Victor Hugo astounds me in his wonderfully angsty The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I knew going into this that it was pretty much a tragedy of a story, but I might have expected something a bit more gory and dramatic. What I received, personally, was 40% gore and 93% drama with additional points for surprising humor. If that makes any sense. (I'm writing this after listening to an hour and a half of an online tutorial and it's nearing dangerously to my bedtime.)

Quasimodo should definitely be considered as a timeless character, for he is quite possibly the most original fictional being I've ever read. I'm not a huge reader of French literature and this is my first Hugo novel, so I don't know all the technical facts concerning this topic but I do want to say that I believe it's an amazing feat for Hugo to preserve the inner human workings centuries after. This is truly a pure classic book true to Hugo's fabulous overdramatic flair.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. I was overwhelmed at some parts because his descriptions were so detailed down to the smallest grain of sand in certain chapters. There was also a memorable 14 page rant on architecture vs. the printing press that I tabbed. It was so irrelevant to the story but definitely hilarious.