Finished: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Hugo). Good book! A little long. Very descriptive and so sad at the end. For some reason I thought someone ended up with a happy ending in this book, but I was wrong. And, I always thought Esmerelda was supposed to be a smart and strong heroine, but she really was not. It was disappointing that she was her own worst enemy because she fell madly in love with a man who she barely knew, and who did not return her feelings.

At times Hugo's writing was just a bit too descriptive for me. I mean...he described everything in such detail that I could practically see every stone that was a part of the Notre Dame cathedral. There were several chapters of just description. However...during the chapter where Hugo described old Paris in detail, I must admit I pulled up a map of Paris on my phone to try and compare streets and bridges, etc.! I purposely chose Hunchback instead of Les Miserables, because Les Miserables was three times longer. I love the stage show, though...so maybe someday I'll try and read that as well.

Speaking of description...I thought this was ageless....ewww, but ageless:

The country-woman held by the hand a big boy, who grasped in his hand a large wheaten cake. We regret that we must add that, owing to the severity of the season, his tongue did duty as a pocket-handkerchief.

To measure a toe, is to measure the giant:

And what we say of the facade, we must also say of the whole church; and what we say of the cathedral church of Paris must also be said of all the Christian churches of the Middle Ages. Everything is harmonious which springs from that spontaneous, logical, and well-proportioned art. To measure a toe, is to measure the giant.

Describing how the invention of printing books changed the way the stones of churches were used to tell stories and history:

     In the fifteenth century everything changed.
     Human thought discovered a means of perpetuation, not only more durable and more resisting than architecture, but also simpler and easier. Architecture was dethroned. To the stone letters of Orpheus succeeded the leaden letters of Gutenberg.
     "The book will destroy the building."
     The invention of printing was the greatest event in history. It was the primal revolution. It was the renewed and renovated form of expression of humanity; it is human thought laying off one form and assuming another; it is the entire and final changing of the skin of that symbolic serpent which ever since Adam has represented intellect.

Nice writing! :-)