The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
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The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Victor Hugo Collection
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Hunchback of Notre Dame, The: Week 3 - Book 3
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I think one of the reasons for both why this style of writing may have been so popular than and why it may be less so now is the fact that in this day and age there was a lack of visual media.that is an excellent point Silver and illustrations too were expensive and rarely in colour, art galleries not easily accessible to ordinary people. Indeed churches and cathedrals provided much of the visual media which people then had access too and that was limited to biblical descriptions, statues of Jesus, Mary and the Saints etc. The North Rose window of the Notre Dame, for instance, dates back to 1250:-
http://elore.com/Gothic/Features/Pari...
I once read that the interior of such cathedrals must have been like a disco to medieval people, who were so starved of colour in their lives, especially when the sun was shining through them and throwing 'strobe' like light around the building.
I also think the point Silver makes about the lack of visual media being part of the explanation for the popularity of the style of descriptive writing contained in Book 3 is a very good one. I love the way Hugo starts with a view of the cathedral (and gothic architecture) and then moves on to a view of Paris. As I read those chapters I kept superimposing Hugo's descripitions on the mental map I have of Notre-Dame and of Paris. I felt like I was witnessing one of those computer graphics simulations where the bird's eye view suddenly becomes the street view. (You can get that impression from using Google World!).
I also love Hugo's imagery. Both the buildings and the city itself are portrayed as organic - as living creatures. For example, the damage done to gothic buildings by time are described as "wrinkles and warts on its skin" and the damage to gothic architecture done by human beings is described as "mutilations, amputations and dislocations of its limbs". The City (ie. where Notre Dame is located) is described as like "a little old woman between [the] two beautiful, strapping daughters" of the University and the Town. Book 3 is full of such similes and of metaphors that bring the architecture and the city to life.
Kim, that humanization of the building is a very interesting point. I have not read the chapter about Paris yet, but felt almost a connection between the description of what happened to the architecture of Notre Dame and the description of Quasimodo in the first book: warts on the skin, mutilations, dislocation of limbs...I am already curious about Hugo's description of the bird's eye view of Paris.
Hedi wrote: "I have not read the chapter about Paris yet, but felt almost a connection between the description of what happened to the architecture of Notre Dame and the description of Quasimodo in the first book: warts on the skin, mutilations, dislocation of limbs..."I hadn't made that link, Hedi, but you're right. It seems appropriate to use similar imagery given the closeness of the connection btween Qasimodo and the cathedral.
Hugo links Quasimodo's deformities to the deformities caused to the cathedral over the centuries, particularly during the Revolution. I feel that the humanising of the cathedral is a prelude to the humanising of Quasimodo. Perhaps Quasimodo being tortured and deposed as King of Fools was an allusion to the smashing of the gallery of kings?:- 'The centuries were unkind to the lady of Paris. During the Revolution, a great deal of the features of the cathedral were stolen or defaced. Churches and cathedrals throughout France were rededicated to the cult of Reason. Just prior to the revolution, countless ornaments, sculptures and gargoyles were removed because contemporary architects found them tasteless ...The greatest destruction was the pulling down and smashing of the gallery of the kings. In an act of primitive tribalism the heads of the statues were distributed like war trophies amongst the communes of Paris. The broken bodies lay in pieces before the shamed lady for three years before they were removed to the city coal yards.'
http://www.elore.com/Gothic/History/O...
(Links to some lovely old photos at the bottom of the above website.)
Restored Gallery of Kings:=
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/fr...
Heads of the old kings:-
http://web.mit.edu/jsf/2009/IMG_2378.JPG
This isn't a comment about Book 3, but I thought I'd put it here anyway, while it's fresh in my head. No spoilers are involved. As I'm sure I've said before, I've been listening to an audiobook of HND in French, which I've now almost finished. I also ordered a second-hand copy of the Penguin Classic edition in English which arrived the other day. My idea was to finish listening to the audiobook and then read it in English week by week so that I can participate in the discussion.
