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The Pirate King

Any Hugophiles here read The Hunchback of Notre Dame?

I'm sure some of you have read it, and I was wondering what you would consider to be the best translation. I read the McAfee/Fahnestock translation of Les Mis and enjoyed in thoroughly.

Both the Catherine Liu Modern Library Classics and older Curtis Dahl translation are available at my library. Which would be my better bet?

Thanks a lot,
The Pirate King
Glissando

What's a hugophile? Wait...like Victor Hugo? Ohhhh...
Anyway, haven't read it, but I've meant to.
rebellohan

i read it but i cant remember which translation arghhh

i shall check at the library
PappyCat

I read half of it when I was like...11, after seeing the movie and was so freaked out (because of the differences) that I stopped. I should give it another go.
EponineJavert

Hunchback is awesome!
My favorite translation would be Charles Wilbour...at least, that's the copy I've read Very Happy
dcrowley

I have also read it... I'm not sure which translation I read, though. I think it was one of the most heartbreaking novels I have ever read. Anyone who knows how the novel ends will probably agree with me.
CaptainBoheme

Get the Liu translation. She restores some of Hugo's more erotic, disturbing, and heretical language that the older translations try to cover up. Also, don't be alarmed by how small a part Quasimodo actually plays in the novel. The main character is really the cathedral itself.
Gargamel

Hi!
This is my first post on this board. I haven't seen a specific thread to present ourselves, but maybe I will open one in order to (I like to be polite... Wink )

Anyway... Just to say that if you liked to read "Les Mis�rables", you will love "Notre Dame"!
It is a true masterpiece! I even think i loved it even more than "Les Mis�rables".

Of course, it is better to read the complete version, but I first read an abridged version and it was quite good too.
I also have to agree with CaptainBoheme: the real main character is the cathedral. I mean... the title of the book is "Notre Dame de Paris", and not "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"!
And for those who liked the Waterloo, and other long descriptions in Les Mis�rables (Well... some of us may have not skipped those parts! Rolling Eyes ), there is a tremendous chapter about Paris, how the city changed in years.
Orestes Fasting

Gorgeous book. Much more of a gothic romance than LM; also, as CaptainBoheme implied, much more erotically charged. And, in classic Hugo style, the writing is beautifully over the top--everything is described in lush, rambling, slightly florid detail, not least of which the cathedral herself.

And Quasimodo is indeed far from being the main character. I don't think there even is one single, central character; if not the cathedral, probably Esmeralda or even Frollo.

A+ for the digressions, which are much more interesting than the ones in Les Mis. The bird's-eye view of Paris has already been mentioned, and at some point Hugo stops the plot to insert a mini-essay on how the printed word has supplanted architecture as the primary mode of human expression.

...hey, some of us do find things like that interesting! Laughing
LesMisForever

I read this book when i was about 15/16. I read the abridged version, and i LOVED it. Actually, i liked it more than "Les Miserables". Well, maybe it had to do with a teenager boy falling in love with Esmeralda Laughing .

When i grew up, i decided to read the full version, but never got to do it. I am not sure how it will compare to "Les Miserables" now after 20 years.
Gargamel

In fact, even after many years, it is difficult for me to compare the two.
Sometimes, I prefer Notre Dame, sometime it is les Mis�rables...

Notre Dame de Paris is in it form a more "classical" novel to me, and les Mis�rables is more than "just" a novel. Hugo used it, more than ever, to express a lot of his personnal feelings and political viewpoints. Les Mis�rables could be considered as Hugo's legacy. He was facinated by Napoleon (and his fall) and always wanted to write about Waterloo. Valjean and Javert are used to express his sense of justice. Marius is sometimes almost autobiographical. Even if Hugo is a little "revolutionnary" in his feelings, he wanted to show how good metitation in religion can be, and how the over-restrictive life in a convent can be. "We are for the religion against the religions". As a "revolutionnnary" person, he had to put in the light the students on the barricades!

Notre Dame is less political. Of course, there is always Hugo's viewpoints about the religion, about how people judge an condamn someone on just one aspect of their life (or just one "bad" action).
It is said that the success of Notre Dame de Paris (as a novel) could be one of the origin of the famous restoration of the cathedral by Viollet-le-Duc that started in 1844.
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