will be another reviewasIgo!
First, a thank you to Rachel for recommending the Fahnestock and MacAfee translation, which is wonderful so far!
Next, a question: Why have I been so drawn lately to these,pageth century behemoths War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, and now this.
Am I just a glutton for punishment Or just showing off I hope not, When I think about it, I think it has to do with the moral scope and depth of the work and the way these books really wear their morality on their sleeves.
They're complex, yes, but they're not hiding their morality behind some veneer of "show, don't tell, " They're not afraid to plumb the moral depths of the societies they depict, and I think, when I look around at the society I inhabit, that I hunger for more of this.
So here I have it,
Hugo certainly takes his time setting up the main action, with a long introductory section on the Bishop Myriel before we get to the main character, Jean Valjean.
But for some reason it works, so that by the time Valjean arrives on the scene, we have a sense of the place he comes to and the reactions he'll face.
Even then, Myriel stands apart from the others in his generosity and kindness, such that the other characters don't even comprehend his attitude.
Which of course says as much about contemporary attitudes toward exconvicts as it does about Myriel himself.
Then the scene shifts, and we're treated to a lighthearted section of youthful fun, but there's a dark undercurrent here toothe illegitimate child born to Fantine, the child named Cosette, who's given up to another family while Fantine finds work and who soon transforms from a happy toddler to a bedraggled house servant.
Oh, the heartbreak and misery we experience when she's described sweeping the sidewalk in the cold, dressed only in rags.
The scene then shifts to follow Fantine, and we see her gradual decline as she tried ever more desperately to raise money to send the family housing her daughter.
Eventually she sells her two front teeth and becomes a "woman of the streets," which is where she has a runin with the police officer Javerta character reminiscent of Angelo from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, a stern agent of the law whose facade of righteousness conceals much.
Luckily for Fantine, the mayor intercedes on her behalf,
Then the two parts of the story so farthat of Valjean and that of Fantinecome together, when it's revealed that the mayor is himself Valjean, years later.
Oh, the plot thickens, because Javert was an officer who knew and tried to find Valjean years ago, and suddenly declares to the mayor that Valjean was found in the distant town of Arras and will be tried.
What does Valjean do Continue to conceal his identity so that he may do more good, knowing that someone else will suffer in his place Or declare himself and lose everything It's quite a magnificent dramatic moment.
And the drama really picks up pace when Valjean rides to Arras to the trial.
Will he get there on time And then there he is, in the courtroom: will he reveal himself And when he does: will he be arrested right away How can he escape It's pure melodrama, in a way, yet fused to the deep moral quandary in the character that makes it irresistible.
One of the techniques I see Hugo employing is to switch storylines suddenly, leaving the reader with no idea how they relate, until at the very end of the storyline, he reveals it: Aha! When Valjean is on his way to Cosette, Hugo makes a huge detour into the history of Waterloo and Napoleon's downfall, and you wonder for pages and pages what this has to do with the story, and then at the very end, we see that one of the haggard men stealing from corpses is the father of the family keeping Cosette, and that another officer, who thinks the haggard man has saved him, declares himself in his debt.
You can feel Hugo in those lines lowering the boom for more drama to come,
Hugo is really setting things up now, We get Valjean and Cosette finally ensconced in Paris, and then the scene shifts to examine a new character, Marius, the son of Pontmercy who thought the father of the family keeping Cosette saved him.
Again, you can see the giant cogs in motion, setting up the eventual collision between all these forces.
Just an awesome array of characters and plot points, and I can't wait to see how it's going to come together!
Not surprisingly, Marius and Cosette grow up and grow fond of each other through random meetings in Paris.
If I had one critique of this book, it's that so much depends on these random meetings of the characters.
They keep bumping into each other, as if there were only a few people in the city.
But this is a minor critique, and the randomness might even be intentional, making the point that much of life is similarly guided by chance encounters.
Now the political scene intervenes: the uprising, One of the saddest characters in the book is Epinone, the daughter of the horrible innkeeper, who acts more than once to keep Marius out of danger.
She's clearly in love with him, but she's been so deformed by poverty and the demands of her harsh parents that she feels unable to express that.
Anyway, the uprising
is where she performs her ultimate act of bravery and selfsacrifice, and it nearly brought tears to my eyes.
I can't really do the ending any justice through summary, Let me just say that Hugo brings this entire monumental project together masterfully, If Modernism is defined by ironic detachment, this is the ultimate premodern work, It's earnest, political, passionate, encyclopedic, and moralistic in the very best sense, Hugo clearly has a point he's trying to make about human goodness, and I deeply appreciate the project.
To say it's moved me is a terrific understatement, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it and its characters since finishing reading a couple of days ago.
This is an epic and almost mythical work, and it stands as one of the best novels I've read.
This is the longest book I've ever read one might call it a beast and it is without a shadow of a doubt, the best book I've ever been privileged enough to read.
