The Man Who Laughs
by Victor Hugo
First published 1869 · French · 584 pages
- Novels
- Love and romance
- Adventure
A novel set in England around the turn of the eighteenth century. Gwynplaine, a boy whose face has been cruelly disfigured into a permanent grin, grows up with a wandering showman and a blind girl named Dea, and becomes a fairground attraction. His life is later swept into the world of the aristocracy and politics. Hugo uses this strange, dramatic tale to criticise inequality and the cruelty of the powerful. It is a lesser known but striking work, full of dark imagination.
Quotes
they had done him the honour to take him for a madman, but had set him free on discovering that he was only a poet.
He did not smile, as we have already said, but he used to laugh; sometimes, indeed frequently, a bitter laugh. There is consent in a smile, while a laugh is often a refusal.
It is very fortunate that kings cannot err. Hence their contradictions never perplex us.
Any one who has lived a solitary life knows how deeply seated monologue is in one's nature. Speech imprisoned frets to find a vent. To harangue space is an outlet. To speak out aloud when alone is as it were to have a dialogue with the divinity which is within.