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Notre-Dame de Paris #1
Nuestra señora de París: Volumen I
Este libro contiene la primera parte (volumen 1 de 2) de la novela más famosa de Victor Hugo, verdadero icono del romanticismo, presentada en una magnífica edición ilustrada.
Un relato entre el drama y la epopeya, pintoresco y poético a la vez, llevado por la extraordinaria sensibilidad parisina de su autor. Una sensibilidad compartida por el ilustrador Benjamin Lacombe, que explora en esta obra la época medieval y se deleita ofreciendo su interpretación personal de un imaginario que, en medio del bullicio y los clamores, ha forjado tres personajes de leyenda: Esmeralda, mujer fatal; Frollo, archidiácono maldito; Cuasimodo, jorobado y tuerto, de gran corazón. Y, como telón de fondo, una imponente catedral.
Un relato entre el drama y la epopeya, pintoresco y poético a la vez, llevado por la extraordinaria sensibilidad parisina de su autor. Una sensibilidad compartida por el ilustrador Benjamin Lacombe, que explora en esta obra la época medieval y se deleita ofreciendo su interpretación personal de un imaginario que, en medio del bullicio y los clamores, ha forjado tres personajes de leyenda: Esmeralda, mujer fatal; Frollo, archidiácono maldito; Cuasimodo, jorobado y tuerto, de gran corazón. Y, como telón de fondo, una imponente catedral.
250 pages, Hardcover
First published March 16, 1831
158 people are currently reading
2381 people want to read
About the author
Victor Hugo
6,495 books13.1k followersAfter Napoleon III seized power in 1851, French writer Victor Marie Hugo went into exile and in 1870 returned to France; his novels include
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
(1831) and
Les Misérables
(1862).
This poet, playwright, novelist, dramatist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, and perhaps the most influential, important exponent of the Romantic movement in France, campaigned for human rights. People in France regard him as one of greatest poets of that country and know him better abroad.
This poet, playwright, novelist, dramatist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, and perhaps the most influential, important exponent of the Romantic movement in France, campaigned for human rights. People in France regard him as one of greatest poets of that country and know him better abroad.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 112 reviews
August 3, 2025
No fim de alguns minutos, Quasimodo percorreu a multidão com um olhar desesperado e repetiu com voz ainda mais lastimosa:
- Água, uma gota de água!
E as risadas tornaram a explodir. (...)
A boémia aproximou-se do supliciado, que se torcia baldamente para lhe escapar e, desatando uma cabaça que lhe pendia do cinto, aproximou-a devagar dos beiços ressequidos do miserável.
Então, naquela pupila seca e embaciada, apareceu uma grande lágrima, que escorregou lentamente pelo rosto disforme e tanto tempo dominado pelo desespero. Era talvez a primeira que, em toda a sua vida, aquele desventurado vertia.
E, mais de 200 páginas depois, parece que isto, finalmente, se está a tornar interessante, mas não vamos já tocar os sinos a rebate!
- Água, uma gota de água!
E as risadas tornaram a explodir. (...)
A boémia aproximou-se do supliciado, que se torcia baldamente para lhe escapar e, desatando uma cabaça que lhe pendia do cinto, aproximou-a devagar dos beiços ressequidos do miserável.
Então, naquela pupila seca e embaciada, apareceu uma grande lágrima, que escorregou lentamente pelo rosto disforme e tanto tempo dominado pelo desespero. Era talvez a primeira que, em toda a sua vida, aquele desventurado vertia.
E, mais de 200 páginas depois, parece que isto, finalmente, se está a tornar interessante, mas não vamos já tocar os sinos a rebate!
August 14, 2025
3,5/5
Me autoregalé este libro porque me encanta Lacombe, y en esta en concreto hace un gran trabajo ilustrando el clásico de Victor Hugo.
Lo primero que voy a decir, es que yo no conocía nada de esta historia salvo lo que ví en la película El jorobado de Notre Dame de Disney y por lo que he leído en esta primera parte de la novela de Víctor Hugo, ya hay grandes diferencias.
Cuando empecé la novela, me costó adentrarme en ella, en el primera parte no me enteraba de nada, a veces no sabía ya, ni quién estaba hablando, me perdía constantemente, luego ya me centré y la trama se hizo más interesante y fácil de leer.
Hasta que llegamos a la tercera parte y el autor dedica un capítulo a describir Notre Dame y otro a describir la ciudad de París, y en la quinta parte también dedica todo un capítulo a hablar de arquitectura, eso hace que el libro se haga pesado y lento en esas partes, y se pierda un poco el hilo de la trama.
Como también me compré la segunda parte y ya para saber como termina seguiré con el siguiente libro.
Me autoregalé este libro porque me encanta Lacombe, y en esta en concreto hace un gran trabajo ilustrando el clásico de Victor Hugo.
Lo primero que voy a decir, es que yo no conocía nada de esta historia salvo lo que ví en la película El jorobado de Notre Dame de Disney y por lo que he leído en esta primera parte de la novela de Víctor Hugo, ya hay grandes diferencias.
Cuando empecé la novela, me costó adentrarme en ella, en el primera parte no me enteraba de nada, a veces no sabía ya, ni quién estaba hablando, me perdía constantemente, luego ya me centré y la trama se hizo más interesante y fácil de leer.
Hasta que llegamos a la tercera parte y el autor dedica un capítulo a describir Notre Dame y otro a describir la ciudad de París, y en la quinta parte también dedica todo un capítulo a hablar de arquitectura, eso hace que el libro se haga pesado y lento en esas partes, y se pierda un poco el hilo de la trama.
Como también me compré la segunda parte y ya para saber como termina seguiré con el siguiente libro.
December 30, 2024
Ένα βιβλίο που σε πολλά σημεία με συγκίνησε και σε άλλα με θύμωσε.
Διαφέρει από την ιστορία που γνώριζα από τη ταινία και στο τέλος μου άφησε πικρή γεύση.
Διαφέρει από την ιστορία που γνώριζα από τη ταινία και στο τέλος μου άφησε πικρή γεύση.
January 16, 2016
Victor Hugo tiene una manera única de narrar y de describir todo, la forma en que aborda la primera parte de la historia me encantó. Conocer a Esmeralda, a Quasimodo y a Frodo de esta manera fue fascinante, además de poder ver sus orígenes y explorar más los personajes.
La parte que no me gustó fue que las descripciones son taaan detalladas que incluso Victor Hugo utiliza DOS capítulos para narrarnos Notre Dame y París, además de comparar la ciudad de 1400 con la de 1800 (la época que él vivió) llegando al punto de enumerarnos las puertas de la Sorbona (¡SÍ, LAS PUERTAS!), por esa razón se me hizo un poco tedioso.
A pesar de eso, la historia me llegó muy profundo al corazón, me emocioné y me conmovió demasiado, espero leer muy pronto la segunda parte.