I mean, WOW. I struggle to put into words how I feel about this, Hugo had me smiling, laughing and most of the time crying, all in one chapter, This is in no way a happy tale, as one can probably tell by the title, but it has affected me more than I had anticipated.
Hugo certainly knows how to captivate the reader, and captivate, he did,
"The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in.
Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other.
Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only, ”
The character of Jean Valjean, is somewhat of an inspiration, He shows us all, that we are only human, regardless of what we did in the past.
We can redeem ourselves, and people do indeed, change,
I am a diehard fan of the West end show of Les Miserables, It is most definitely my favourite show, The show tells the story well,
but there is a hell of a lot missed out in comparison to the book.
The book goes into tremendous detail, and for me, made the already grim tale, even more grim! This is not a negative aspect at all, as in my opinion, I think the realisation of everything that is happening, hits you harder.
"Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise, ”
Granted, this book is a beast, but it really is worth the time and commitment that it takes to read it! LOVE LOVE LOVE!!
" And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in love with you.
"
There are not enough in existence, in order for me to give this book it's true rating, so I'll just have to give the book five, and acknowledge the Les Miserables BookDna Famous Childrens Literature's wonderful existence daily as it takes pride of place on my bookshelves.
Thank you Victor Hugo, for breaking and mending my heart inpages, Of all the French literary classics, undoubtedly, The Miserables is unforgettable, For those who know the work, it is undeniable that it always leaves something of transitory reflection or not in us.
For those unfamiliar with the book, as the title explicitly represents, it talks about human disability, Jean Valjean, the main character, portrays the injustice committed by "justice", He is arrested and convicted for a certain period when he steals bread at a market to satisfy the nostalgic hunger of his sister and his nephews.
But for trying to escape several times, his sentence is always prolonged, People so understood that he ended up spending fifteen years there working as a prison worker, Despite being the main one, Jean Valjean is not the only one who stands out in this story.
We cannot forget about Francine, a beautiful young woman with long blond hair and perfect teeth, His smile would delight any reader who read the Les Miserables BookDna Famous Childrens Literature's description, but this beauty is shortlived, Due to the conditions, she ends up leaving her only daughter in the care of a greedy couple who likes to take advantage of everything.
Perhaps because of the irony of fate, Francine's daughter falls into the consideration of Jean Valjean, and this one, if I may say, cares like his own daughter.
But as in real life, nothing is peaceful, Fiction also gains a touch of rarity, and Jean is chased several times by a detective,
If he gets caught or not What happens to the girl What happens to Francine If we're there other characters What else happens in this extraordinary adventure Just if you read the book to know.
But I will tell you one thing: you will not regret it, Let's say that I could choose a single book with the guarantee that every man, woman, and child would read it.
I would not choose my top three favorites, nor would I choose the one whose remnants are permanently inked upon me.
I would choose this one, You argue, the length! The time period! The cultural barriers! It's just another long expounding by some old dead white guy whose type has suffocated literature for centuries! Women will be frustrated with poor representation, people who aren't white will be angered by no representation, and everyone will bored to tears! Alright, I see that.
Now, let me explain.
Human rights have not been perfected, They are as much a work in progress now as they wereyears ago when this book was first published.
If you wish to find the book that gives every variation on the theme of humanity its due, it does not exist, and in all likelihood never will.
With that in mind, it is this book that I choose, as while Victor Hugo may have been limited by the era he grew up in, he did a damn good job in dreaming beyond it.
He wrote what he knew, but he also wrote what he hoped, and together they form a piece of writing that can mean something to everyone, whatever their life consists of.
The book is called 'The Miserables', I have a feeling that it is the blatant despair that this title provokes that has dissuaded publishers from rendering it into English, instead keeping it in that slightly prettier to the ear French form.
It can even be shortened to that chic and oh so clever 'Les Mis', as is the norm whenever the play is discussed.
In that light, when you say that truncated phrase it brings to mind not the triumphant book in its majestic entirety, but the abridged version, or perhaps the even more abridged play.
You think of the story, but you do not think of the author's ideas, ones that he devotes full chapters to and are just as important to this tome as the characters he has sent running through it.
And this is a tragedy,
Is tragedy too harsh a word I don't think so, The book itself is one where tragedy heavily outweighs every other emotional aspect, and reducing it to a pittance of itself is flat out disgraceful.
You have countless flavors of human sorrow worked out here: imprisonment, ostracization, slavery, decay of health, decay of morals, decay of life through the brutality of war as well as the slow grind of societys wheels.
There are also the more subtle restrictions on the human spirit, propagated by a firmness of belief that slowly stagnates into constricting bigotry, where humans substitute bias for their reality and confine themselves to a small and mean existence.
These confines are more difficult to escape from than the strongest chains, which may bend and break under pressure, whereas prejudices will turn in on themselves and feed on the opposition.
It is these barriers that build the barricades, it is these walls that let slip the dogs of war, it is these restrictions that make someone relish petty glories gained in the downfall of their fellow human beings.
