In my quest of reading a few more classics before I hit my target and the year comes to a close, I picked up this little gem of a book. Also it was a part of my last years book haul which still isn't coming any closer to an end, I am such a slow reader nowadays that 2018 pick ups will last me half of 2020 too. But little did I know that I will fall head over heels in love with the Hunchback :) exactly the way I cried bucket full of tears for Frankenstein's Creature. Wow! one can absolutely draw parallels between them, they are both almost the same characters on top of that their pains, happiness (if any), dreams and the way world behaves with them are absolutely same. Another thing which put a big smile on my face was the use of term "too good" by Victor Hugo (or his translator I may say) as now there will be no more debates on its grammatical correctness :) so if he uses it, I am going to use it too. Also that there can be two thats in one sentence back to back :). Loved the detailing of the two towers of Notre Dame, Seine the river and the scenic beauty of Paris. As they say History repeats itself, I was shocked to see almost a similar episode happening 400 years ago at Notre Dame which took place again not so long ago (related to fire). It is indeed an amazingly beautiful, heart-touching story of the Hunchback of Notre Dame which made me super emotional throughout and almost broke my heart by its beautiful unpredictable ending. I guess the translator was so impressed and touched by the Author's use of Latin so much that he has put so many verses and sentences just like that in the book, although they look beautiful by the looks of them but couldn't make out what they mean and on top of that they are no easy on us by giving no explanation what they mean :). Guess it helps a little further in making my pact stronger of learning Latin before I meet my maker.
Story revolves around half a dozen of very important characters and some even have a historical importance (accuracy I am not sure) too from Paris. But three of them became my favorite from the story are of-course the Hunchback (Quasimodo) living the life of a recluse till he finds a purpose for his life. The Gypsy girl (La Esmeralda) who is in search of her lost family and her cute goat who had some amazing magical powers and my third favorite in no particular order was the Notre Dame, its two terrific towers with a bell on top which has again a connection with the Hunchback. What all these three characters go through in the course of a few months is the entire story about, the deaf Hunchback falling in love with a girl and finding some purpose in his wasted life, the Gypsy girl falling in love with a man she can never get and about to get killed for the same, and the City of Paris going through a revolution against the then good for nothing King, his Dukes and Ministers. It had so much happening in such a short book (350+ pages only) and I loved it so much that I never wanted the book to come to an end. As although like I said that the ending is unpredictable but one could very well imagine where it is going to go by the time it comes to an end and that is actually an apt ending for a character like the Hunchback. love him as much you can but you cannot imagine him getting adjusted in our society, not then not now.
Have you read the Hunchback of Notre Dame? If you haven't read yet, I must say you've got to read it ASAP and if you have read it, do let know how you loved it. Also this book got me thinking and I am going to check post posting this that which was published first, The Hunchback of Notre Dame or the Frankenstein :), I am sure one of them inspired the other, what do you say?
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