Rashmi bookmarks “Notre-Dame de Paris”

Set in and around the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris of 1482, this 1830 novel by Victor Hugo (history within history indeed!) is a beautiful picture of the life and times of 15th Century France. The most beautiful part about this book (I read the translation by Isabel F. Hapgood) was the way the scenery shifts, changes and reveals, as we follow the characters around. We begin our journey on Epiphany, the day of the Feast of Fools in Paris, where Quasimodo is crowned the Pope of Fools. We follow the poet Gringoire to the Cour des Miracles which reveals the dark underworld of fake beggars and lepers, the blind and the lame. We dance along with Esmeralda and get a glimpse into the world of the rich and the royal. (While I did think that there were some sections dedicated to the architectural history of Paris, that I could have had a little less of) there is no denying the grand mural that Hugo paints in this book.

As fascinating as the Parisian landscape is the varied presentation of characters in this story; from Clopin Trouillefou ("Charity Please") the King of Truands, to Jehan Frollo an over-indulged younger sibling and a troublemaker, to the less than moral and rather weak Phoebus de Chateaupers, Captain of the King's Archers, to the beautiful young gypsy street dancer Esmeralda, to Quasimodo, the bell-ringer of Notre Dame, the novel's protagonist and Claude Frollo, the Archdeacon of Notre Dame, the novel's antagonist. (What an absolutely insane character, by the way)! I do have to make a very special mention of the poet Pierre Gringoire. Whether pleading not to be hung in front of the "king" of the court of miracles or in front of King Louis XI, this failed starving poet still has an immensely positive outlook and still talks about having a thousand reasons to live... the sky, the air, the mountains of Paris.

Through the inclusion of small incidents Hugo also shines a very deep light into the heart of this society: the court cases of Quasimodo in front of an equally deaf Master Florian Barbedienne; that of Esmeralda accused of killing Captain Phoebus; and even that of Gringoire at the Court of Miracles, all reflect a deep-seated bias for pretty facades no matter how shameful the secrets behind them.

Adding tragic dimension to this tale is of course the story of Quasimodo and Esmeralda; a story of a relation that never could have been, but also, sadly and paradoxically, the only one that was - a story that was always fated to doom, riding as it was, on that other doomed relationship - that of Claude Frollo and Quasimodo, parent and child, Magician and Demon.

One observation in conclusion; I am not sure why the title has been translated - and the book come to be known - as "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame"; while Quasimodo is certainly one of the main characters of this story, to say that this is his story alone, would be to demean the rich and wide, almost epic, scope of the novel.