Well, I did it. I read another long-ass classic.
I finished two long-ass classic books within a year.
'Les Misérables' is easier to get into than 'War and Peace', and is far more interesting and entertaining. It took me just five months to finish its over-1200-pages, instead of a year and three months, so that should tell you something. Also prior to reading I was familiar with the story and main characters, since I really like the musical and its 2012 film adaptation.
'Les Misérables', the original book, threads many great themes into its narrative - poverty, war, freedom, redemption, forgiveness, the depths of humanity, religion, politics, philosophy, ways to be a family and a community, friendship, companionship, charity, and revolution - which still have relevance to this day. The times when the author inevitably does go on diatribes and historical infodumps in chapters, it isn't so dense, irrelevant and dull that it takes you out of the story entirely. Victor Hugo came across as more open-minded, more passionate, and less cynical an historian than Leo Tolstoy as well.
The characters - Jean Valjean, Javert, Marius, Thenardier, Gavroche, Cosette, Enjolras, Fantine, the Bishop of Digne, Fauchelevent, Mabeuf, and Gillenormand (Marius's grandfather), among others - are given such raw, distinguishable personalities, and so much thought and emotion (as well as sufferings), it should be praised to the heavens. I liked these people, even the ignorant and despicable.
Gavroche is even more of an adaptable, charming, witty, brave, snarky little lad than he is in the musical. He is a ray of light and hope in a grey, dirty, selfish, greedy, and uncaring world.
The main hero, Jean Valjean, is fascinating. He is an admirable human - more than that, he is a testament to the limitless capabilities of the human soul. He is charitable and altruistic throughout the book, after his revelation in life early on, thanks to the kindly Bishop, leaving his past as a convict behind him; a past which, along with his tortured conscience, will catch up to him eventually, even after decades. Jean Valjean, whose physical strength matches his almost-unshakable emotional and mental power, is a fatherly hero worth rooting for.
Young student, and a baron's and a colonel's heir, Marius Pontmercy, for all intents and purposes, should have been unbearably whiny and annoying. But due to Hugo's writing and understanding of youth and humanity, he is one of the most endearing and believable characters. He is simple, narrow-minded and stubborn, but wants to improve his flaws, and ultimately he does. Marius represents a hope for change and growth, even in his shallowness, and stalkerish behaviour towards the naive Cosette.
Police Inspector Javert is an unstoppable force of nature; a man made of stone, embodying unchanging convictions and values, who sees the world only in black and white. Javert is like a scary yet revered bull, hard and oppressive but in the most positive way; as you read 'Les Misérables' you really feel his presence on every page he appears in.
Whilst reading 'Les Misérables', I was surprised by how funny it could be at times, though that might have been mostly unintentional. The novel contains some witty dialogue, banter and insight between the characters, but then there are moments such as Fantine's death: now, in the musical, her death scene is one of the most tragic and heartbreaking in the whole thing, where she is given the time and respect she deserves on her deathbed; and in the book, it happens suddenly in one small paragraph, when a bedridden and vaguely-dying Fantine receives bad news concerning her daughter (Cosette) and a man (Valjean) she had come to trust and depend on, and she just whimpers and--bangs her head, she's dead, Jim. It's kind of comical.
A weird whiplash, to say the least.
While I enjoyed 'Les Misérables' for the most part, I have to say that after a third of the way through, I gradually started to lose interest. I don't know, maybe the build-up to the 1830s Paris revolution and the barricades was getting tedious, the history lessons too long-winded and on-the-nose, and the characters' actions making less sense as the book went on.
Valjean's reasons and motivations for suddenly joining the barricades were details that needed to be expanded on, more than other details especially.
