Ninety-Three (1874) is the final novel of Victor Hugo. As a work of historical fiction, the story is set during the period of conflict between the newly formed French Republic and the Royalists who sought to reverse the gains of the revolution. Praised for its morality and honest depiction of the horrors of war, Ninety-Three influenced such wide-ranging political thinkers as Joseph Stalin and Ayn Rand. "The soldiers forced cautiously. Everything was in full bloom; they were surrounded by a quivering wall of branches, whose leaves diffused a delicious freshness. Here and there sunbeams pierced these green shades." Advancing through the countryside, a band of Republican soldiers discovers a family of refugees, a mother and two children who fled for their lives during the insurrection of Royalists in Brittany. Taken in, they are swept up in an attack by the merciless Marquis de Lantenac, a counterrevolutionary leader who has just landed with a unit of Royalist troops. Separated from her children, Michelle is protected by a local beggar who hides her from Lantenac and his men. Meanwhile, Robespierre, Marat, and Danton have sent Commander Gauvain from Paris to stamp out the Royalist threat in Brittany, knowing all too well that Lantenac is his distant relative. As families are torn apart in the name of political struggle, as mercy gives way to death and betrayal, Hugo examines the human cost of war without losing sight of the gravity of the historical moment.
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I have read four novels of Victor Hugo(and the synopsis of a fifth one)."Ninety Three" is the one in which he has reached perfection.This specially applies to his plot-structure which is one of the best I've come across.Hugo's rather naive artrifices and linking devices,which he used for making tight plot structures,but lent an unconvincing coherence in his earlier novels are absent-giving rise to an ingeniously linked sequence...
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Hugo was a great novelist with a gift for mixing history with fiction. Just like Dumas, only Dumas is lighter entertainment and less depth. 1793 was a crucial year for the French Revolution, and hence for human History. The Revolutionary regime was unstable, faction-ridden, while the forces of the Ancien Regime were still fighting fiercely (read Balzac's "Les Chouanes" and "A Murky Business" for other great references to alter...
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Refer to Ayn Rand's non-fiction bood entitled "The Romantic Manifesto" There's an excellent introduction to Victor Hugo's Ninety-Three. That's what made me want to read it and why I continue to read it over and over.
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I encountered this book while writing an honors undergraduate history thesis on the revolt in the Vendee--which is the setting for this book. Ninety-Three is both a literary masterpiece and an historical commentary ahead of its time. Hugo carefully balances his personal belief in the French Republic, and his distaste for the methods used by the Republicans in 1793. His characters are vivid allegories, and the novel is...
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Hugo again outdoes himself. His ability to go into details, without losing his reader, compares with Hemingway's. But this is not to say that his focus on the detail is at the expense of the big picture. Just the opposite. Ninety-three gives an overall perspective of the French Revolution that I have never realized (not that I claim to be an expert on the subject). Moreover, the battles between the blues (advocates...
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