La parte que no me gustó fue que las descripciones son taaan detalladas que incluso Victor Hugo utiliza DOS capítulos para narrarnos Notre Dame y París, además de comparar la ciudad de 1400 con la de 1800 (la época que él vivió) llegando al punto de enumerarnos las puertas de la Sorbona (¡SÍ, LAS PUERTAS!), por esa razón se me hizo un poco tedioso.
A pesar de eso, la historia me llegó muy profundo al corazón, me emocioné y me conmovió demasiado, espero leer muy pronto la segunda parte.
February 3, 2020
Picked this up for a read-along with the book by Victor Hugo, thinking it was a bande dessinée adaptation of the novel and was very surprised to find out it's only an illustrated edition of the French original, split in two volumes (this is the first and covers the first half of the novel). Not that I'm disappointed, to be clear, but seeing Lacombe has such an unique art style, I find myself wishing it had been a proper graphic novel adaptation. The art is just so lovely!
October 26, 2023
raro…. personalmente me sobran los capítulos en los que habla de arquitectura y la historia principal es difícil de seguir al principio. tengo la sensación de que no pasó nada en todo lo que leí
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March 12, 202110* Magistral! Desde Crimen y Castigo no me topaba con un libro como este. Me había propuesto leer clásicos y me lleve varias sorpresas. Y Nuestra Señora de Paris de Victor Hugo es tremenda sorpresa. Es una completa obra maestra, que sólo puede provenir de un genio.
La novela es preciosa y completa: una lección de arquitectura (supongo que debe ser libro obligado para los estudiantes de arquitectura y, si no lo es, debería serlo), de arte y de historia enlazando una cantidad de personajes e historias increíbles a través de los cuales se retrata toda la gama de pasiones del ser humano pero sobretodo y siempre presente, la crueldad e indiferencia del ser humano para con su prójimo y aveces el amor o más bien el desamor? Porque acá definitivamente no hay redención.... y el telón es Paris y sus gobernantes y el medioevo.
Reí, lloré, aprendí, lloré, me frustré, lloré, sufrí y lo disfruté cada minuto y cada lágrima. Cada personaje. Cada Lugar. Cada diálogo. No tengo mas palabras para describir esta obra maestra que repetiré. Dicen que VanGogh dijo “la tristeza nunca cesa...”.
La novela es preciosa y completa: una lección de arquitectura (supongo que debe ser libro obligado para los estudiantes de arquitectura y, si no lo es, debería serlo), de arte y de historia enlazando una cantidad de personajes e historias increíbles a través de los cuales se retrata toda la gama de pasiones del ser humano pero sobretodo y siempre presente, la crueldad e indiferencia del ser humano para con su prójimo y aveces el amor o más bien el desamor? Porque acá definitivamente no hay redención.... y el telón es Paris y sus gobernantes y el medioevo.
Reí, lloré, aprendí, lloré, me frustré, lloré, sufrí y lo disfruté cada minuto y cada lágrima. Cada personaje. Cada Lugar. Cada diálogo. No tengo mas palabras para describir esta obra maestra que repetiré. Dicen que VanGogh dijo “la tristeza nunca cesa...”.
June 17, 2017
Por momentos es absolutamente mágico, me ha transportado al París de aquella época, a querer caminarla, a soñar con haberla conocido. A ella y a sus personajes!!! Tiene algunos capítulos que, según mis intereses, abundan en descripciones sobre arquitectura. La historia se sigue sin esos capítulos, pero soy incapaz de saltármelos. Ahora, a atacar el segundo tomo!!!!! Y a descubrir ese desenlace!
May 4, 2022
4,5⭐ porque las ilustraciones de Lacombe le suben mínimo media estrella.
Pensaba que me iba a costar bastante más leerlo pero, quitando las partes donde se pone a divagar a más no poder sobre la arquitecuts, cuando se centra en la historia y personajes me encanta.
Hablando de personajes, me ha gustado mucho conocer a Pierre y el capítulo de "La corte de los milagros" el mejor.
Este volumen parece que es más bien introductorio, a ver qué tal el segundo.
No hace falta decirlo pero, las ilustraciones son de 10, solo por ellas hay que comprar esta edición.
Pensaba que me iba a costar bastante más leerlo pero, quitando las partes donde se pone a divagar a más no poder sobre la arquitecuts, cuando se centra en la historia y personajes me encanta.
Hablando de personajes, me ha gustado mucho conocer a Pierre y el capítulo de "La corte de los milagros" el mejor.
Este volumen parece que es más bien introductorio, a ver qué tal el segundo.
No hace falta decirlo pero, las ilustraciones son de 10, solo por ellas hay que comprar esta edición.
August 16, 2019
3.5 Me está gustando la historia, pero este libro ha sido bastante introductorio y aun no se ha metido bien en la historia. Es interesante porque hay muchos detalles que disney ha cambiado y puedes ir comparándolos. A ver que tal el segundo.
May 31, 2020
Esta primera parte es una toma de contacto entre el lector y el contexto paisajístico, histórico así como la presentación de los personajes. Muy pocas pinceladas se nos avanzan de la historia. Deseando continuar con el segundo tomo.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 24, 2019
Lido em Abril 2019. Traduzido para português por José da Natividade Gaspar.
Livraria Civilização - Editora. Fevereiro de 1982
Livraria Civilização - Editora. Fevereiro de 1982
January 8, 2025
lmao ja som to docitala minulý rok este ale odporucam vsetkym
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November 12, 2023Rather implausible story to 21st Century readers, but the style is very impressive and to a great extent compelling. Characters:
- Frollo: kind of Faust (even explicit link)
- Quasimodo: the human monster
- Esmeralda: intriguing, strong woman, but not well worked out character
- Gringoire: opportunist, too wordy
Especially the end is very implausible. Clearly written very fast, but nevertheless a "tour de force".
- Frollo: kind of Faust (even explicit link)
- Quasimodo: the human monster
- Esmeralda: intriguing, strong woman, but not well worked out character
- Gringoire: opportunist, too wordy
Especially the end is very implausible. Clearly written very fast, but nevertheless a "tour de force".
July 2, 2017
Honestamente, estoy muy decepcionada. La verdad que, al menos en este tomo, hubo demasiados capítulos enteros dedicados a hablar de arquitectura. Llegó un punto en que se volvió insoportable, y siento que se pierde el hilo de la historia. Me costó mucho terminarlo, aunque la historia promete ser interesante. Vamos a ver qué pasa en el segundo volumen.
Suma una estrella porque me encantan los dibujos de Benjamin Lacombe, es fantástico!
Suma una estrella porque me encantan los dibujos de Benjamin Lacombe, es fantástico!
