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Comment by JoelMcCracken | Hacker News Reader

Did you mean les mis? It had a lot of sewer system exposition (such praise for night soil!), but I don’t remember any such discussion in hunchback.

Of course, it’s very possible I’m forgetting something.

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I think he did mean Hugo's Les Miserables. I remember that chapter where he described the city's "cloaca", referring to it as the "third level substage". Goes on for quite a while and was indeed memorable.

So was the long chapter about Waterloo which was seemingly unrelated to the book's plot until the final paragraph or so.

The description of Fantine's life before she fell goes on with florid language, but it captures the "golden hour" of life when youth is at its peak.

And lastly I'll mention the chapter where Marius' grandfather (I think) goes on a terribly long rant about the Jacobins. Those brigands...!

My favourite interegnatory chapter is the one advancing the argument that the cobblestones of Paris are the guarantor of democracy: if le regime too much offends les miserables, they dig them up for barricades and missiles! The notable fact in that regard is that following the 1968 student riots, the authorities paved over the cobbles of the left bank. (Or so I'm told.)

Interestingly I think that is the original meaning of cloaca, and the anatomical use is a euphemism based on it.

I think he ment Hunchback of Notredame only, it has long long chapters describing how the architecture of the Cathedral evolved over centuries, and many other highly entertaining digressive chapters from the main plot.

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