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.

Victor Hugo is that uncle that loves to tell all sorts of outrageous stories that are completely over the top and most certainly not particularly factually accurate. It's a lot of fun but it's also very rambly and sometimes hard to follow exactly what the point is - although you're sure that there's a definite attempt to push a certain political agenda.

My main issue with the book was that I didn't like any of the characters and didn't really enjoy reading about them. I liked the overall vibe and some of it was quite amusing, but it was also overdone and most of the puns get lost in translation (endnotes never quite have the same effect...). The darker themes Hugo explores, like power and control over others, punishment and torture, and poverty are all cleverly discussed and for the most part, enjoyable to read. I can see why it's a classic, but just be ready for nastiness and a severe lack of positive outcomes.

I’ve always wondered how this book got turned into a Disney movie and passed all the different layers of people to become produced… and then I read it. There is no way ANY sane person can get through and read this book. It made me feel illiterate. I don’t know what happened. Supposedly a chapter was not in the original publication and was viewed at the time to not add anything to the story… honestly that could be ANY of the chapters. I’ll stick to the Disney movie and musical from now on.

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

As with any Hugo novel, if you come to the book expecting it to be like its adaptations, you will be disappointed—the novel is much more interested in depicting a historical place and time than focusing on a particular character or storyline. The biggest surprise for me (who otherwise by and large knew what to expect from Hugo) was how morally ambiguous every character was. It's fascinating to compare with its adaptations and consider what goals and effects various changes had. 

Also, there's not a specific content warning label for this but I think it's worth noting that this book contains a repeated accusation of blood libel. 

This was a SLOG. I thought it would be an interesting read while I was getting ready for our trip, but it took forever to get through. Normally Disney adaptations are watered down, but in this case, I think Disney actually did a good job of distilling and updating the text for a modern audience. Hugo is a great writer, but he’s a terrible editor. In addition to feeling bored often during this reading, I found myself very frustrated by Esmeralda’s portrayal, which was made even weaker with this audiobook narrator. As I kid, I loved the Disney Esmeralda’s spirit and independence, but that was often missing in the original text. I also hated how Quasimodo was framed, and Disney did a much better job in my memory of showing that disability or disfigurement does not make one less of a person. I suppose I should try and judge the text on its own merits outside of my childhood memories of the movie, but I can’t quite untangle my expectations from what I found in the novel.