Les Miserables (Victor Hugo, 1862)

It's a pretty wonderful thing to be able to read a book like this.  It's fascinating to think about how many folks have read it since its 1862 release (an immediate sensation), the variety of stage and movie adaptations, etc.  The preface indicated that the very first full-length feature film in the United States - in 1905 - was Les Miserables.

I am again struck with how reading at a reasonably steady clip enriches pretty much every experience.  As just one example - each book enriches the reading of future books.  The opportunity  to read quite a bit about France certainly enhanced the experience of reading Les Miserables.  (Though the book obviously works very well no matter what the reader brings to it!)

Hugo's work helps pull together many of the 19th century threads in French history.

I of course have many impressions of this work from the stage play (and listening to the CD) - one can see phrases in the book that became lyrics.  Even if there are quite a few changes in the stage play.

Basically, a 1200-page canvas permits Hugo to do so many things - in-depth development of so many characters in multiple settings over a multi-year period; lengthy digressions on a wide variety of topics; etc.    

It's interesting that he sets the scenes in the barricades in 1832 - Hugo had experienced the far-more-significant 1848 upheavals first-hand (and even went into voluntary exile when Napoleon III took power in 1852), and certainly the 1830 situation (which brought Louis Philippe to power) was more compelling.

The 1832 insurrection, or riot, never really went anywhere.  Something that I didn't really like in the stage play was what felt like a glorification of the barricades - while so much of what went on seemed needlessly violent, mixed motives, etc.  The book is much more nuanced on this subject - very interesting reflections on the diference between riot, insurrection, revolution.

Hugo evolved from royalist to republican over the years.  Some of his digressions go into how crowds form, why the population becomes disenchanted, etc.  Sophisticated discussion (around p. 690 in this edition) regarding the same issues being pushed around today (including by the "Occupy Wall Street" posers) - how to create an equitable system - he's careful to say it shouldn't be equal, or no one would work - prescient.  

I'm always amazed at how well-read these authors were - dropping references all over the place to historical events, the classics, other books, etc.  This translation included 130 delightful pages of footnotes (on top of the 1200 pages of the novel) - fascinating!  I'm reading Plutarch's Lives at the gym right now and had been struck with the fabulous response of the Gauls to the Romans (in bio of Fabius) when questioned about taking territory; Hugo weaves it into one of the allusions in this book (p. 896).  And so many more.

Oh, and then there's the story itself - Thenardier, Fantine, Eponine, Gavoche, the group of revolutionaries (repeating all of the utopian tropes that no longer sound fresh, at all) , Marius, his grandfather, Mabeuf, the bishop (Digne), the old conventionist (the bishop requests "your blessing"), the gang of crooks, Javert, Cosette, Jean Valjean, etc.  Digressions on every angle - Paris neighborhoods, French history, the convent, reflections on the strict monastic life (Hugo = not impressed), reflections on the Paris sewers(!).  On and on.

I was very nervous during the scene where Thenardier and the other crooks were capturing "Monsieur Leblanc" and Marius was watching through the wall.

I liked Hugo's lengthy description of the Waterloo battlefield and the circumstances of the battle; reminded me of Vanity Fair.   That battle mattered to folks.