Gaston Leroux, “The Phantom of the Opera“, 1910 was the topic of an earlier blog post. Here I present a similar novel of Victor Hugo, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, 1831 as both books are “architectural” hard, science-fictions. The architectural settings of both novels is Paris, France. The “set” of French Gothic Architecture creates their “spectacle”. Architecture of the tallest buildings; as “Palais Garnier” opera-house and “Notre Dame” cathedral are in Paris creating the “darkness-of-mood”. This is an age before electric lights; and candles with stained-glass windows setting of “darkness” integral to the storylines. The protagonist of Victor Hugo, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, 1831 is the title character Hunchback. As Erik was in, “The Phantom” : in Victor Hugo’s, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” is a deformed, human creature. Like the Phantom, the Hunchback has a lover that drives the story. Architecture is a “hard” science with engineering, physics, chemistry and geology; and Victor Hugo’s, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, 1831 is “hard” science-fiction with French Gothic Architecture making the set of Sci-Fi sub-genre “Gothic Horror”.
