Certain authors seem to almost officially represent their nations:  Pushkin for Russia; Dante for Italy; Goethe for Germany, while others such as Shakespeare and Tolstoy are more global.  I've always thought Victor Hugo played that role for France, but I've never read anything by him.  It was hard to find good English language books in Scandinavia this trip, but I picked up the "Hunchback of Notre Dame" in Copenhagen the last day and read most of it on the plane back. 

 

It both is and is not what I expected.  The basic story is well known, from Disney if nothing else.  But the book is much darker and more romantic than I expected, and includes both comic and philosophical digressions that redmind me a little of someone like Melville (the quintessential American author?).  I think I'll try to read Les Miserables now.