June 3, 2017
NOT FOR CHILDREN TO READ
review of
Victor Hugo's "Notre-Dame" & "The History of a Crime: The Testimony of an Eye-Witness"
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - May 27, 2017
The full review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
I picked up this 1898ish hardback edition of The Novels of Victor Hugo: Volume I for something like a dollar. Life is good. It's published by P. F. Collier & is "profusely illustrated with elegant wood engravings" wch are, yes, really something to behold. I decided to read it partially just to hold this old hardback bk in my hands. The physical feel of the bk alone does it for me. Hugo lived from February 26, 1802 to May 22, 1885 so this bk was only published 13 yrs after his death. There's something special about that.
In André Breton's 1st Surrealist Manifesto he declares that "Hugo is Surrealist when he isn't stupid." (p 27, Manifestoes of Surrealism, The University of Michigan Press, 1969 - original manifesto: 1924) What he meant by that is unclear to me. Having read 3 of Hugo's bks now I wdn't call any of them Surrealist or stupid so I have to wonder if Breton wasn't just trying to rope Hugo into a lineage of his creation w/ a disclaimer added on to protect his own interests.
I'd previously read Notre-Dame under the title The Hunch-Back of Notre-Dame in a goat-skin bound 1928 edition from Walter J. Black, Inc, but I wasn't sure whether this was the same story or not so it seemed worth the dollar I forked over. I'd also read Hugo's The Toilers of the Sea. I read them over 40 yrs ago so my memories of both were dim. The Hunch-Back of Notre-Dame I probably remembered more from the film starring Lon Chaney. At any rate, as I discovered whilst rereading it, I really remembered almost nothing about it & it's a much richer bk than my sketchy outline recalled.
This bk was written at a time when people who were lucky enuf to get an education were taught Greek & Latin. As such, it's not uncommon to find things written in both languages in bks w/o any translation provided:
"AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
"Some years ag, while visiting the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, or, to speak more properly, exploring every corner of it, the author of this book discovered, in a dark corner in one of the towers, this word, in Greek capital letters, engraven upon the wall—
'ANA'TKH.
[Not quite - what I've written as a "T" is missing its left horizontal]
These characters, black with age and deeply cut into the stone, with certain peculiarities of form and posture belonging to the Gothic calligraphy, as if to declare that they had been traced there by some hand of the middle ages—and, above all, the dismal and fatal meaning they conveyed—struck the author forcibly." - p 5
Yes, but what does it mean?! This question, regarding the above passage, had already been asked of Yahoo Answers & produced "need", seemingly the most accurate answer, & "anarchy", seemingly a mistranslation. Don't ask me, I just work here.
"Yet the 6th of January, 1482, was not a day of which history has preserved any record." - p 5
Ok, I'll bite, I looked-it-up-online & the 1st entry refers to the Hugo novel & to the annual Feast of Fools, a popular medieval festival. A Day of the Week website informs me it was a Friday. I didn't find anything historical for that date so Hugo chose it well.
My memory of The Hunch-Back of Notre-Dame had little more in it than the hunch-back bell-ringer of the famous church rescuing a gypsy girl & protecting her by pouring boiling oil off the ramparts of the church. That memory turns out to be more than a little defective. A substantial part of the beginning of the novel is detailed descriptions of the history of Paris of the time. It's evident that Hugo did extensive research (or faked it, wch seems considerably less likely) & went to great effort to establish the scene.
"It is certain that if Ravaillac had not assassinated Henry IV., there would have been no documents relative to the trial of Ravaillac deposited in the registry of the Palais de Justice, no accomplices interested in causing the disappearance of the said documents, and therefore no incendiaries obliged, for want of any better expedient, to burn the registry for the sake of burning the documents, and to burn the Palais de Justice for the sake of burning the registry—in short, no fire of 1618." - p 7
Thusly showing the difficulty of some of his research. Hugo puts some interesting speech in the mouths of his characters. Here's "the sworn bookseller to the University" speaking:
'""I tell you monsieur, the world's at an end. Never were there such breakings-out of the scholars ! It's the accursed inventions of the age that are ruining everything—the artillery—the serpentines—the bombards—and, above all, the printing-press, that German pest ! No more manuscripts—no more books ! Printing puts an end to bookselling—the end of the world is coming !"" - p 12
Interesting, isn't it? Hugo reminds us that there was a time when book-selling was a matter of selling manuscripts to universities, presumably for high prices based on rarity. The arrival of mass-production wd dramatically change all that. To most of 'us', the invention of the printing press marks the beginning of the era of bks.
Hugo is a very dramatic socio-political observer. The only bk that I can recall reading prior to this that rivals it in melodrama was Eugene Sue's The Wandering Jew, a bk that has such a sheer length of doom for its characters that it may still be unsurpassed for me. Still, Notre-Dame may have a similar quantity of misery but it's more compacted, the misery moves along at a quicker pace. It interested me to read in the 2nd bk of this volume, The History of a Crime: The Testimony of an Eye-Witness that Sue was in politics at the same level that Hugo was.
""No ! Croix-Dieu !" he cried, with his voice of thunder : Jacques Coppenole, hosier. Dost thou hear, usher ? Neither more nor less. Croix-Dieu ! a hosier—that's fine enough. Monsieur the archduke has more than once looked for his gant in my hose."
"This play upon the word gant, a glove, pronounced exactly alike Gand or Ghent, the great manufacturing town in Flanders, occasioned a burst of laughter and applause from the people below.
"We must add that Coppenole was one of the people, and that the auditory around him were of the people also ; so that the communication between them and him had been quick, electric, and, as it were, on equal footing. This lofty air which the Flemish hosier gave himself, by humbling the courtiers, had stirred in the plebeian breasts a certain latent feeling of dignity." - p 22
Keep in mind that Hugo was of the period immediately following the French Revolution. The revolution was from 1798 to 1799 & Hugo was born in 1802. Notre-Dame was written in 1831. According to Wikipedia's entry on Hugo: "Though a committed royalist when he was young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed, and he became a passionate supporter of republicanism. His work touches upon most of the political and social issues and the artistic trends of his time." I'm a little confused by that since he wd've been 29 when he wrote Notre-Dame & since I'd hardly call it "royalist" so if "decades" had to pass to make him not a royalist here does that mean that he was a passionate royalist when he was 9? Here's an example of what I'd call a parody of the king's viciousness:
"The king reascended in silence to his closet, followed by the persons of his train, horror-struck at the last groanings of the condemned. All at once his majesty turned round to the Givernor of the Bastille. "By-the-by," said he, "was theree not someone in that cage?"
""Par-Dieu, yes, sire!" answered the governor astounded at the question.
""And who, pray?"
""Monsieur, the Bishop of Verdun."
"The king knew that better than any one else, but this was a mania of his." - p 225
To quote Wikipedia's entry again:
"In 1848, Hugo was elected to the National Assembly of the Second Republic as a conservative. In 1849, he broke with the conservatives when he gave a noted speech calling for the end of misery and poverty. Other speeches called for universal suffrage and free education for all children. Hugo's advocacy to abolish the death penalty was renowned internationally."
