Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot: His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred

I read this book non-stop over 2.5 days, after finding it at an independent bookstore in Seattle where the entire novel-savy staff was raving about it with high recommendations. The title sums up much of the book- wonderful love and terrible suffering. Recently translated from Swedish, it has an unapologetic, coarse tone with dark humor and brilliant moments of revenge, adventure, and insanity. I found it unpredictable, with wonderfully described European scenes.

I enjoyed this book for the most part. The story is very engaging, though not entirely unpredictable. I'd have to say the very best part of the book is the epilogue from a relative of Hercule Barefoot's. If you enjoy that european-turn-of-the-century feel, this is a suitable book, and the love story is of course sickingly sweet.

This is a truly memorable novel! It is the story of Hercules Barfuss, born deaf, dumb and horribly deformed to a prostitute mother dead in childbirth. This tale takes the reader from his nurtured, safe and secure childhood to his abrupt introduction to the world beyond those loving walls as a young man. His story takes you through his imprisonment in an insane asylum to his participation in a traveling freak show that includes misfits with similar `other-worldly' gifts and talents like him and ultimately to America and successes on all levels. Throughout his story is his love story. A love story that endures through earthly and spiritual separation for Henriette, his true soul-mate, a girl born on the same night in a neighboring room of the bordello. This is a story of love, pain, anguish, hate and redemption.

Whew, it takes so much effort to get through the title of this book that one might be tempted to give up there ;-) However, I think you should continue, open the front cover, and get wrapped up in the story of Hercule Barfuss and (as the descriptive title says), his wonderful love, and his terrible hatred. I was expecting something vaguely like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but the book stands very much on its own two feet. It is Gothic romance, thriller, and historical fiction all wrapped up in a very neat package. Hercule Barfuss is born on a stormy winter's night in a brothel. In the room next door, his "wonderful love," Henriette Vogel is born on the same night. She is beautiful, he is deformed and mute. But somehow, they fall in love, and spend a very nice 10 years together growing up, with Hercule sheltered from the outside world by the prostitutes who act as his mothers. But Hercule can see inside people's minds, and therefore has a way of predicting the future. One night, he attempts to defend Henriette from a terrible villain, which in due course causes the entire brothel to shut down, and Hercule is off on his own with no Henriette for company. The book follows Hercule through his time in an asylum, a monastery, and then back, when all hope has been lost, to Henriette. Without giving too much away, it shows Hercule as "the monster," not only in the physical sense, but also in his transformation from a compassionate and misunderstood person into a carefully honed object of vengeance, and then back again. The book can be painful to read at times- it's supposed to be, I'm sure- but the resolution is wonderful, and slightly unexpected, and the writing is very elegant, especially considering that it is translated from Swedish.

The story of Hercule Barefoot's horrors and the love between he and Miss Bird are one of my favorites ever (and I usually despise love stories). Although I haven't read the English translation I'm sure the story holds it's magical weave. In the original Swedish version he uses language in a poetic fashion that draws out your fantasy and encourages it to bend and twist. Vallgren's own imagination has brought us an amazingly resilient character whose monstrous body holds an innocence that is continually tortured by innocent looking bodies holding montrous souls. He uses his amazing gift to survive and to find the love of his life after they are ripped apart early in the story. And although terrible hatred does form a part of his life, it is no doubt his amazing heart and it's love that pulls the story through to the end and makes his life, indeed, wonderous to behold. Please read it! Dodgy title notwithstanding, it's a wonderful, wonderful story.