"Victor Hugo's Conversations with the Spirit World" by John Chambers

I picked up this book as a lark, but to my surprise it turned out to a fascinating read full of forgotten little tidbits of history. It has a bit of everything: Mystery, passion, betrayal, ambition, telepathic snails.

Victor Hugo and his family went into exile on Jersey Island (a popular destination for members of Europe's many failed revolutions) in 1851. The household included Victor's wife Adele and their three grown children (Francoise-Victor, Charles, and Adele). Another daughter, Leopoldine, had drowned in a boating accident in 1943, just months after marrying. The death of Leopoldine deeply altered the entire family. Adele, in particular, was devastated by her sister's death, and it has been suggested that her grief spilled over into the romantic obsession and madness that later consumed her life.

Grief may also have led the Hugos to engage in the activity at the core of this book: Seances. In 1853 a friend introduced the Hugos to the "tapping tables", small three-legged tables used to contact the dead. Like the planchette of a ouija board, the tables would move if two or more people placed their hands on them lightly, tapping out messages with one leg. The number of taps corresponded to letters of the alphabet, making the process very time-consuming.

The Hugos and some of their fellow islanders grew obsessed with the tables. They held seances several times a week between 1854 and 1856, at which a parade of history's most illustrious personages appeared. Biblical patriarchs and prophets, the great philosophers, French revolutionaries, Death, a fairy called Amelia, a resident of Jupiter, Balaam's Ass, and Christ himself all graced the Hugos' table.

Charles Hugo was considered the most gifted medium in the Hugo family, and for a time his father suspected the communications were coming from Charles's subconscious. This still seems a strong possibility, as the spirits' manner of speaking and choice of subject matter were weirdly consistent. Also, most of the spirits confirmed beliefs already cherished by Hugo. For instance, Balaam's Ass verified Hugo's suspicion that all living things on earth, as well as rocks and minerals, suffer continually as they ascend through cycles of reincarnation to become man. Plants have it the worst. "The plant is the grimmest of the prisons of the sould. The lily is sheer hell," Balaam's Ass informed the seance attendees.
All of the spiritis spoke French, even those who had not known French in life. Shakespeare's spirit even commented that English is inferior to French.
Mozart, asked to compose a new revolutionary theme song, was unable to produce anything but noise.
Specific predictions made by the spirits rarely came to pass. One spirit told the Hugos that their archenemy, Napolean II, would die within two years. He lived for another 20.
Like the exiles, most of the spirits were deeply concerned with social justice, revolution, and a United States of Europe.

At other seances, Shakespeare dictated the first act of a new play and recounted a conversation he had with Cervantes and Moliere in the afterlife.

An indolent British "gentleman farmer" named Albert Pinson attended one seance in 1854. Allowed to man the table, he made contact in English with his brother Andre, who had disappeared 12 years earlier. Adele fell madly in love with Albert. She would eventually follow him to South America, even though he showed no interest in her, and be committed to an asylum for the rest of her life.
Much later, Victor Hugo investigated the man who had become his daughter's sole obsession. He learned Pinson didn't have a brother named Andre.

The seances came to a screeching halt in 1856 when one attendee pulled a gun on Charles and demanded to talk to the telepathic snails. I won't ruin it for you.

Chambers's book is a mesmerizing glimpse into a long-forgotten pocket of history, giving new insight into the beliefs and themes that Hugo explored in his writing throughout his life. It also helps explain the allure of Spiritualism, which captivated writers and thinkers like Arthur Conan Doyle, William James, and poet James Merrill. I highly recommend it.