Eponine, one of the main characters in the musical, is merely a named footnote here: she is the Thenardiers' eldest daughter, grown up to be poor and miserable with her criminal family, who meets and falls for Marius, who barely pays her any attention because she's plain and poor, and she sabotages the delivery of a letter to his beloved, pretty and privileged Cosette, dresses as a boy to join the fight on the barricades (off-page), and then she dies in Marius's arms after saving him. And that's it. That's all there is to know about her character. We hardly get any insight into Eponine - even the more minor players get chapters dedicated to their thought processes and backstories - and her famous 'Rain will make the flowers grow' death scene in the musical is yet another footnote in the book. Nobody, especially Marius, pays her any mind after he lightly kisses her on the forehead when she dies. After she sacrificed herself to save him. What a prick.
I tried to keep an open mind in regards to the sexism in the novel, and the time it was written. It still got a bit much. For example, older, big and/or "ugly" women are either ridiculed or villainized or both, like Madame Thenardier (who dies off-page near the end, with literally no explanation as to how, unlike the musical where she lives and happily goes on to be her husband's partner-in-crime). Mme Thenardier is an abuser who is routinely abused and ordered about herself by her smaller, less tough and more weaselly husband. Older women who are servants or unmarried family members to the main men are also repeatedly ignored and pushed to the side or out of a scene entirely.
It is said in the text a lot that women need to be protected by their fathers and then by their husbands. Women are the weaker, fairer sex - that is a statement in 'Les Misérables', presented as fact.
Cosette, as a child, as "the Lark", starts off interesting and "plain"; a little girl coping with terrible abuse at the hands of Mme Thenardier, until she is rescued by Valjean, who raises her as his daughter, in mild wealth and happiness (plus the years of hiding and education in a convent). As a teenager, Marius disregards Cosette in passing on the streets. But then she conveniently "blooms", and becomes so damn pretty that Marius is instantly infatuated with her and can't live without her.
The relationship between Marius and Cosette is more developed in the book than in the musical, where it's love-at-first-sight and boom! marriage ten-minutes-stage-time-together later. The book's romance can be sweet, despite Marius's stalking. However, the previously suffering-yet-independent Cosette comes to exist as a man's property - Valjean's and then Marius's - and that is her character arc. Plus she's beautiful and young, the very ideal of femininity and pure goodness in a woman. Barf.
For all the author's talk about "progress" and how vital it is for humanity to survive, the gender roles being left unexamined and unchallenged sure felt like an oversight.
At least, in the case of Fantine, Hugo barely avoids slut-shaming by describing prostitution as a ditch-poor, despairing and desperate last resort available to women stuck in poverty: they are the victims, unfairly treated, monstrously abused, not to be blamed for their tragic circumstances. Though whether prostitution should be described exclusively as like devil's work for the lowest of the low, always taken advantaged of, is another can of worms entirely...
There are also whole chapters dedicated to the history of Paris sewers, I'm not joking. And the last thirty pages of the novel are literally Hugo explaining his own themes and theories he'd already expounded throughout 'Les Misérables'. Did a lot of writers in the 17th-19th centuries not trust in their reader's intelligence? Or believe in subtext? Though education, not to mention wealthy and healthy experiences, were very limited to an extreme number of people back then; on the other hand, gigantic infodumps are not what people read stories for, even back then, I'm sure. I suppose it's my limited free time and short-attention span talking. I still tolerated these parts more than I did with 'War and Peace' and its fifty-pages of nothing at the end of its run.
And in this day and age, I can't support a piece of work that is pro-Republican, no matter the time period it was written. 'Les Misérables' = How certain things can change drastically, for the better and for the worse.
In conclusion, in spite of my enjoyment turning sour and bored, resulting in mixed feelings overall, I still recommend 'Les Misérables'. Whether you are a fan of the famous musical that spawned from it or not. It is a rich and passionate study on the human condition, the rich and the poor, classism, politics, progress, freedom and happiness, the need for revolutions, rebellion and uprisings in every generation, faith, life, and death. The histories it teaches us about tyrants and dictators and the dangers they pose - past, present and future - are needed right now.
Past literature and "classics" do still need to be read and listened to. They can be viewed as beacons of hope, as well as warnings. Backwards thinking only leads to stunted growth, misery, hatred and ignorance for everyone.
Final Score: 3/5
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