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“I fell in love with this novel ever since I read its simplified Arabic translation by Abdel-Aziz Ameen. It was deeply touching. So, I asked myself:"If this is the simplified. So, how would the complete story be like ?" So, I hunted it down to the last bookshop in Alexandria for nearly three years, and suddenly when all hope started to fade and when I nearly forgot it, I found only one single copy of its English translation (complete and unabridged) in the book fair of 2008. I really made an idiot of myself in the book fair; I looked like a child holding her long cherished toy, and, very distracted as well as stupidly happy, I nearly forgot to pay for it.
Now that I read it, I can only say: "Whew, what a vivid novel!" I did not imagine the characters and the events. NO. I saw them; I felt them, I was an eye witness to all the events,and I was each and everyone of the characters; I was the dancing butterfly-like Esmeralda. I was the miserable deformed loving, and at the same time, devilish Quasimodo, the hunchback of the title. I was the Satanic, though vividly human, Father Claude Frollo. I was the surviving talkative idiotic poet, Pierre Gringoire. I was the evil lady-killer, Captain Phoebus. I was the reckless Jehan Frollo. I was the cruel heartless Louis XI, king of France. I was the commanding beggar, Clopin Trouillefou, king of the beggars. And I was, most of all, for this is the one I felt most, the grieved mother, Gudule, the recluse of the palace de Greve. This is indeed a host of unforgettable characters. I dare say that the reason why they are so lively human is the amazing ability that each of them possesses to do both good and evil. It is really amazing; none of them is a complete devil, and none of them is a pure angel; each of them has conflicting emotions of both love and hatred, fear and daring, and surprisingly enough, each side of the conflict is as passionate as the other. Yes, this is the reason why those characters are so alive.
The description,as well, is so vivid and powerful, though blurry and obscure in many parts because of the many references to historical events, cultural aspects and Greek mythology, and this is the reason why I can't list this book as a favourite. However, I have done my bit of reading, but the two chapters which tormented me most were "A Bird's-Eye View of Paris" and "One Shall Destroy the Other". I, eventually, got lost in Paris while reading the first, though I struggled with a pen and paper to draw his description, and were torn between Hermetics and Architecture in the second, and I took immediate flight to the following chapters. However, the surpassing ability of Victor Hugo to describe human passion, emotions and miseries is unquestionable. I did not realise that I was laughing hysterically when I was reading "The Broken Jug" chapter until I finished it. And I did not realise that I was crying bitterly when I was reading "The Little Shoe" chapter until I finished it. Indeed, it's a book that makes you both laugh and weep.
Never in my life did I read a novel with so great a degree of irony. Indeed, the irony of the book is what makes it both humourous and tragic. But since the novel is more tragic than humourous, for it leaves you with tears still lingering in your eyes even after hours of reading the book, it's the fatal irony which determines the fate and destiny of each character which is more dominant than the other, and it's really annoyingly frustrating; it moves your deepest inwards. And it makes the book nightmarishly haunting; the amount of injustice in this book is positively horrific.
Whether it was me who was alive inside this book, or it was the book which was alive in my hands, I really can't tell. So,a big "HATS OFF" to the "French Charles Dickens", Victor Hugo. And a bigger one for whoever translated such a novel; I hardly believed I was really reading a translation.
Now I wonder:"If this is the translation. So, how the original would be like?" ”