Nothing but excellentMay 25, 2004 1 out of 4 found this review helpful
The whole story seems to be a relentless flow of beautiful speech conveying words of one of the greatest stories ever written.
I Loved It!April 29, 1999 0 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book stands as one of my favorites. Victor Hugo creates unforgettable and complex characters. This story provokes many strong emotions which make the book even more compelling. I recommend it to anyone who likes to read.
A Hard but rewarding readApril 10, 1999 3 out of 5 found this review helpful
This one took me to two attempts two read as my mental abilities were reduced by ill health and this at times can be a rather long winded book. The book is actually broken into 11 books and I gave up after the first book last time. This time I was determined to get to the end as I don't like to be beaten and in the end I think it was worth it. The story is a good one and although the author goes of into what seem like long irrelevancies they mostly did have a point in the end. The big exception seemed to be Book 3 which is seems to be the authors views on the state of Architecture at the time (1850) and a tourists guide to Paris at the end of the 15th century obviously based on 1850. These two chapters did nothing for me at all and I think it is safe to miss them unless you have a better knowledge of Paris or architecture than me and find them interesting. I have the Wordswoth Classics edition of the book and it is 397 pages long. The typeface in the edition is rather small at about 44 lines per page so beware. The thing I did like about the writing style was it was very much like reading a film. He seemed to give overviews of scenes and then focus in on the detail. I don't recall reading a descriptive book that had the same feel to it before. It is certainly a completely different style to Wilkie Collins who was the previous Classical Author I read. I was interested to read the other reviews saying this was a great love story. I am still not sure between who. Several characters seemed to love Esmeralda. Claude Frollo seemed the strongest love to me but perhaps that doesn't count.
