hernaniste:
Hugo, MN
It’s no big deal to see “Rue Victor Hugo” in France, but it’s something of a different story in the American Midwest.
Enter Hugo, Minnesota. No one can agree if it was actually named for the famous author, but the town about 45 mins north of the Twin Cities has obviously decided that the literary touch makes for good publicity. In particular, one development of very nice homes is called “Victor Gardens” and is full of streets named for characters like Valjean, Cosette…and Grantaire.
Bobcatmoran and I braved subzero temps to check it out this afternoon.
I keep reading about this place and it stands out to me that while Valjean and Cosette are obviously two of the characters the whole book pivots around, Grantaire (who appears to be the only other character to have a street named after him?) isn’t, really. In a book with 1000+ pages, he gets maybe five, six to himself . He’s only a minor character, albeit a really interesting one, when all’s said and done-
-and yet someone apparently loved him enough to NAME A STREET AFTER HIM. I dunno about you guys, but I find that really…reassuring for some reason.