I think this book could have been a lot shorter...here's the basic plot. La Esmeralda is about to be hung, Quasimodo saves her, she lives in the bell tower, some people come to rescue her and get her out of the city, then chicken out, and she ends up getting caught and hung. So yea, what's the point of taking up 500 pgs.
If you put it like that, I say that you miss the entire point. To elaborate, Hugo is teaching us lessons through a story. He's trying to get people to appreciate a classic building that's seen history through it's own eyes.
Yeah, pretty much you can dumb down any book like you have. For example Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: a boy finds out he's a wizard, he makes friends at a school/castle, evil wizard trys to kill him, doesn't, boy goes back home and goes back next year.
If you couldn't grasp a novel like the great Notre-Dame de Paris (the book's title in French, if you didn't know), well, I feel great pity for you.
"You're my soul come scavenging for me, I can feel it," said the Witch. "I won't have it, I won't have it. I won't have a soul; with a soul there is everlastingness, and life has tortured me enough."-Elphaba to Dorothy in Gregory Maguire's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
I agree! The way you have put it can be applied to any novel, and it is awfully sad that someone can talk about this book in such a way, it is a tremendous novel.
What's the point of taking of 500 pages? :O Novels are meant to be enjoyed as much as they are aiming to send out a message, so even if you dispute the fact that the novel does not have any message to send out, then you have to agree, entertainment and pure pleasure is reason for this wonderful novel to be 500 pages long.
Knowledge is Power
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