Just as an experiment, for the past couple of days I've spent some time listening in French while following the text in English. (It worked better than I thought it would!) What I've realised is that when Quasimodo is referred to otherwise than by his name in the English version, he's called "the hunchback". However, in French he is referred to most often as "le sourd" (the deaf man) and sometimes as "le sonneur" (the bell-ringer), but never as "le bossu" (the hunchback).
Admittedly, I've only done the dual language exercise in the last part of the book, but I'm pretty sure it's true for the rest of the novel as well. It seems to me that Hugo intended deafness to be Quasimodo's most significant personal characteristic. At the very least it's more important than his hunchback. It confirms me in my view that whoever decided to re-name the novel in the English translation did so because it would be good for sales rather than for any textual reason. I'll be interested in knowing what others think about this as we get further into the novel.
Yes, Hugo strongly objected when the English translation of the book called Quasimodo a hunchback. There were two English translations in 1833, one by Shobert who called it The Hunchback of Notre Dame to appeal to the gothic tastes of the time and Hazlitt's translation Notre Dame : A Tale of the Ancien Regime. However, in 2010, British archivist Adrian Glew discovered references to a real-life hunchback who was a foreman of a government sculpting studio in Paris in the 1820s who worked on post-Revolution restorations to the Cathedral, so this may have influenced the English title. The illustrations in this 1833 first English edition do not show Quasimodo as a hunchback. I think this illustration may be by Hugo, who was also a talented illustrator:-http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia...
I found this not very flattering description of Hugo's marriage and love life:-'Tormented by his wife's coldness and his own inordinate sexual cravings, Hugo fell in love with the young actress and courtesan Juliette Drouet and took it upon himself to "redeem" her. He paid her debts and forced her to live in poverty, with her whole being focused entirely upon him. For the next 50 years Juliette followed the poet wherever he went. She lived in his shadow, unable to take a step without his permission, confined to a room here, a mere hovel there, but always near the magnificent houses where Hugo settled with his family. She lived henceforth solely for the poet and spent her time writing him letters, of which many thousands are extant....Hugo's family was stricken with multiple tragedies. While exile refreshed and nourished his poetry, his wife and children languished. They longed for their friends and the familiar surroundings of Paris. His daughter, Adèle, retreated into a fantasy world, till at last she ran away in pursuit of an English officer who was already married. Hugo's wife left him to live in Brussels, where she died in 1868. Only Juliette remained loyal during the 17 years the poet spent in Hauteville House, Guernsey.' (photos on Background thread).
MadgeUK wrote: "Yes, Hugo strongly objected when the English translation of the book called Quasimodo a hunchback. There were two English translations in 1833, one by Shobert who called it The Hunchback of Notre..."Madge, after I posted last night I did a search for "hunchback" and for "deaf" in the French version on my kindle. It's not that Hugo doesn't describe Quasimodo as a hunchback, because he definitely does. There are also more references to hunchback than I thought there were, but they're more in the early part of the book. There are many, many more references to deafness. I can understand why Hugo would have been displeased by the emphasis on the hunchback.
Thanks Kim. I should have said that Hugo objected to the book being called The Hunchback of Notre Dame, not to Quasimodo being called a hunchback. His point was that the book was not about Quasimodo but about the Notre Dame.
MadgeUK wrote: "Thanks Kim. I should have said that Hugo objected to the book being called The Hunchback of Notre Dame, not to Quasimodo being called a hunchback. His point was that the book was not about Quasim..."That's actually what I thought you meant, Madge. What I meant to say was that I'd been wrong when I suggested that Quasimodo hadn't been referred to as "the hunchback" (as opposed to having been described as having a hunchback), but I didn't use my words very carefully!
I think that there is something very important about Quasimodo's deafness. I'm not quite sure yet how that fits into the symbolism of the novel, but I will be interesting in seeing what other people think as the narrative develops.
I think the bells were the only thing Quasimodo could hear and that is a key point in the novel. Hugo wrote to his friend Ferdinand Berthier, a famous French educator of deaf people in the 1800s: 'What matters deafness of the ears when the mind hears? The one true deafness, the incurable deafness, is that of the mind', so he may have been trying to raise awareness about deaf people in HND? http://www.deafed.net/publisheddocs/s...
