The Man Who Laughs

Victor Hugo

A story of struggle and triumph. (Is that trite enough for ya?) Seriously, this is Hugo's best...more

A story of struggle and triumph. (Is that trite enough for ya?) Seriously, this is Hugo's best work. Read it. Not too many long digressions. You'll know right away what you can skip. He paints a picture of true innocence and how it overcomes immense and burning hatred and cruelty. He shows how redemption and love win out over evil and baseness. One of the best novels ever written.    hide

Chef d'œuvre absolu

The best book I have ever read

amazing book, i cried so much when i first read it...

Oh God, how I'm struggling with this one. It's been by my bed gathering dust for months now. I gave...more

Oh God, how I'm struggling with this one. It's been by my bed gathering dust for months now. I gave up somewhere around page ninety-eight, but all hope has not left me. Someday I shall return to it.I was pointed to this by the Black Dahlia, but it's nothing like as intrsting as I had hoped. I'm a hundred pages in and Hugo is still setting the scene, no plot has yet to emerge. No one has even spoken. Seriously. For ninety pages there is no direct speech in the book. Not necessarily a bad thing (see Maurice), but when we do get some it's from the characters on the boat. Who cares about them. I want to follow the kid they left behind. I don't know where he was going, but I suspect it was in the direction of a plot. And it was taking him long enough to get there as it was, why are we wasting yet more time with these boat people. I get that it's a product of its time, but yet he's a contemporary of Dickens a man whose descrpitive gifts Hugo lacks... maybe the translation I'm reading.   hide