The Man Who Laughs

Oasis Classics

By: Victor Hugo

Narrated by: Simon Vance

The Man Who Laughs

By Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood.

The Man Who Laughs (“L’Homme qui Rit”) was called by its author “A Romance of English History,” and was written during the period Hugo spent in exile in Guernsey. Like The Toilers of the Sea, its immediate predecessor, the main theme of the story is human heroism, confronted with the superhuman tyranny of blind chance. As a passionate cry on behalf of the tortured and deformed, and the despised and oppressed of the world, The Man Who Laughs is irresistible. Of it Hugo himself says in the preface: “The true title of this book should be “Aristocracy’”—inasmuch as it was intended as an arraignment of the nobility for their vices, crimes, and selfishness. The Man Who Laughs was first published in 1869.

Public Domain (P)2022 Oasis Audio

Beautiful Book. Sad ending :(

It’s Hugo, everything he writes is beautiful. This is no exception. It’s no Les Miserables, but it’s still a really good story.

The number one book of all time

There is no other book ever written by anyone that explores humanity like The Man Who Laughs. I think I don’t want to read anything ever again! What a masterpiece!

good simon

not as old as you think, younger than you want to be. The joker lives here. That's a clue.

Another Victor Hugo masterpiece!

What an incredible book! A novel relevant then as it is now!

A privilege to listen to!

Great performance, dreadful book

The narrator, amazing! Congrats on this wonderful performance.

The story is good,

BUT..
Hugo, here, does what he’s always done to the extreme!
Between every event and the next, you’ll find a whole poem describing something incredibly simple.
Because the story is decent, I wanted to continue to the end, but countless times I would skip to the next chapter, or skip 10 minutes at a time because … someone is taking a stroll and the weather is nice… ok… I get it… then what happened?!!!…
Noooo he has to 5 pages about this and you have to hear it all!!
At one point, there was 14 minutes describing someone being surprised, at another, 22 minutes telling about someone taking few steps towards the other side of the [room] … come on!!!

Pros: i was somewhat amused to hear Hugo’s side of England’s history, and of Queen Anne in particular.


After reading Les Miserable I continue to be disappointed in every Hugo book
I don’t know if it is so, or it’s me setting my expectations so high.

I hope you enjoy it better than I