31 Days of Books: Hunchback of Notre Dame

Title:  Hunchback of Notre-Dame, or Notre-Dame de Paris

Author:  Victor Hugo

Published:  1831

Year I read it:  2005

One sentence summary:  Hugo's classic tale of love vs. list, inward vs. outward beauty, appearance vs. fact - the Hunchback of Notre-Dame tells the Gothic Romance of the detested hunchback Quasimodo, the mysterious Gypsy Esmerelda, the dark priest Claude Frolo, and of how all their lives interconnect.  

Interesting fact:

Three reasons to read it:

• You can't beat Hugo's language - it's cadence, it's poignancy.  His words just soar. 
  Through the eyes of several different characters in search of it, Hugo's fleshes out what love is and what it looks like.
• If you're not up for Les Miserables, try a 500-page Hugo.  No, it's not the same.  It's not as epic.  But it is still amazing!
• Gorgeous ending!!  Another fantastic - tragic, but fantastic - ending.

One reason you maybe shouldn't: 

• "A Bird's Eye View of Paris."  It's a chapter in the middle of the book with no characters and no dialogue - just a meticulous tour of 15th century Paris.  I hate to admit this, but this is the first and only chapter from a classic that I've completely skipped.  [désolé, Monsieur Hugo!]

Great quotes:

“Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket."

“Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being and continues to flourish over a heart in ruin. The inexplicable fact is that the blinder it is, the more tenacious it is. It is never stronger than when it is completely unreasonable.” 


“Spira, spera."  ["Breathe, hope."]

Last night I was at a performance of Les Miserables put on by the Balagan Theatre Group here in Seattle.  Really well done and I appreciated the more intimate setting.  Having front row seats didn't hurt either (Thanks, Cami!).  

There might be more to come on that later... but one of the things I love about live theatre - even things you've seen before - is that something different stands out each time.  A certain performance,  a particular line provokes something like the pulling of a thread, one that you're still pulling a day or two or a year later.  

One of those provoking thoughts from yesterday's performance was in regards to "On My Own."  It was one of the stand-out moments.  The actress delivered the solo effortlessly (and it didn't hurt that she was stunning ;)

[Danielle Barnum as Eponine]

But more than a great performance, discussing our reflections after the show Cami and I ended up asking, "Why is it that every girl can - at one point or another - identify so deeply with 'On My Own'?  It's the song every girl has wanted to express at some point."  That may seem like an exaggeration or at least a bit melodramatic.  

But [ranty rabbit trail] I'm also kind of sick of the "cool girl" facade everyone seems to be pushing.  I should probably save this for another post, but sometimes my friends try to act "above it all" and pretend like things don't hurt and I just want to tell them, "Guess what?  God made you a girl!  That means you're allowed to feel things.  Actually, God likes it when you feel things.  He feels things and He made you like Himself.  So you don't have to act like you don't feel."  [end rant]

Getting back on topic,  I think pretty much every girl has had one or more "On My Own" seasons.  And then, of course, I thought about other favorite characters, and specifically Jane Austen character.  I thought about the two types of love stories Austen sets out:  the waiting ones and the winning ones.  

The "winning" ones are often our favorites:  Darcy works (almost entirely "off screen") to win Elizabeth who is surprised by love.  I'd also put Emma Woodhouse, Catherine Morland, and Marianne Dashwood into this category.  They are surprised and/or won over by the gents in their prospective stories.  

But there are also some incredible "waiting" narratives:  Elinor waits for Edward; Anne Elliot for Captain Wentworth;  Fanny Price for Edmund Bertram. 

I'm sure that love in real life contains aspects of both waiting and winning, but I couldn't help but ask myself which make for the better love stories?  There is something so unbelievable and fantastical and reminiscent of Christ's love when a character gets their world turned upside down with the idea that someone loves them undeservedly.  There's a reason - for all of his faults - that girls find Darcy's first proposal so attractive.  There's something inexplicably delightful in the speeches given by Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado when they "realize" the other person loves them.


And yet... what compares to the absolute thrill at the end of Sense and Sensibility when Elinor realizes that she and Edward can finally be married?  [In case you have any doubt of just how wonderful that moment is, I offer you the 1995 Emma Thompson/Hugh Grant scene - also check out the 2008 BBC version with Hattie Morahan and Dan Stevens (yes, he was Edward Ferrars before he was Matthew Crawley ;) ]

What romantic moment can beat Wentworth's letter?  "I am half agony, half hope..."

[The lovely Obvious State artwork based on his letter]

The ending to Persuasion is so overwhelming that I confess to avoiding it.  Both times I've read it and after seeing a sub-par adaptation, it wrecked me for days or weeks.  I am challenged and fascinated by Anne's endurance.  It's a beautiful and terrible thing.



I suppose I've rambled long enough.  I don't even have an answer for which seems to be the more powerful love story.  But I'd love to hear your thoughts - maybe not a definitive answer, but stories or people you've known that moved you.  

Love is so complex, and yet simple.  But it's worth both the surprises and the waiting.

“You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.” - Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Tomorrow =)

quotes and lyrics

"Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?"

"You know when I said I knew little about love? That wasn't true. I know a lot about love. I've seen it, centuries and centuries of it, and it was the only thing that made watching your world bearable. All those wars. Pain, lies, hate... It made me want to turn away and never look down again. But when I see the way that mankind loves... You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and... What I'm trying to say, Tristan is... I think I love you. Is this love, Tristan? I never imagined I'd know it for myself. My heart... It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it's trying to escape because it doesn't belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I'd wish for nothing in exchange - no gifts. No goods. No demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine." -Yvaine

"If it doesn't break... if.. it.. doesn't break your heart it isn't love..." - switchfoot

"Allelujah, I'm caving in...

Allelujah, I'm in love again...

Allelujah, I'm a wretched man...

Allelujah, every breath is a second chance..." - switchfoot

"Your life is an occasion. Rise to it." - Mr. Magorium

"We must face tomorrow, whatever it may hold, with determination, joy and bravery" - Mr. Magorium

"Now we wait." - Mahoney

"No. We Breathe. We Pulse. We Regenerate. Our hearts beat. Our minds create. Our souls ingest. Thirty-seven seconds, well used, is a lifetime." - Mr. Magorium

"I can feel you all around me

Thickening the air I'm breathing

Holding on to what I'm feeling

Savoring this heart that's healing" - flyleaf

"You think this is just a magazine, hmm? This is not just a magazine. This is a shining beacon of hope for... oh, I don't know... let's say a young boy growing up in Rhode Island with six brothers pretending to go to soccer practice when he was really going to sewing class and reading Runway under the covers at night with a flashlight. You have no idea how many legends have walked these halls. And what's worse, you don't care. Because this place, where so many people would die to work you only deign to work."

"I've never seen a monument erected to a pessimist." - Paul Harvey

"A poem needs understanding through the senses… The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore, but to be in the lake—to… luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not “work” the lake out. It is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery."

"This world is a great sculptor's shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going around the shop that some of us are someday going to come to life..." - C. S. Lewis

"I will take the ring, though I do not know the way..." - Frodo Baggins

"He sits on His throne on high. He sees us all--and He knows what He is doing in the midst of each and every star in the heavens..." - Victor Hugo

"Women don't want to hear what men think. Women want to hear what they think in a deeper voice." - Bill Cosby

"Perhaps kissing is the best thing for crying, but it will not always stop it..." - George MacDonald

"Only love can fill eternity. For to fill that which is infinite requires that which is inexhaustable..." - Victor Hugo