928 pages, Barnes & Noble Collectible Editions Series, ISBN-13: 978-1435163690
Oh boy. Boyoboyoboyoboyoboy. I am going to review a literary masterpiece that has been praised and admired the world over since its publication in 1862, that has been adapted to the stage and the big-and-little screens in a multitude of languages and utilizing a variety of formats. I am going to review… Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. Like almost everyone I know, my first encounter with Les Misérables was not the novel Les Misérables but rather the musical Les Misérables, with music by Claude-Michel Schönberg and English lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer. Many moons later, I finally picked up an English-language copy of Hugo’s definitive work, a killer edition by Barnes & Noble that looks primo (I know, I know I know; never judge a book by its cover. Shut up; it’s a wicked awesome cover). Wish me luck, yo.
A compelling and compassionate view of the victims of early 19th Century French society, Les Misérables is a novel on an epic scale, moving inexorably from the eve of the battle of Waterloo to the July Revolution of 1830. Specifically, Victor Hugo’s tale follows escaped convict Jean Valjean and his 19-year-long struggle to put his criminal past behind him and lead a moral life; however, all of his attempts at respectability are repeatedly thwarted, especially by the dogged intensity of Inspector Javert, the legalist policeman who lacks empathy for criminals in any form and pursues Valjean over the years. But it is not simply the (understandable) desire not to be returned to the galleys that motivates Valjean; he is also the adopted father of Euphrasie – “Cosette” – after her mother, Fantine (who worked for Valjean in his factory and was fired for being an unwed mother), dies and leaves her daughter an orphan. To punish this little girl twice for no crime of her own would be the greatest of injustices, and so Valjean prospers and perseveres for her sake as much as his own.
The themes that Les Misérables puts forth are all Big Picture stuff: life, love, justice, revenge, freedom, atonement, forgiveness…jeez, I could go on and on. And, as can be expected with a Big Picture book, it is wordy, as Hugo takes great pride in not only speaking his Deep Thoughts but in the manner in which he does so. I imagine that, in the original French, this came across as much grander and more complete, but in the English translation it sometimes makes the reader feel somewhat put-upon; I mean, don’t get me wrong: this is brilliant stuff make no mistake, but perhaps these eloquent French sentences could have been better parsed down to fervent English words. Really, now, to cite one example, one must traverse a multipage digression on the construction of the Paris sewers in order to find out if Valjean and Marius Pontmercy survive the barricade. Again, all interesting stuff I assure you, but was it really necessary in this particular book? There are examples of this sort of literary daydreaming all throughout Les Misérables, but I trust you get my point.
But it is the relentless pursuit of Jean Valjean by Inspector Javert that is the motor of this car, with these two antagonists symbolizing the unsympathetic law as a scourge on the unoffending poor. Jean Valjean is originally sentenced to five years for stealing a loaf of bread in order to feed his sister and her children (characters we never meet and that are never mentioned again); it is his repeated attempts to escape that end up increasing his sentence to an overall nineteen years. When he is finally released on parole (as Parolee #24601) he ends up never reporting to the police station where he was due, thus making him a permanent felon destined to go back to the galleys for life if he’s ever caught; thus, it is Inspector Javert – pitiless, amoral law enforcement incarnate – who never forgets the convict Jean Valjean and makes it his life work to bring him to justice (it’s been said that, in Paradise Lost, Milton gave all the best lines to Satan; so, to, does Hugo with Javert, thus making Les Mis’ nemesis far more interesting than the main character).
The chase goes on for years, with Javert finding Valjean only for Valjean to escape and start a new life elsewhere in France, only for Javert to catch up to him again; it is Javert’s relentless pursuit of Valjean that is probably the most memorable element of Les Mis, more memorable than the plight of the “grisettes” and all of the other “les misérables” in the Parisian “Cour des miracles”. But Javert is more than just an unceasing and uncompromising engine of destruction, intent on bringing this hardened criminal – this scourge of bread loaves everywhere – to justice, for Hugo managed to make him into that most difficult of things…a sympathetic villain. Javert is, at heart, a man who sees it as his duty to bring criminals to justice; whether those criminals are sympathetic or not, whether their crimes are heinous or no, to Javert a criminal is a criminal is a criminal, and all must be brought low and pay for their crimes. However, while Javert illustrates one of Hugo’s many themes – the brutality of law without justice – and Valjean’s arc is the moral fable – as he is repeatedly forced to choose between self-interest and what’s right – Hugo also tells a tale of the poor, the dispossessed, “les misérables”.
But, Big Picture themes aside, Hugo’s characters are what really give Les Mis its heft. Jean Valjean is, as the main protagonist, the most fleshed-out of all of the protagonists, and I, for one, remained fully invested in his fate throughout the whole of the book (the description of his grave at the end of the book will, I think, stay with me forever). Fantine does her job well in wringing our tears out and for being the perfect stand-in for all of those uncountable women who have been used and abused and abandoned by carefree playboys since…forever. Who can hate the adorable and pathetic Cosette, a Disney Princess before there was such a thing as Disney and who could have been Caesar’s wife and “be above suspicion”. But she’s not nearly as sympathetic or interesting as Éponine, the street urchin who only has eyes for Marius who, naturally, only has eyes for Cosette. Speaking of which, Marius and his other dilettante adventurers – Enjolras, Bahorel, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Feuilly, Grantaire, Jean Prouvaire, Joly and Lesgle – could be stand-ins for any and every know-it-all college students from the ancient world until now: we’ve got all the answers after a semester or two of social studies so shut-up and let us kids run the show you old farts. No wonder their “revolution” failed. Mustn’t forget Gavroche, the lovable street urchin, nor the Thénardiers, some of the best villains ever put to paper and an example of what sort of degradation the hopeless poor can fall in to.
There’s a reason anything great stays around – great music, great literature, great ideas – and it’s not because pointy-headed academics say it’s great; it’s because greatness speaks to one and all in a language that transcends time and barriers. And so it is with Les Misérables. The themes, the characters, the tragedies and triumphs resonate in the 21st Century as much as they did in the 19th, and for that reason Les Misérables will be with us always.
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