess we've been doing that for a while, huh? 


Notre-Dame as a character
I love this line about Quasimodo and the church: 

Notre-Dame had been successively to him, as he grew up and developed, his egg, his nest, his home, his country, the universe.

In running for the title of this blob:

• The grimace was his natural visage. His whole person was a grimace. They say SUCH awful things about Quasimodo. I ultimately went with one of HIS lines because I thought it better captured his true self. 

• In truth, Quasimodo, with one eye, hunchback, and crooked legs, was only a quasi person.

• He was, in truth, bad because he was wild; he was wild because he was ugly.

• He had picked up the general malevolence. He had picked up the weapon with which he had been wounded.

• She could not conceive how a creature so awkwardly put together could exist. 

• Damnation! That is how one should look, then! One only has to be handsome on the outside! This was so sad - when Quasimodo comprehends his ugliness only in comparing himself to Phoebus, who Esmeralda loves instead of him. 

• There are moments when the hands of a woman possess superhuman force. The Sack Woman is a badass for like five minutes and almost saves Esmeralda from her Second hanging but then Esmeralda has to spoil it. I mean, okay, she didn't want to be hanged or anything, but I was just OVER how she kept mooning after Phoebus. 

Dear reader (a.k.a., dear Mr. Man)
I mentioned in reading Pushkin that I was surprised by references to the reader and then realizing that the author automatically assumed I was a man. Pretty similar time period, happened again here: 

Dear reader, you have been a child, too, and you are perhaps still happy enough to be one. I daresay you have often (I know I have, for whole days together, and some of the best-spend days of my life) followed from bush to bush on the bank of a stream, on a fine sunshiny day, some beautiful green-and-blue demoiselle, darting off every moment at sharp angles and kissing the ends of all the branches. Now, if we were more liberal, we could think that maybe Hugo was queer-friendly, but I think we all know he's talking about men wooing women here.

Harry Potter moments
There were several moments that reminded me of HP, which I loved. 

It was then no longer the bell of Notre-Dame and Quasimodo: it was a dream, a whirlwind, a tempest, vertigo astride an uproar; a spirit clinging to a winged monster, a strange centaur, half man, half bell; a species of horrible Astolpho, carried off by a prodigious hippogriff of living brass. Aha! A hippogriff!!

and also this - Numerous references to Nicolas Flamel and the philosophers' stone. 

Lines I Liked:

• The best way to make the public wait patiently is to affirm that you are just about to begin.

• It would be decidedly unjust and in bad taste to boo a cardinal for coming late to the play when he is a handsome man and wears his scarlet robe so well. lolololz. 

• If he had had Peru in his pocket he would certainly have given it to the dancer, but Gringoire had no Peru there, and besides, America was not yet discovered. heh heh heh. 

• Geometry is harmony.

• He had a real fever for acquiring and hoarding up knowledge, and it seemed to the young man as if life had but one object, namely, to know.

Well, friends, I'm off to the next book, and to the end of my weekend! Happy reading!