Where a difference of opinion exists, there will be conflict, and Victor Hugo was intimately familiar with the facets of this violent mechanism.
He did not want this for the world, More specifically, he did not want this for his France, his Paris, his creative beacon that teems with contagious culture and ridiculous fashions to this very day, one that can be silly but is often so very, very brave.
Like Gavroche the gamin, it thumbs its nose at the world and thinks it slow and stupid, but all the same it loves its fellow human beings, and lives for the times when it can lead them, striding forward towards that thing called Progress.
Victor Hugo loved the concept of Progress, and he wished that everyone would love it as well.
In his words: Go on, philosophersteach, enlighten, kindle, think aloud, speak up, run joyfully toward broad daylight, fraternize in the public squares, announce the glad tidings, lavish your alphabets, proclaim human rights, sing your Marseillaises, sow enthusiasms, tear off green branches from the oak trees.
He sent his characters off with this dream of Progress, of finding a life for themselves, of living in a world that bettered itself by the passing day, where the future was not dreary but vibrant and brimming with unlimited potential.
Make thought a whirlwind.
Many of them do not succeed, Many fall by the wayside, desiccated by sickness, shot down in wars, slain by grief and the resignation that life is not so much better than death.
Some survive in miserable conditions, as restricted by their morality as by a chain around their neck.
Some survive only by having stripped their morality as easily as a snake sheds its skin, and in the conditions, who can blame them The weight of society squeezes the supports, and one is so much lighter and flexible without cumbersome thoughts of being good and kind.
In all this sadness and life cut short by miserable conditions long before its time, there is still hope.
Victor Hugo illustrated this in his diverging sections as thoroughly as he did in his main story, as hard as that may be to believe.
It is true, though. For example, his section on the Battle of Waterloo seems no more than an endless list of casualties, pages of warfare and tactics, and death, so much death.
But at the very end, he points out it is not this battle that we remember in so much detail, nor any that came before it.
We remember literature. In Hugos words: Nowadays when Waterloo is merely a click of sabers, above Blücher Germany has Goethe, and above Wellington England has Byron.
And what of the other sections There are many, but two that are particularly powerful in their own subtle ways are the sections on argot and the sewers.
Argot is the language of criminals disguising their speech from the ignorant and the all too interested.
It is an everchanging labyrinth of slang, idioms, innuendos, wordplay that whips itself into more contorted evolutions in its effort to escape the law.
If this kind of creativity runs rampant on the street, how would it fare if given a warm place to sleep, three meals a day, and a chance to improve its station in life And the sewers.
When first described, they are dirty, desperate, despicable things that do nothing but spread filth and disease and provide a home for the equally depraved.
This however was Hugos vision of how it had been in the past, In his time, they were clean and meticulous in their function, as well designed as the streets above and ten times as useful.
If humans can so improve the lot of that out of sight contraption that carries their shit, imagine what they could do with the parts of life that are meant for open viewing and enjoyment.
One last mention, Victor Hugos prose has been accused of excessive flouncing about, rambling sentences that quickly devolve into meaningless lists without form or function beyond the enjoyment of their own existence.
I say, isnt that last part enough Reading his sentences brings to mind a dance, an endless waltz, to a symphony that builds and builds to a final crescendo, for Hugo is very good at taking his countless paragraphs and using them to reach a final glorious message.
He could have said it plainly, but it would not have been nearly as powerful without all the exposition just as his point about the memory of Byron outliving the memory of Waterloo would not have been nearly as striking had he not gone through the motions of describing every minute detail of that terrible battle.
To bring the reader to his level of understanding and to make them feel as much as he does about these things, the prose is essential.
And frankly, I have yet to come across another author that is as joyous to read as he is, for even while he is going on and on about useless trivia from a time long past, his enthusiasm is contagious.
He loved what he wrote about, and he wanted you to love it too, progressing sentences growing more and more triumphant much like the Progress he wished for mankind.
An ideal where all, I repeat, all are allowed to flourish and grow, developing their own ideas while more importantly learning to accept those of others, where a stretch of one's limb doesn't require the injury or confinement of another's.
So, read the full version, if you can, Youre welcome to the other, shorter versions, but read the full one at least once in your lifetime.
Read the introduction even, for in this particular edition there is a wonderful amount of detail about Victor Hugos life that brings the book into beautiful focus.
The introduction also calls the abridged version insufficient, and says: It is almost impossible to predict the individual detail, the flashing image or human quirk precisely observed, that will burn its way into a readers mind for good.
I cannot agree more,
And lastly, for the tldr'ers, a summary for what I have said above, which rests within the very first pages of the book: So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation which, in the midst of civilization, artificially creates a hell on earth, and complicates with human fatality a destiny that is divine so long as the three problems of the centurythe degradation of man by the exploitation of his labor, the ruin of woman by starvation, and the atrophy of childhood by physical and spiritual nightare not solved so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible in other words, and from a still broader point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, there should be a need for books such as this.
Hauteville House,
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Victor Hugo