I referred earlier to the many references of spiders and webs in HND and I read the other day that Hugo had a pathological fear of spiders. Parisiennes of the time also noted that the openwork of the Rose Window was not dissimilar in shape to a spider's web: http://www.visitingdc.com/paris/rose-...
In Book 4 Claude Frollo uses the example of the spider and the fly to characterize the inevitability of his passion for Esmeralda and the certainty that it will destroy her. As the story develops he and Esmeralda are drawn into a web of mutual destruction....
That is interesting
I'm surprised how much I am enjoying this book so far. I normally hate long descriptive passages and prefer well-developed characters and excellent dialogue. This book has basically the opposite (at least so far), but I'm not bored at all. That is a great compliment to Hugo's (and the translator's) skill at creating such beautiful imagery. Even though I've never been to Paris, I can really picture what he is describing.His mockery of architects made me laugh quite a bit. I'm a structural engineer, and my colleagues talk about architects in much the same way. The shapes that some architects select to make their buildings look more "interesting" seem to create only headaches for the people in charge of making it stand up. In some cases, they take a perfectly wonderful building and create an utter monstrosity.
I am glad that you all enjoyed Book 3. However I found the chapter describing Paris frustrating.I suppose that part of this is because of a pet hate of mine - that is when books are firmly set in a place and there is no map. Am I alone in this?(Or maybe the book does have one - I have a second hand copy with the frontleaves missing) I was grateful for the map from Madge of mediaeval Paris.
The other source of my frustration is that I was trying to equate the description with my rudimentary knowledge of Paris - I have a vague idea of where some of the gates stood.
However the final two pages which described the ringing of the bells across Paris early in the morning more than made up for it.
Granuaille wrote: "I am glad that you all enjoyed Book 3. However I found the chapter describing Paris frustrating.I suppose that part of this is because of a pet hate of mine - that is when books are firmly set in..."
I had the same problem with it. It was a bit difficult for me to really visualize clearly just what Hugo was describing particularly when I did not really have some frame of reference in my mind. I did find seeing the map provided by Madge to be quite helpful in understanding the layout as Hugo was explaining it and it gave me a clearer picture of what everything looked like. But just reading about it, at points was a bit confusing.
Here is the map of medieval Paris Silver referred to above:-http://historymedren.about.com/librar...
and another one:-
http://deafmute.net/files/plan_paris-...
After the Revolution Paris was redesigned by Baron Hausman who created the boulevards we know today, completely changing the city but here are some excellent photos of existing medieval buildings still standing in Paris:-
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread...
I'm a bit late to the party but am just finishing Book 3. I too am enjoying the mental images conjured by Hugo's detailed descriptions.Thanks so much for all the links, Madge. They are really adding to the story for me. I particularly love the one of the Rose Window. We are so used to bright colors and intense visual stimulation now, but for the people of medieval Paris these colors must have been downright mind-blowing, especially combined with what must be incredible acoustics, if there was singing or chanting happening.
Glad you like them Gaiajinmam - yes, cathedrals really must have been like discos then. We take their architecture for granted but given the miserable hovels many people lived in at that time, the soaring architecture, the combination of colour and the sound must have been mind blowing! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh74Fb...
Thank you Madge for posting the YouTube link. I loved it!
Good:). Here is another one for you, showing more of the architecture and with better music, Just imagine the people in medieval garb:-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShLVC...
1. NOTRE-DAME.
2. A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS.
There has been a lot of discussion in regards to the descriptive style of this book and these two chapters in particular offer a very good example of this. Within these chapters Hugo does create a very detailed verbal map of Notre Dame and Paris as it would have been during the middle ages. This provides the reader with the mental landscape of the setting of the story.
I know someone made a remark about the way in which this kind of richly descriptive writing was common during the Romantic Period, and how in this day and age if it were written it would not be read. I think one of the reasons for both why this style of writing may have been so popular than and why it may be less so now is the fact that in this day and age there was a lack of visual media.
Without the benefit of photographs, film, google, and so forth, though there may have been paintings which people could reference, outside of these descriptive words, it would not have been very easy for the people of the day reading to truly establish that image of what it must have looked like.