Notre Dame of Paris – Victor Hugo

There is an awful lot wrong with this novel. The story doesn’t start until page 200, the plotting makes no sense whatsoever and the focus veers about wildly. So why does it still captivate? I can only ascribe it to a combination of Hugo’s rambunctious style and the iconic characters of the saintly hunchback, the beautiful gypsy and the corrupt priest.

The ending surprised me. It’s very different from that suggested by the various spoofs I’ve seen over the years.