If you are interested in topics such as English aristocracy, politics, criticism of exploitation and poverty, you will certainly enjoy this book.

The Man Who Laughs, written by Victor Hugo in 1869, is frighteningly contemporary.

This book tells the story of Gwynplaine, a boy who, at the age of 2, had his face mutilated by comprachicos.

Comprachicos/cheylas/comprapequenos were groups of people who around 1600-1700 bought small children, mutilated their faces and sold them to the nobility.

These children were mutilated (not just their faces, but other parts of their bodies as well) so that they would become funny figures, with the aim of entertaining the nobility.

Gwynplaine was abandoned in an English town, all alone and there he met Dea, Ursus and his wolf Homo

Dea and Gwynplaine are adopted by Ursus, a philosopher and acrobat, who had a pet wolf, Homo

It is interesting to note how Homo is sometimes the more human aspect while Ursus resembles a bear/wolf, with its "brutal" way of caring for these orphans.

Dea was blind and Gwynplaine, who had his face mutilated so that he always appeared to be smiling, was ugly. The whole town laughed at him (and was frightened) when they looked at his face.

As a mummer, Ursus decided to "take advantage" of Gwynplaine's face to make money

(To avoid confusion: Gwynplaine was mutilated, but the Comprachicos began to be persecuted by the English monarchy at the time, so it was not sold to the nobility, but rather, it was abandoned)

Ursus presented the boy's face to people in exchange for money

People paid to look at the boy's face and laugh.

Dea, who was blind, was completely in love with Gwynplaine. She did not understand how anyone could find him ugly when he was someone so good, so virtuous and kind.

Dea saw Gwynplaine with her heart.

"Thus lived, one for another, these unfortunates, Dea supported, Gwynplaine accepted.

This orphan had this orphan. This sick woman had this deformed person.

Widows got married.

An ineffable thanksgiving emanated from these two abandonments. They were grateful."

Ursus, who saw the two "children" love each other, supported the relationship.

A fourth interesting character is the wolf.

"Homo was more than a companion to him: he was a fellow man. Ursus patted his thin flanks saying: I have found my second tome"

These 4, together, formed a family of acrobats

With the money he earned selling healing formulas (Ursus was also an "alternative" doctor) and with Gwynplaine's ugliness, Ursus buys a house on wheels and begins to present his play throughout England.

They begin performing the play in London.

Gwynplaine then becomes famous. He is known as "The Man Who Laughs" and begins to attract the attention of the nobility.

At a given moment in the story (which I won't detail so as not to give spoilers), Gwynplaine has the opportunity to speak directly with the lords, marquises, in short, the highest nobility in England.

This speech is chilling just to read.

Imagine someone who lived in poverty all his life, paying high taxes to the nobility, who had his face mutilated at the request of a nobleman at the time, having the opportunity to speak directly to the people who exploited him all his life.

"I am a wretch, carved from the stuff of which great men are made, by the pleasure of a king. This is my story. (...) I was thrown into the abyss. For what purpose? That I might see its depths.

I am a diver and I bring back the pearl: the truth."

As he spoke about the misery that all of England lived in to support the luxury of the nobility, the dukes and marquises began to laugh.

Laughing at their deformity and because they thought it was all a joke.

"Bravo, Laughing Man! Bravo, puppet, animal!"

Victor Hugo describes: "he was the Man Who Laughs, caryatid of the weeping world. He was an anguish petrified in hilarity, carrying the weight of a universe of calamities, and he was walled up forever within irony, in other people's amusement."

It's amazing.

Victor Hugo denounces human misery and the hypocrisy of the church at the time, through a fiction that continues to this day.

I still don't have the words to describe The Man Who Laughs, but I recommend reading it to anyone interested in understanding the intricacies of inequality.