Bonjour
This is a whole lot so many many pages
It sits somewhere between The Count of Monte Cristo and War and Peace - only complicated in different areas. What a busy busy time.
It's a far more complex tale than The Count - perhaps this is a strange thing to say of a book that's 1200 pages long, but Hugo seems invested in complicating Everything.
I think much has been said before of his many (MANY) extended tangents (digressions?), which vary from interesting and Tolstoyan as in his 19-chapter long detail of the Battle of Waterloo, to the frankly inexplicable - not 200 pages from the end of the novel, Hugo embarks upon a long description of the history of Paris' sewers. At times, there's much of real interest there! Love stories of orangutans in sewers. Don't care much for how many yards long each section is.
What a difficult beast this was:)
I thought a lot about adaptations, and of the nineteenth century, I think this is the least-adaptable novel written. I don't know an awful lot about the musical, but I'm aware that it chooses to avoid any real degree of textual accuracy to this text. For the best I think.
ANyway lovely time see you all soon xoxo