Hugo: Master of Description

In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, author, Victor Hugo, combines compelling storytelling with enticing philisophical asides, as well as an extraordinary ability to describe people, places and events.

The courtyard, filled with people, looked to the spectators at the windows like a vast sea into which five or six streets, like the mouths of so many rivers, constantly disgorged new waves of heads. The billowing crowd, growing ever greater, dashed against houses projecting here and there like so many promontories in the irregular basin of the courtyard. In the middle of the lofty Gothic facade of the Palace was the great staircase, up and down which flowed an unending double stream, which, after breaking upon the intermediate landing, spread in broad waves over its two side slopes; the great staircase, I say, poured a steady stream into the courtyard, like a waterfall into a lake. Shouts, laughter, and the tramp of countless feet made a great amount of noise and a great hubbub. From time to time the hubbub and the noise were redoubled; the current which bore this throng towards the great staircase was turned back, eddied, and whirled.

There you have a supreme example of Hugo's ability to transfer his own vision into the imagination of his readers, using an astonishingly extended metaphor.

This next passage also demonstrates his skill as he passes on to us the sense of a man observing and pursuing a woman:

You were once a child, reader, and you may be lucky enough to be one still. You must more than once have pursued from bush to bush, on the brink of some brisk stream, in bright sunshine, some lovely green or azure dragon-fly, which checked its flight at sharp angles, and kissed the tip of every twig. You will remember the loving curiosity with which your mind and your eye followed that buzzing, whizzing little whirlwind, with blue and purple wings, between which floated an intangible form, veiled by the very swiftness of motion. The airy creature, vaguely seen amid the quivering wings, seemed to you chimerical, imaginary, impossible to touch, impossible to see. But when the dragon-fly at last rested on the tip of a reed, and you could examine, holding your breath meanwhile, its slender gauzy wings, its long enameled robes, its crystal globe-like eyes, what amazement you felt, and what fear lest it should again fade to a shadow and the creature turn to a chimera! Recall these sensations, and you wil readily appreciate what Gringoire felt as he beheld in visible, palpable form that Esmeralda of whom he had hitherto had but a glimpse amidst the eddying dance and song, and a confused mass of people.

One can't help but feel Gringoire's fascination with Esmeralda and her elusiveness.

In order to utilize figures of description effectively, an author must have learned to isolate an image in his mind and then bring that same image to his audience's mind. As mentioned in my previous posts on writing, this requires astute powers of observation which can be acquired and sharpened through practice. It's a skill I do not yet possess, so I remain in awe of those who do it as beautifully as Hugo does.