Those details may not be germane to Notre-Dame but they're definitely germane to The History of a Crime & they seem implied, to me at least, in Notre-Dame. If there's any conservatism in Notre-Dame I'm not able to recognize it as such. More than anything else, it's a very grim look at the ways-in-wch-things-can-be-stupid-thanks-to-the-follies-of-human-nature-&-the-struggles-for-power. If slaughter can happen b/c of misunderstandings & bull-headedness (sorry, bulls, it's more human-headedness but the readers wdn't understand that expression) it will. More or less every person in the story is ironically wrong in some fashion or another & there's plenty of misery & death for innocents.
Notre-Dame was so different than my memory of it that I wasn't sure it was the same as The Hunch-Back of Notre-Dame that I'd already read & thought it might be a precursor or sequel to it. THEN, along came CHAPTER V: "Quasimodo, the Hunchback" (p 27) in wch he was chosen to be Pope of Fools:
"The acclamation was unanimous ; the crowd rushed toward the chapel, and the blessed pope of the fools was led out in triumph. And now the surprise and admiration of the people rose still higher, for they found the wondrous grin to be nothing but his ordinary face." - p 29
Perhaps the most charming characters, the most guilt-free ones, &, therefore, the ones DOOMED, are the gypsy girl & her intelligent trained goat:
""Djali!" cried the gypsy.
"Gringoire then saw come up to her a little white she-goat, lively, brisk, and glossy, with gilt horns, gilt feet, and a gilt collar, which he had not before observed ; as, until that moment it had been lying squat upon one corner of the carpet, looking at his mistress dance."
[It's a "she-goat" but it's watching "his" mistress dance? Wassup w/ that?!]
""Djali," said the dancer, "it's your turn now ; " and sitting down, she gracefully held out her tambourine to the goat. "Djali," she continued, "what month of the year is this?"
"The animal lifted its fore foot and struck one stroke upon the tambourine. It was, in fact, the first month of the year. The crowd applauded.
""Djali ! " resumed the girl, turning her tambourine another way, "what day of the month is it?"
"Djali lifted her little golden foot, and struck six times upon the tambourine." - p 36
Now, I don't want to give too much away of the story, for those of you who might read it, but I do want to say that it's a tragedy &, as w/ most or all tragedies, it's based on an ongoing series of misunderstandings - many of wch wdn't be easily corrected b/c of things like Quasimodo's deafness or the main priest character's personality-as-warped-by-religion. Hugo clearly wants the reader to love the gypsy girl & her goat & to see how the whole confused & corrupted & demented society will inevitably scapegoat them both b/c it's not capable of getting out of its own cesspit of stupidity. No-one but the author, apparently, is capable of a detached enuf perspective to see how it all clashes blindly.
A character, initially presented as potentially sympathetic, ends up going into the wrong neighborhood:
""Onde vas, hombre?" cried the wooden legs, throwing aside his scaffolding, and running after him with as good a pair of legs as ever measured a geometrical pace upon the pavement of Paris. Meanwhile, the stump-man, erect upon his feet, clapped his heavy iron-sheathed platter upon his head, while the blind man stared him in the face with great flaming eyes.
""Where am I?" said the terrified poet.
""In the Court of Miracles," answered a fourth specter who had accosted them." - p 45
The poet, Pierre Gringoire, our potentially sympathetic character, who later turns out to be a fool & a coward tells a bit of his history:
"My father was hanged by the Burgundians, and my mother ripped open by the Picards, at the time of the siege of Paris twenty years ago." - p 57
That seems about as miserable as living in Northern Ireland in the 1980s.
In Hugo's prolonged description of Paris, in general, & Notre-Dame, in particular, the reader learns of Notre-Dame's history beyond the time of the novel:
"Thus, to sum up the points which we have here laid down, three kinds of ravages now disfigure Gothic architecture : wrinkles and knobs on the surface—these are the work of time : violences, brutalities, contusions, fractures—these are the work of revolutions, from Luther down to Mirabeau : mutilations, amputations, dislocation of members, restorations—these are the labors, Grecian, Roman, and barbaric, of the professors according to Vitruvius and Vignola. That magnificent art which the Vandals had produced, the academies have murdered. To the operations of ages and of revolutions, which, at all events, devastate with impartiality and grandeur, have been added those of the cloud of school-trained architects, licensed, privileged, and patented, degrading with all the discernment and selection of bad taste—substituting, for instance, the chichorées of Louis XV, for the Gothic lacework, to the greater glory of the Parthenon. This is the kick of the ass at the expiring lion. 'Tis the old oak which, in the last stage of decay, is stung and gnawed by the caterpillars." - pp 60-61
Back to Paris & the cathedral at the time of the novel:
"Now what aspect did all this present when viewed from the top of the towers of Notre-Dame in 1482 ? We will endeavor to describe it.
"The spectator, on arriving, out of breath, upon this summit, was first of all struck by a dazzling confusion of roofs, chimneys, streets, bridges, squares, spires, steeples. All burst upon the eye at once—the formally-cut gable, the acute-angled roofing, the hanging turret at the angles of the walls, the stone pyramid of the eleventh century, the slate obelisk of the fifteenth ; the donjon tower, round and bare; the church tower, square and decorated ; the large and the small, the massive and the airy. The gaze was for some time utterly bewildered by this labyrinth;" - p 66
Hugo was trying to describe Paris as seen from on top of Notre-Dame but writing 349 yrs later. That's no small feat & my admiration for the seriousness w/ wch he approached this daunting task is considerable.
Another main character is Frollo, the priest who kindly adopts & names Quasimodo & saves him from an even more ignominious life than he eventually suffers thru. he has many good characteristics but his priestly unnatural suppression of his sexual instincts leads to his downfall & to the downfall of others around him. At 1st, his future seems bright:
"Having digested the decretals, he plunged into medicine and the liberal arts, He studied the science of herbs, the science of unguents. He became expert in the treatment of fevers and of contusions, of wounds and of imposthumes. Jacques d'Espars would have admitted him as a physician ; Richard Hellain, as a surgeon. In like manner he ran through every degree in the faculty of the arts. He studied the languages Latin, Greek, Hebrew ; a triple sanctuary, then but very little frequented. He was possessed by an absolute fever of acquiring and storing up science. At eighteen, he had made his way through the four faculties ; it seemed to the young man that life had but one sole object, and that was, to know." - p 80
"impostume"? An "archaic word for abscess" according to Dictionary.com.
Quasimodo is the Notre-Dame bell-ringer. Too bad Frollo didn't have enuf sense to get him to protect his ears b/c bells are damned loud &, yeah, anyone who rings them at close hand is going to get deaf if they aren't cautious. That's one of the reasons why there're keyboards for ringing the bells located a safe distance away.
