4.25/5stars

I really enjoyed this! It was WAY more accessible than I thought it would be, and the story was very easy to follow (although there were a handful of characters it took me a while to keep straight). The story was fun, dramatic, and filled with anxious, fast-paced scenes but also very sad, insightful moments. I also really enjoy Hugo's writing style.

What a great novel. I was worried about trying to read it 40 years after I first bought and read it. However, Tristan and the Classics YouTube channel gave me the encouraging push I needed to pull it back out for a second reading. I wouldn't say it was an "easy" read, but -- oh my goodness -- was it ever so good! It has been many years since I have read classic literature. The one standout difference is that reading a book like this made me think. I mean, reading Hugo put my mind to work, which felt enriching and satisfying.
The first page had me worried that I wouldn't be able to concentrate enough to read it. I was shocked when I looked at the clock and realized I had read straight through it for 3 hours! Took a lot of notes and learned a great deal about Paris in that time period. Greatly enjoyed it and was just as moved emotionally (more so, even) than I had been after reading it 40 years ago.
The Walter Cobb translation is my favorite. Some of the recent translations seemed overly concerned with flowery and politically-correct verbiage. I love this version the best. An excellent treatise on human nature.

For an audiobook, this took me a long while.

There's not much to judge in a classic; I can only say my personal opinion of it.

I had some issues with the narrator of this particular edition. While overall pretty good, he tended to pitch his voice strangely while doing most voices, sounding more like a Monty Python sketch than an actual narration.
I also could have lived without a lot of the things going on. I didn't mind the whole "the book has killed the edifice" thing that did drag on and repeated itself as much as I minded the constant narration of Latin and French songs and hymns throughout the audiobook, as well as the frantic monologues of the Recluse and 90% of the scene with the king. Those parts I loathed as they dragged on forever and the narration made them much worse.

I did enjoy the whole of it, however. It was interesting to see where such well-known characters started and how they've changed in the general conscience and pop culture over a couple of centuries. It was also extremely interesting to read Hugo right after Tolkien; both are incredibly angry about something they're extremely passionate about (architecture and nature), and they spend chapters upon chapters throwing sophisticated shade at the aggressors. Honestly, more books like that are needed.

I'll give the book this as a final note: despite me knowing the story pretty well, and being unaware only of very minor characters and subplots, the very ending of it is absolutely heartbreaking.

Generally, it's a book that deserves its fame and stands the test of time. Strangely, much like a building does, in Hugo's mind. This one did it.

A farcical comedy that evolves into an ironic tragedy, and in which architecture is virtually a protagonist; strewn with both lengthy, didactic digressions and brief, poignant moments.

I'm going to Paris for the first time later this year and thought I'd read this before I left, and I used the audiobook for most of it.

Wow.

I don't know what the publishing process was like in the 1800s, Victor Hugo really could've used an editor. But there's a reason his books are classics.

The read question is, what happened to DJALI?