Oh, please read it!! Absolutely wild novel. Written in Hugo’s later life, so suffused with leftist politics, albeit “1869 incredibly square and incredibly hetero-horny old white guy” leftist. He just kinda makes up a bunch of nonsense about English history & culture.
Which sounds like a hellllll of a lot of fun.
All of the characters are people where you’d be like “this is definitely the eccentric breakout character” in any other story. Half really progressive about disability, half cringe and ableist, one hundred percent committed to assigning metaphorical & spiritual significance to various disabilities.
Hope you don’t mind I do a little gif recycling: bsky.app/profile/phil...