"It is true that their voices were the only ones that he was still capable of hearing. On this account, the great bell of all as is best beloved. She it was whom he preferred among this family of noisy sisters that fluttered about him on festival days. This great bell was named Marie. She was placed in the southern tower, where she had no companion but her sister Jacqueline, a bell of smaller dimensions, shut up in a smaller cage by the side of her own. This Jacqueline was so named after the wife of Jean Montagu, which Jean had given to the church—a donation, however, which had not prevented him from going out and figuring without his head at Montfaucon. In the northern tower were six other bells ; while the six smallest inhabited the central steeple, over the choir, together with the wooden bell, which was rung only from the afternoon of Maunday-Thursday until the morning of Holy Saturday, ir Easter-eve, Thus Quasimodo had fifteen bells in his seraglio ; but Big Marie was his favorite." - p 84
This deafness in a societal reject, an outsider, is neither much noticed or cared about. When Quasimodo is taken to trial he & his judge both are deaf wch results in total injustice as neither deafness is acknowledged & miscommunication & classism rules:
"["]Registrar, have you taken down what the prisoner has said so far?"
"At this unlucky question a burst of laughter was heard, caught by the audience from the registrar—so violent, so uncontrollable, so contagious, so universal, that neither of the deaf men could help perceiving it. Quasimodo turned round, shrugging up his hump in disdain ; while Maitre Florian, astonished like himself, and supposing that the laughter of the spectators had been excited by some irreverent reply from the accused, rendered himself visible to him by that shrug, apostrophized him indignantly.
""Fellow," said he, "you gave me an answer then that deserves the halter. Know you to whom you are speaking?"" - p 95
I wonder if Hugo had actually witnessed a scene like this or heard tell of one. I was in a courtrm once when a man was charged w/ sleeping on a park bench. When asked what he had to say for himself, he explained that he'd just eaten some food out of the trash can by the McDonald's & that he'd uncontrollably fallen asleep. It was immediately obvious to me that he was hypoglycemic & that that caused him to sleep when he probably wd've been content w/ just sitting in the park. He was sentenced to something like a mnth in jail. The whole process was very perfunctory - & this was in the 20th century, not the Middle Ages.
review of
Victor Hugo's "Notre-Dame" & "The History of a Crime: The Testimony of an Eye-Witness"
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - May 27, 2017
The full review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
I picked up this 1898ish hardback edition of The Novels of Victor Hugo: Volume I for something like a dollar. Life is good. It's published by P. F. Collier & is "profusely illustrated with elegant wood engravings" wch are, yes, really something to behold. I decided to read it partially just to hold this old hardback bk in my hands. The physical feel of the bk alone does it for me. Hugo lived from February 26, 1802 to May 22, 1885 so this bk was only published 13 yrs after his death. There's something special about that.
In André Breton's 1st Surrealist Manifesto he declares that "Hugo is Surrealist when he isn't stupid." (p 27, Manifestoes of Surrealism, The University of Michigan Press, 1969 - original manifesto: 1924) What he meant by that is unclear to me. Having read 3 of Hugo's bks now I wdn't call any of them Surrealist or stupid so I have to wonder if Breton wasn't just trying to rope Hugo into a lineage of his creation w/ a disclaimer added on to protect his own interests.
I'd previously read Notre-Dame under the title The Hunch-Back of Notre-Dame in a goat-skin bound 1928 edition from Walter J. Black, Inc, but I wasn't sure whether this was the same story or not so it seemed worth the dollar I forked over. I'd also read Hugo's The Toilers of the Sea. I read them over 40 yrs ago so my memories of both were dim. The Hunch-Back of Notre-Dame I probably remembered more from the film starring Lon Chaney. At any rate, as I discovered whilst rereading it, I really remembered almost nothing about it & it's a much richer bk than my sketchy outline recalled.
This bk was written at a time when people who were lucky enuf to get an education were taught Greek & Latin. As such, it's not uncommon to find things written in both languages in bks w/o any translation provided:
"AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
"Some years ag, while visiting the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, or, to speak more properly, exploring every corner of it, the author of this book discovered, in a dark corner in one of the towers, this word, in Greek capital letters, engraven upon the wall—
'ANA'TKH.
[Not quite - what I've written as a "T" is missing its left horizontal]
These characters, black with age and deeply cut into the stone, with certain peculiarities of form and posture belonging to the Gothic calligraphy, as if to declare that they had been traced there by some hand of the middle ages—and, above all, the dismal and fatal meaning they conveyed—struck the author forcibly." - p 5
Yes, but what does it mean?! This question, regarding the above passage, had already been asked of Yahoo Answers & produced "need", seemingly the most accurate answer, & "anarchy", seemingly a mistranslation. Don't ask me, I just work here.
"Yet the 6th of January, 1482, was not a day of which history has preserved any record." - p 5
Ok, I'll bite, I looked-it-up-online & the 1st entry refers to the Hugo novel & to the annual Feast of Fools, a popular medieval festival. A Day of the Week website informs me it was a Friday. I didn't find anything historical for that date so Hugo chose it well.
My memory of The Hunch-Back of Notre-Dame had little more in it than the hunch-back bell-ringer of the famous church rescuing a gypsy girl & protecting her by pouring boiling oil off the ramparts of the church. That memory turns out to be more than a little defective. A substantial part of the beginning of the novel is detailed descriptions of the history of Paris of the time. It's evident that Hugo did extensive research (or faked it, wch seems considerably less likely) & went to great effort to establish the scene.
"It is certain that if Ravaillac had not assassinated Henry IV., there would have been no documents relative to the trial of Ravaillac deposited in the registry of the Palais de Justice, no accomplices interested in causing the disappearance of the said documents, and therefore no incendiaries obliged, for want of any better expedient, to burn the registry for the sake of burning the documents, and to burn the Palais de Justice for the sake of burning the registry—in short, no fire of 1618." - p 7
Thusly showing the difficulty of some of his research. Hugo puts some interesting speech in the mouths of his characters. Here's "the sworn bookseller to the University" speaking:
'""I tell you monsieur, the world's at an end. Never were there such breakings-out of the scholars ! It's the accursed inventions of the age that are ruining everything—the artillery—the serpentines—the bombards—and, above all, the printing-press, that German pest ! No more manuscripts—no more books ! Printing puts an end to bookselling—the end of the world is coming !"" - p 12
Interesting, isn't it? Hugo reminds us that there was a time when book-selling was a matter of selling manuscripts to universities, presumably for high prices based on rarity. The arrival of mass-production wd dramatically change all that. To most of 'us', the invention of the printing press marks the beginning of the era of bks.
Hugo is a very dramatic socio-political observer. The only bk that I can recall reading prior to this that rivals it in melodrama was Eugene Sue's The Wandering Jew, a bk that has such a sheer length of doom for its characters that it may still be unsurpassed for me. Still, Notre-Dame may have a similar quantity of misery but it's more compacted, the misery moves along at a quicker pace. It interested me to read in the 2nd bk of this volume, The History of a Crime: The Testimony of an Eye-Witness that Sue was in politics at the same level that Hugo was.
