- Paperback: 250 pages
- Publisher: Virtual Ink; Reprint edition (June 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0966545834
- ISBN-13: 978-0966545838
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Library Journal
The recent success of the stage adaptation of Les Miserables has made Hugo's name widely known to the general public. Atlantean Press marks this resurgence with the inauguration of a series of re-published works by Hugo. The Man Who Laughs ( L'Homme qui rit , 1869), generally unavailable in English since the turn of the century, is the first volume in the series. This translation, by an unidentified translator, remains highly readable. The work itself, however, despite the touching tale of the love between the blind Dea and the deformed Gwynplaine, is highly stylized, extremely long, and often tedious. It will be interesting primarily for readers wishing to gain familiarity with a lesser known work by the father of French romanticism and with the tastes of the French reading public at the time.
- Anthony Caprio, Oglethorpe Univ., Atlanta
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Anthony Caprio, Oglethorpe Univ., Atlanta
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
Victor-Marie Hugo (1802-1885) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights campaigner, and perhaps the most influential exponent of the Romantic movement in France. In France, Hugo's literary reputation rests primarily on his poetic and dramatic output and only secondarily on his novels. Among many volumes of poetry, Les Contemplations and La Légende des Siècles stand particularly high in critical esteem, and Hugo is sometimes identified as the greatest French poet. In the Englishspeaking world his best-known works are often the novels Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris (translated into English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) (1899). Though extremely conservative in his youth, Hugo moved to the political left as the decades passed; he became a passionate supporter of republicanism, and his work touches upon most of the political and social issues and artistic trends of his time. He is buried in the Panthéon. Amongst his other works are: Napoleon the Little (1852), The Man Who Laughs (1869), The History of a Crime (1877), Poems (1888) and The Memoirs of Victor Hugo.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must read...,
By "eyram_18" (OH) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Man Who Laughs (Hardcover)
I thought I was a Hugo's "The hunchback of Notre Dame" fan until I read this book. I was stunned! The way the characters are depicted, and the way the story unfolds (even when you can somehow guess the ending a few 100 pages before..) is just amazing.I have to read it again in French though, because the story must have lost a bit of flavor during its translation...
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shoddily Bound,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Man Who Laughs (Hardcover)
The literary contents here deserve five stars, however, the Paper Tiger edition of this book was bound more like a $$$ paperback than a $$$hardcover. I'm gentle with books, yet the pages separated from the binding halfway through my reading.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Serious fiction,
By Edward (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Man Who Laughs (Hardcover)
Victor Hugo's 1868 novel "The Man Who Laughs" (l'Homme qui rit) is the superb narrative of a young man who, as a child, was abducted, sold and deformed -- obstensibly for profit, but, as it turns out, for dark political reasons as well. To tell too much of Gwynplaine's story is to give away the plot's secrets, though the truth is its key secret is revealed less than 200 pages into the novel. Set in England at the end of the 17th Century and the beginning of the 18th, "The Man Who Laughs" skewers English aristocracy the way "Les Misérables" (1862) did French authorities. Gwynplaine's long denunciation in the House of Lords is obviously Hugo speaking, while depictions of the scheming Barkilphedro, the dissolute Lord David Dirry-Moir, and the strange Josiana (whose passive-aggressive sexuality would have fascinated Freud) are reflections of the Stuart dynasty's ugly corruption "its features hidden by a mask of joy". (Queen Anne herself is dismissed as a fool.) The only pure characters are Dea, a blind woman in love with Gwynplaine, and Homo, a wolf. Even Ursus, the itinerant philosopher, seems to fight his humanity, denying the love he feels for his three companions: the scarred man, the blind woman, and the animal. Why this magnificent novel is not better known is a mystery. One reason, perhaps, is that it would be difficult to dramatize. (There was a 1928 silent film version which is rarely if ever shown.) There have, of course, been several versions of both "Les Misérables" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", not to mention a megamusical based on the former. Hugo's prolixity and his penchant for sesquipedalian words must make translation an enormous chore, which is why Joseph Blamire's English translation (to my knowledge the only English translation to date) came out a full twenty years after the original publication. For the average 21st Century reader, this is nourishment not easy to digest. Hugo's style is a series of lengthy descriptions and digressions filled with obscure references. I've got one word for you: skim. But don't skim so rapidly that you miss some of the shining epigrams: "Aristocracy is proud of what women consider a reproach -- age! Yet both cherish the same illusion, that they do not change." Obviously, this is not junk food. On the contrary, for readers with rich tastes "The Man Who Laughs" is a literary feast.
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