Apparently Victor Hugo won't allow anyone in Paris to have a nice life.

Picking this book up was a long time coming. I finally got around to it and I'm pleasantly surprised, though it's far from being my favourite gothic classic.

The book has a few issues, pretty much all of which come down to the age of the work. Ableism, racism and misogyny run rampant from everybody, including the characters we're meant to be rooting for.  Esmeralda, bless her soul, can't catch a break and is continually harassed, assaulted and is almost raped twice, already hard to read and becoming harder whenever she's referred to as a "child" or "girl" because mind you, she's only 16.  The way her and specifically her body are discussed is deeply uncomfortable through today's lense.

But I could forgive that, because when reading classics you can't compare their sensibilities and social awareness to now (though it is important to learn from them).  What I struggled the most with is the pacing, which would be going by nicely before grinding to a stop because we get two chapters describing the layout of Paris.  At this point the fact that Victor will have been paid by the word becomes very apparent.  The most frustrating part was that on a sentence by sentence level, the writing was beautiful and clear and vibrant.  It just went on for far too long and always jumped in just when the plot was starting to pop off.

But I did finish the book, and I do think if you're interested then it's worth reading.  Claude Frollo remains one of the most unnerving and chilling villains that I've ever read, a man sunken so deep into obsession that he is unwilling to accept no for an answer and then blames his victim for it, which leaves his character feeling eerily current. Gringoire is amusing and makes for good comic relief.  The writing is genuinely beautiful and funny and gives interesting social commentary, some of which strikes home even to this day.

Despite the name, the book really isn't about Quasimodo. He's a secondary victim in the plot and has the misfortune of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time from the second he was born.  He's given a surprising amount of humanity as the book progresses but in fairness the bar was set very low.  A disabled character in a book written so long ago is never going to age well, but he could have been characterized a whole lot worse I guess?

Overall: A decent gothic classic with themes that are surprising in their relevancy, yet also as you might expect, very difficult to read in places due to a combination of heavy handed writing and things now considered problematic.  I think if you take it with a fistful of salt you'll find a lot to like within this book.  It isn't one I'll be likely to revisit anytime soon however.

     Eu achei o livro, na verdade, bem deprimente e isso não faz com que eu não queira ter lido. Eu acho que me agregou alguma coisa, mas não é das minhas preferências de leitura.
     O Corcunda de Notre-Dame é um livro que realmente deixa a desejar, porque é complicado dizer que os personagens são diversos, porque na verdade eles são muito caricatos, apesar de terem funções e vidas diferentes. E isso forma um grupo, uma dinâmica muito fechada e que não agrada muito a um leitor mais voraz. Por outro lado, o livro é muito bem escrito e ele tem o típico ar que os clássicos trazem, de enxergar algo pelos olhos de outra pessoa que pode te agregar alguma coisa.
     O livro tem uma complicação em dizer também que o livro se trate das falhas do Corcunda de Notre-Dame porque se chama o CORCUNDA de Notre-Dame. Mas, ao mesmo tempo, o Corcunda é o menos problemático ali. E isso não tem qualquer senso de adequação social. E para outros livros, eu diria que isso é um critério para dizer que o personagem não tem habilidades às quais vamos tratar. Mas, nesse livro, acaba sendo o menor de todos os problemas, uma vez que seu mentor é mesquinho e punitivo de "falhas" que não são realmente falhas. A cigana é apresentada o tempo todo com uma alta sexualidade que destrói até o mais nobre dos homens por ser "coisa demoníaca", e o herói é um homem superficial que só está lá para cumprir o papel de salvar o dia.
    Só que são essas falhas que também nos mostram o quão valioso esse livro pode ser, tratado como uma completa alegoria à função da igreja, o papel do homem branco rico na época em que foi escrito o livro assim como eram vistos os outros povos retratados pelos ciganos apartados da sociedade e os homens "pobres e tolos" vistos no corcunda, que eram jogados de um lado para o outro conforme os desejos das grandes massas. Como eu disse antes, não é meu estilo de livro, é justamente por eu ver as qualidades nele eu posso dizer que realmente é um bom livro, já que normalmente eu evito esse tipo de obra.

I attempted to read this as a teenager and quit when I reached a point that was absolutely bogged down with architecture description. I don't judge younger me at all for quitting. It was so boring and had no bearing on the rest of the book at all. If you're into dozens of pages of description about 1400s Paris, boy do I have the book for you!

About halfway through it finally started picking up, and it became a mostly unputdownable book for me, which was a lovely surprise!

Other things that were a surprise:

1. Playwrite marries the prettiest girl in Paris, literally only cares about her goat and basically elopes with it by the end, leaving the 16 year old in the clutches of a total pedo. 
2. Phoebus was a bigger douchebag than Frollo, change my mind. At least Frollo was mildly conflicted. "Oh she's been charged for my murder but had nothing to do with the attack I'm still totally alive and well? Eh, let her hang I guess, not my problem." -Phoebus probably.
3. The battle scene in front of the Notre Dame was wild. Probably said "holy crap!" out loud like 7 times.
4. This book is a huge bummer. Towards the end you hope and hope, and then it guts you.

If the first half of the book was much shorter, it would be a 4-4.5 star read for me. I know he was trying to get people to care about older gothic architecture, and the churches specifically, which is probably why we still have the Notre Dame today. So good on him and all, but in the 21st century it's a total snooze fest lol