""No ! Croix-Dieu !" he cried, with his voice of thunder : Jacques Coppenole, hosier. Dost thou hear, usher ? Neither more nor less. Croix-Dieu ! a hosier—that's fine enough. Monsieur the archduke has more than once looked for his gant in my hose."
"This play upon the word gant, a glove, pronounced exactly alike Gand or Ghent, the great manufacturing town in Flanders, occasioned a burst of laughter and applause from the people below.
"We must add that Coppenole was one of the people, and that the auditory around him were of the people also ; so that the communication between them and him had been quick, electric, and, as it were, on equal footing. This lofty air which the Flemish hosier gave himself, by humbling the courtiers, had stirred in the plebeian breasts a certain latent feeling of dignity." - p 22
Keep in mind that Hugo was of the period immediately following the French Revolution. The revolution was from 1798 to 1799 & Hugo was born in 1802. Notre-Dame was written in 1831. According to Wikipedia's entry on Hugo: "Though a committed royalist when he was young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed, and he became a passionate supporter of republicanism. His work touches upon most of the political and social issues and the artistic trends of his time." I'm a little confused by that since he wd've been 29 when he wrote Notre-Dame & since I'd hardly call it "royalist" so if "decades" had to pass to make him not a royalist here does that mean that he was a passionate royalist when he was 9? Here's an example of what I'd call a parody of the king's viciousness:
"The king reascended in silence to his closet, followed by the persons of his train, horror-struck at the last groanings of the condemned. All at once his majesty turned round to the Givernor of the Bastille. "By-the-by," said he, "was theree not someone in that cage?"
""Par-Dieu, yes, sire!" answered the governor astounded at the question.
""And who, pray?"
""Monsieur, the Bishop of Verdun."
"The king knew that better than any one else, but this was a mania of his." - p 225
To quote Wikipedia's entry again:
"In 1848, Hugo was elected to the National Assembly of the Second Republic as a conservative. In 1849, he broke with the conservatives when he gave a noted speech calling for the end of misery and poverty. Other speeches called for universal suffrage and free education for all children. Hugo's advocacy to abolish the death penalty was renowned internationally."
Those details may not be germane to Notre-Dame but they're definitely germane to The History of a Crime & they seem implied, to me at least, in Notre-Dame. If there's any conservatism in Notre-Dame I'm not able to recognize it as such. More than anything else, it's a very grim look at the ways-in-wch-things-can-be-stupid-thanks-to-the-follies-of-human-nature-&-the-struggles-for-power. If slaughter can happen b/c of misunderstandings & bull-headedness (sorry, bulls, it's more human-headedness but the readers wdn't understand that expression) it will. More or less every person in the story is ironically wrong in some fashion or another & there's plenty of misery & death for innocents.
Notre-Dame was so different than my memory of it that I wasn't sure it was the same as The Hunch-Back of Notre-Dame that I'd already read & thought it might be a precursor or sequel to it. THEN, along came CHAPTER V: "Quasimodo, the Hunchback" (p 27) in wch he was chosen to be Pope of Fools:
"The acclamation was unanimous ; the crowd rushed toward the chapel, and the blessed pope of the fools was led out in triumph. And now the surprise and admiration of the people rose still higher, for they found the wondrous grin to be nothing but his ordinary face." - p 29
Perhaps the most charming characters, the most guilt-free ones, &, therefore, the ones DOOMED, are the gypsy girl & her intelligent trained goat:
""Djali!" cried the gypsy.
"Gringoire then saw come up to her a little white she-goat, lively, brisk, and glossy, with gilt horns, gilt feet, and a gilt collar, which he had not before observed ; as, until that moment it had been lying squat upon one corner of the carpet, looking at his mistress dance."
[It's a "she-goat" but it's watching "his" mistress dance? Wassup w/ that?!]
""Djali," said the dancer, "it's your turn now ; " and sitting down, she gracefully held out her tambourine to the goat. "Djali," she continued, "what month of the year is this?"
"The animal lifted its fore foot and struck one stroke upon the tambourine. It was, in fact, the first month of the year. The crowd applauded.
""Djali ! " resumed the girl, turning her tambourine another way, "what day of the month is it?"
"Djali lifted her little golden foot, and struck six times upon the tambourine." - p 36
Now, I don't want to give too much away of the story, for those of you who might read it, but I do want to say that it's a tragedy &, as w/ most or all tragedies, it's based on an ongoing series of misunderstandings - many of wch wdn't be easily corrected b/c of things like Quasimodo's deafness or the main priest character's personality-as-warped-by-religion. Hugo clearly wants the reader to love the gypsy girl & her goat & to see how the whole confused & corrupted & demented society will inevitably scapegoat them both b/c it's not capable of getting out of its own cesspit of stupidity. No-one but the author, apparently, is capable of a detached enuf perspective to see how it all clashes blindly.
A character, initially presented as potentially sympathetic, ends up going into the wrong neighborhood:
""Onde vas, hombre?" cried the wooden legs, throwing aside his scaffolding, and running after him with as good a pair of legs as ever measured a geometrical pace upon the pavement of Paris. Meanwhile, the stump-man, erect upon his feet, clapped his heavy iron-sheathed platter upon his head, while the blind man stared him in the face with great flaming eyes.
""Where am I?" said the terrified poet.
""In the Court of Miracles," answered a fourth specter who had accosted them." - p 45
The poet, Pierre Gringoire, our potentially sympathetic character, who later turns out to be a fool & a coward tells a bit of his history:
"My father was hanged by the Burgundians, and my mother ripped open by the Picards, at the time of the siege of Paris twenty years ago." - p 57
That seems about as miserable as living in Northern Ireland in the 1980s.
In Hugo's prolonged description of Paris, in general, & Notre-Dame, in particular, the reader learns of Notre-Dame's history beyond the time of the novel:
"Thus, to sum up the points which we have here laid down, three kinds of ravages now disfigure Gothic architecture : wrinkles and knobs on the surface—these are the work of time : violences, brutalities, contusions, fractures—these are the work of revolutions, from Luther down to Mirabeau : mutilations, amputations, dislocation of members, restorations—these are the labors, Grecian, Roman, and barbaric, of the professors according to Vitruvius and Vignola. That magnificent art which the Vandals had produced, the academies have murdered. To the operations of ages and of revolutions, which, at all events, devastate with impartiality and grandeur, have been added those of the cloud of school-trained architects, licensed, privileged, and patented, degrading with all the discernment and selection of bad taste—substituting, for instance, the chichorées of Louis XV, for the Gothic lacework, to the greater glory of the Parthenon. This is the kick of the ass at the expiring lion. 'Tis the old oak which, in the last stage of decay, is stung and gnawed by the caterpillars." - pp 60-61
Back to Paris & the cathedral at the time of the novel:
"Now what aspect did all this present when viewed from the top of the towers of Notre-Dame in 1482 ? We will endeavor to describe it.
