The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo (1831)

The main concerns here are repetition and romance. By repetition I mean that some of the central relationships go through tests over and over again; same motivation, same result, nothing learnt. By romance I mean that tendency toward blushing inaccuracy - events often occur at the height of possibility: Paris squares are so littered with dead that they are impassable (even though a remnant escape from within them, a soldiery invade them to counter), blood flows in rivers, corpses are piled up, injuries so sickeningly significant etc etc in such a way that one would swear, if Hugo were being attentive to actuality, there could be no more action. Yet somehow, an impassable square is traversed, the invaders don't get blood-soaked trouser-cuffs, and the horrifically injured resurrect magnificently and fight on very effectually. Now, I'm not saying that some tendency of this kind isn't par for the course in adventuresome nineteenth century fiction; it's just that Hugo takes it to a completely new level, and it does get a bit tiresome nearing the end. The repetition is also patience-testing. Quite how many experiences of brick-wall-hitting confrontation Claude Frollo would have needed to finally understand that Esmeralda didn't want him, given that he had stayed alive, is anyone's guess. I guess it's a mercy for him, and us, that he dies. I certainly don't think I could have abided yet another puzzled, insight-lacking attempt to convince her. I won't retail a great deal about the plot, but I think it's worthwhile to comment on what seems to be one of Hugo's main concerns - what Paris was like in the late fifteenth century. I'm guessing that this is a part of this book which would get a lot of negative attention; we get a lot on architecture, layout, social systems within those, which is unapologetically essayesque in construction, and which I didn't mind on the whole. The colour is phenomenal and the action is dramatic; both are over-egged. A reasonably enjoyable, if somewhat frustrating, hyperbolic panorama.