"The spectator, on arriving, out of breath, upon this summit, was first of all struck by a dazzling confusion of roofs, chimneys, streets, bridges, squares, spires, steeples. All burst upon the eye at once—the formally-cut gable, the acute-angled roofing, the hanging turret at the angles of the walls, the stone pyramid of the eleventh century, the slate obelisk of the fifteenth ; the donjon tower, round and bare; the church tower, square and decorated ; the large and the small, the massive and the airy. The gaze was for some time utterly bewildered by this labyrinth;" - p 66
Hugo was trying to describe Paris as seen from on top of Notre-Dame but writing 349 yrs later. That's no small feat & my admiration for the seriousness w/ wch he approached this daunting task is considerable.
Another main character is Frollo, the priest who kindly adopts & names Quasimodo & saves him from an even more ignominious life than he eventually suffers thru. he has many good characteristics but his priestly unnatural suppression of his sexual instincts leads to his downfall & to the downfall of others around him. At 1st, his future seems bright:
"Having digested the decretals, he plunged into medicine and the liberal arts, He studied the science of herbs, the science of unguents. He became expert in the treatment of fevers and of contusions, of wounds and of imposthumes. Jacques d'Espars would have admitted him as a physician ; Richard Hellain, as a surgeon. In like manner he ran through every degree in the faculty of the arts. He studied the languages Latin, Greek, Hebrew ; a triple sanctuary, then but very little frequented. He was possessed by an absolute fever of acquiring and storing up science. At eighteen, he had made his way through the four faculties ; it seemed to the young man that life had but one sole object, and that was, to know." - p 80
"impostume"? An "archaic word for abscess" according to Dictionary.com.
Quasimodo is the Notre-Dame bell-ringer. Too bad Frollo didn't have enuf sense to get him to protect his ears b/c bells are damned loud &, yeah, anyone who rings them at close hand is going to get deaf if they aren't cautious. That's one of the reasons why there're keyboards for ringing the bells located a safe distance away.
"It is true that their voices were the only ones that he was still capable of hearing. On this account, the great bell of all as is best beloved. She it was whom he preferred among this family of noisy sisters that fluttered about him on festival days. This great bell was named Marie. She was placed in the southern tower, where she had no companion but her sister Jacqueline, a bell of smaller dimensions, shut up in a smaller cage by the side of her own. This Jacqueline was so named after the wife of Jean Montagu, which Jean had given to the church—a donation, however, which had not prevented him from going out and figuring without his head at Montfaucon. In the northern tower were six other bells ; while the six smallest inhabited the central steeple, over the choir, together with the wooden bell, which was rung only from the afternoon of Maunday-Thursday until the morning of Holy Saturday, ir Easter-eve, Thus Quasimodo had fifteen bells in his seraglio ; but Big Marie was his favorite." - p 84
This deafness in a societal reject, an outsider, is neither much noticed or cared about. When Quasimodo is taken to trial he & his judge both are deaf wch results in total injustice as neither deafness is acknowledged & miscommunication & classism rules:
"["]Registrar, have you taken down what the prisoner has said so far?"
"At this unlucky question a burst of laughter was heard, caught by the audience from the registrar—so violent, so uncontrollable, so contagious, so universal, that neither of the deaf men could help perceiving it. Quasimodo turned round, shrugging up his hump in disdain ; while Maitre Florian, astonished like himself, and supposing that the laughter of the spectators had been excited by some irreverent reply from the accused, rendered himself visible to him by that shrug, apostrophized him indignantly.
""Fellow," said he, "you gave me an answer then that deserves the halter. Know you to whom you are speaking?"" - p 95
I wonder if Hugo had actually witnessed a scene like this or heard tell of one. I was in a courtrm once when a man was charged w/ sleeping on a park bench. When asked what he had to say for himself, he explained that he'd just eaten some food out of the trash can by the McDonald's & that he'd uncontrollably fallen asleep. It was immediately obvious to me that he was hypoglycemic & that that caused him to sleep when he probably wd've been content w/ just sitting in the park. He was sentenced to something like a mnth in jail. The whole process was very perfunctory - & this was in the 20th century, not the Middle Ages.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 26, 2021
Acabo de terminar el primer volumen de esa obra monumental que es “Nuestra Señora de París” de Víctor Hugo. Por supuesto que no voy a hacer la reseña hasta terminar también la segunda parte, pero no quería dejar de compartir con ustedes algunas impresiones de lo que va de la historia hasta ahora.
⚜️La escritura de Víctor Hugo es bastante digresiva (ya había observado esto en Los miserables) pero cada digresión es un ensayo sobre arquitectura, historia del arte, historia general y hasta urbanismo. La sapiencia de este hombre y la claridad con que expresa su ideas son admirables y enriquecedoras.
⚜️La novela es una reivindicación de la Edad Media en medio del proceso de modernización de París en el siglo XIX que pretendía eliminar todo vestigio del pasado “bárbaro” y consolidar el triunfo del pensamiento ilustrado, algo que Víctor Hugo como buen romántico rechaza con horror.
⚜️La presentación de los personajes es formidable y memorable. La secuencia en que Clopin preside el juicio a Gringoire en la Corte de los Milagros es de las mejores cosas que yo haya leído. Quasimodo, Esmeralda y Frollo van de a poco emergiendo en toda su tridimensionalidad.
⚜️Si vieron la película de Disney, no están ni cerca de saber de qué se trata esta novela, aunque algunas cuestiones han sido respetadas, sobre todo la relación de Quasimodo con la Catedral, que para él es una entidad viva, y le ofrece amigos como las campanas y las gárgolas. Pero esa sed de formar parte del mundo exterior no está allí: Quasimodo, al igual que monstruo de Frankenstein, sólo ha recibido burlas y desprecio por parte de los parisinos, y por ende los odia y no quiere abandonar el refugio de la catedral.
⚜️ Las ilustraciones de Benjamin Lacombe son in-cre-í-bles!!! Vale la pena invertir en esta edición porque es una obra de arte.
⚜️La escritura de Víctor Hugo es bastante digresiva (ya había observado esto en Los miserables) pero cada digresión es un ensayo sobre arquitectura, historia del arte, historia general y hasta urbanismo. La sapiencia de este hombre y la claridad con que expresa su ideas son admirables y enriquecedoras.
⚜️La novela es una reivindicación de la Edad Media en medio del proceso de modernización de París en el siglo XIX que pretendía eliminar todo vestigio del pasado “bárbaro” y consolidar el triunfo del pensamiento ilustrado, algo que Víctor Hugo como buen romántico rechaza con horror.
⚜️La presentación de los personajes es formidable y memorable. La secuencia en que Clopin preside el juicio a Gringoire en la Corte de los Milagros es de las mejores cosas que yo haya leído. Quasimodo, Esmeralda y Frollo van de a poco emergiendo en toda su tridimensionalidad.
⚜️Si vieron la película de Disney, no están ni cerca de saber de qué se trata esta novela, aunque algunas cuestiones han sido respetadas, sobre todo la relación de Quasimodo con la Catedral, que para él es una entidad viva, y le ofrece amigos como las campanas y las gárgolas. Pero esa sed de formar parte del mundo exterior no está allí: Quasimodo, al igual que monstruo de Frankenstein, sólo ha recibido burlas y desprecio por parte de los parisinos, y por ende los odia y no quiere abandonar el refugio de la catedral.
⚜️ Las ilustraciones de Benjamin Lacombe son in-cre-í-bles!!! Vale la pena invertir en esta edición porque es una obra de arte.
December 31, 2022
4.5. Another of these famous stories that everybody knows.... Or erroneously thinks they do as they are so ingrained in our shared Western culture.
Reading this for the first time in thirty years, and possibly the first time in French, I was continually surprised by both the twists and therefore suspense of the story ; I literally could not put it down at points, and the humour. It is amazing to me that someone living over two hundred years ago had the same sense of tongue in cheek humour as us today.
Obviously Hugo does indulge a tad too often his love and knowledge of architecture, and his love of Paris. Hence the loss of half a star. However, this is a fantastic story on so many levels and I recommend you all read it immediately.
Reading this for the first time in thirty years, and possibly the first time in French, I was continually surprised by both the twists and therefore suspense of the story ; I literally could not put it down at points, and the humour. It is amazing to me that someone living over two hundred years ago had the same sense of tongue in cheek humour as us today.
Obviously Hugo does indulge a tad too often his love and knowledge of architecture, and his love of Paris. Hence the loss of half a star. However, this is a fantastic story on so many levels and I recommend you all read it immediately.
January 8, 2024
Una preciosidad de edición para un clásico imprescindible.
Sí, es cierto que las descripciones son extensas y la trama por tanto avanza despacio, pero es innegable que Víctor Hugo logra que te imagines perfectamente como eran París y Borre Dame.
Hay que entender, además, que antaño no era tan sencillo ver algo por nosotros mismos como en estos tiempos digitales. Y que la historia se ambienta siglos antes de que fuera escrita. La sensación, por tanto, es muy inmersiva.
En este tomo, sin embargo, precisamente por haber capítulos únicamente descriptivos, la acción es limitada y es más una carta de presentación del lugar, la época y los personajes. Es en el siguiente tomo donde el nudo se extiende por fin.
Ah, las ilustraciones son bellísimas.
Sí, es cierto que las descripciones son extensas y la trama por tanto avanza despacio, pero es innegable que Víctor Hugo logra que te imagines perfectamente como eran París y Borre Dame.
Hay que entender, además, que antaño no era tan sencillo ver algo por nosotros mismos como en estos tiempos digitales. Y que la historia se ambienta siglos antes de que fuera escrita. La sensación, por tanto, es muy inmersiva.
En este tomo, sin embargo, precisamente por haber capítulos únicamente descriptivos, la acción es limitada y es más una carta de presentación del lugar, la época y los personajes. Es en el siguiente tomo donde el nudo se extiende por fin.
Ah, las ilustraciones son bellísimas.
Read
June 24, 2019Bind 1 av 2.
November 18, 2020
Mi reseña cuando termine el libro completo en el segundo tomo.
January 16, 2025
5⭐️ mais il faut sauter des chapitres
February 27, 2019
Impresionante.
El último capítulo que compara la escritura con la arquitectura, su batalla campal por ganar el corazón y la permanencia del hombre en la historia, es simplemente genial. La historia venía bien, divertida y oscura de a momentos, con un análisis individual de cada personaje de manera sutil hasta los capítulos de Quasimodo y Frollo, los que encima parecen culminar la primera parte: Es como si todo hubiera llevado de forma lenta hacia ellos, las dos almas de Notre Dame... Pero ese último capítulo significa todo en esta obra en la que en todo momento Victor Hugo no pierde el tiempo para despilfarrar quejas contra las refacciones y arquitectura "modernas" (por cierto, cosa muy divertida de leer).
Nunca voy a volver a ver de la misma manera un patrimonio de la arquitectura. Es la misma nostalgia con la que se mira un libro viejo en una tienda de segunda mano, el anciano al que nadie se lleva. En el caso de los edificios, el cascarón vacío.
El último capítulo que compara la escritura con la arquitectura, su batalla campal por ganar el corazón y la permanencia del hombre en la historia, es simplemente genial. La historia venía bien, divertida y oscura de a momentos, con un análisis individual de cada personaje de manera sutil hasta los capítulos de Quasimodo y Frollo, los que encima parecen culminar la primera parte: Es como si todo hubiera llevado de forma lenta hacia ellos, las dos almas de Notre Dame... Pero ese último capítulo significa todo en esta obra en la que en todo momento Victor Hugo no pierde el tiempo para despilfarrar quejas contra las refacciones y arquitectura "modernas" (por cierto, cosa muy divertida de leer).
Nunca voy a volver a ver de la misma manera un patrimonio de la arquitectura. Es la misma nostalgia con la que se mira un libro viejo en una tienda de segunda mano, el anciano al que nadie se lleva. En el caso de los edificios, el cascarón vacío.
July 14, 2023
Ca change de la happy end du Disney ...
Read
August 6, 2018I cannot rate this book because I didn't get through even more than 5% of it. I can see the humor and that he's poking fun at the upper classes and, I can see and appreciate how he makes fun of the Arrogant students, but I just can't finish this as it's not my style.
December 31, 2015
4.5/5 Debido a algunos capítulos en dónde solo describe París.
Victor Hugo siempre me resultó una lectura pesada, pero al fin y al cabo me termino gustando la historia. Es muy diferente a la película presentada por Disney (me gusta comparar las adaptaciones con los libros originales) , y tienen un marco historico importante.
Lo que más me impactó fue el último capítulo de este tomo, creo que debería ser publicado como un ensayo aparte, es impresionante.
Victor Hugo siempre me resultó una lectura pesada, pero al fin y al cabo me termino gustando la historia. Es muy diferente a la película presentada por Disney (me gusta comparar las adaptaciones con los libros originales) , y tienen un marco historico importante.
Lo que más me impactó fue el último capítulo de este tomo, creo que debería ser publicado como un ensayo aparte, es impresionante.
May 7, 2017
La historia y los personajes me gustaron, el problema es la cantidad de descripciones que cortan la dinámica de la novela, los capítulos "de relleno" y lo mucho que el autor se centra en personajes secundarios que al final no aportan tanto.
January 4, 2021
El autor no sólo se revela como un magistral contador de una historia tan bella como tragica sino también como un amante y estudioso de París, de su arquitectura y de su historia. La edición e ilustraciones lo convierten en un libro que sin duda agregará luminosidad y belleza a tu biblioteca.
November 7, 2014
1/2 parte terminada!
la historia es bellísima y más aún cuando se acompañan de tan buenas ilustraciones.
a continuar con la historia !
:D
la historia es bellísima y más aún cuando se acompañan de tan buenas ilustraciones.
a continuar con la historia !
:D
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