Les Miserables Part 3

This is Boo. Sorry it took me so long to upload this. Life and the fact I've never had a blog before got in the way. So here's my Les Mis review. The book starts with a long unnecessary description of the Bishop of Digne. Then it picks up with ex-convict Jean Valjean. He has just been released from prison. He is shunned by every one else in the town. Only the bishop takes him in, he repays him by stealing all the silver in the house, except two candle sticks. When he gets caught the bishop supports his story and gives him the candle sticks, on the condition that he uses it to become an honest man.

The next time we see Valjean he has changed his name to Monsieur Madeline in Montreuil-sur-mer. He invents a new glaze for the town's main product. He was named mayor and put at the head of a factory to make the glaze. It was at this factory that Fantine worked. One of the other factory workers found out that she had a child and was not married. She was dismissed from the factory.

The Thénardiers, the people watching her child kept asking for more money. Fantine sold her hair, her teeth, and joined the prostitutes in selling herself, to give them the payments. When a customer fights and reports her to the police, Valjean interferes and takes her to the hospital instead. Javert (a policeman who relentlessly pursues Valjean) tells him that the criminal Jean Valjean has just been arrested for breaking his parole. Valjean goes to court and admits he is Jean Valjean. He goes back to Fantine and watches her die. Javert arrives and they fight. Valjean swears to Fantine that he will take care of her child, Cosette. Valjean then runs away.

Valjean the goes to the Thénardiers' tavern in Montfernel. He pays for Cosette, and takes her away with him to a convent, where they live for a good many years. Then they leave and go to Paris. We then go to the life of Marius Pontmercy , who was raised by his grandfather. He meets his father after death and then researches him and finds out so much that he thought of his father as more of something to be worshipped instead of a fatherly figure.

We next see him meeting new friends, together they light the flame of the revolution. He "meets" Cosette and Valjean in the park where he takes a daily stroll. He and Cosette glance at each other and fall in love. Marius then asks the Thénardiers' daughter, Eponine to find Cosette's house for him. She  reluctantly agrees. she is reluctant because she is also in love with Marius. She finds the house and from then on Marius comes to see Cosette every night. But Valjean begins to see several "signs" that he should move. So he dose. Marius soon leaves to fight in the revolution.

Valjean intercepts the note from him to her saying that he has left to fight in the revolution and that he loves her. Valjean, unable to see an innocent die, goes to save him. They fight together in the revolution, although Marius does not recognize Valjean. When Marius is fatally wounded Valjean carries him trough the sewers and reaches a gate guarded by Thénardier.

He asks for a payment, and after getting the few things Marius had on him, he rips off one of his coattails and lets Valjean out of the sewers, and into the hands of Javert. I forgot to tell you that Javert was a spy at the barricade. He was caught and Valjean spared his life. Also Eponine was shot and died. So Javert had a big debt to pay to Valjean. He agrees to let him take Marius home. Then he takes Valjean  home to say good-bye to Cosette. When Valjean comes out Javert is gone. He went to the fastest part of the river Seine and threw himself in.

Valjean consents to giving Marius, Cosette's hand in marriage. Then he leaves, but not before telling Marius the truth about his past. Then later on Thénardier comes to tell him that his father-in-law is a murderer. He shows him the coattail. Marius instantly knows it is Valjean that saved him. He takes Cosette to where Valjean has been staying. They rush to his side but, alas, he is already on his death bed. Marius tells Cossette of Valjean saving him. Valjean then tells Cosette about the truth. Then Valjean enters into the awaiting arms of  God, Fantine, and of the barricade.


Now I've always loved Les Mis, as much as Momma loves Phantom (and believe me that's a lot). I love the story, the music, the... colorful characters. And I think reading the book really gave me a new perspective on the play. But as much as I love it this book is hard to get into. I would say it's a 20 on the scale, but mainly cause it starts out with a seemingly unrelated explanation of the bishop. But otherwise it's a really good book. Definitely a classic. I recommend doing what I did, reading the book, then listening to the music until you see it live. It's really cool.

Les Miserables, Part 2

Mom’s review:  I have LOVED Les Miserables for so long.  I was able to see the stage production when I was in high school, and of course, since the book is always better, I challenged myself to read the book before I saw it.  Of course, being the mature adult that I am now (No laughing Boo!), I wanted to read the unabridged version.  The problem has been in finding the time.  It’s not a little or easy book to read.  I can honestly say I have been reading this book off and on for 3 years

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On to the review.  This book has so many parts; it is hard to know exactly where to start.  Do we start with Val Jean in prison, or the depth of despair in the story of Fantine?  Do I talk about the overwhelming amount of mind numbing history lessons?  Do I talk about how I see the “revolution” (which Victor Hugo explains was less of a revolution and more of a riot) or the relationship of Cosette and Marius in a different light now? 

I did something a little different when I read this book.  If I came across a sentence that struck me, I marked it with a sticky note.  I would like to share some of these quotes with you.  These made me think and reconsider things from a different perspective.

From the introduction: “One of the book’s particular joys is Hugo’s contagious love of Paris, the center and symbol of France, first described in terms of its people, who are seen as wrong-headed at times, but always resourceful and witty.  Obvious affection is also lavished on the physical city, the landmarks and streets where much of the action unfolds.”

 A description of society from Val Jean’s perspective:  “If it was outrageous that society should treat with such rigid precision those of its members who were most poorly endowed in the chance distribution of wealth and were therefore most deserving of tolerance.  With these questions asked and answered, he condemned society and sentenced it.  He sentenced it to his hatred.”

Of Javert:  “As Madeleine’s glance met that of Javert, Javert, without stirring, without moving, without coming closer, became terrifying.  There is no human feeling that can ever be so appalling as Joy.  It was the face of the devil who has just regained his victim.”  And near the end of the story:  “One of his causes for anxiety was that he was compelled to think.  The very violence of all these contradictory emotions forced him to it.  Thought, an uncommon thing for him, and singularly painful.”

Questions about God:  “Is there an infinite outside of us?  Is this infinite, one, immanent, permanent: necessarily substantial, since it is infinite, and because, if matter were lacking in it, it would in that respect be limited; necessarily intelligent, because it is infinite, and since if it lacked intelligence, it would be to that extent, finite?  Does this infinite awaken in us the idea of essence, while we are able to attribute to ourselves the idea of existence only?  In other words, is it not the absolute of which we are the relative?

                “At the same time, while there is an infinite outside of us, is there not an infinite within us?  The two infinites (frightening plural!), do they not rest superimposed on one another?  Does the second infinite not underlie the first, so to speak?  Is it not the mirror, the reflection, the echo of the first, an abyss concentric with another abyss?  Is this second infinite intelligent, also?  Does it think?  Does it love?  Does it will?  If the two infinites are intelligent, each one of them has a principle of will, and there is a “me” in the infinite above, as there is a “me” in the infinite below.  The “me” below is the soul; the “me” above is God.”

A description of tribulations:  “This lowly sand that you trample underfoot, if you throw it into the furnace and let it melt and seethe, will become sparkling crystal; and thanks to such as this a Galileo and a Newton will discover the stars.”

A new definition of cool:  “What did they do in Madame de T.’s salon?  They were ultra.  To be ultra; though the things it represents have perhaps not disappeared, this word has lost its meaning.  Let us define it.  To be ultra is to go beyond.”

I will spare you the agony of the longest run-on sentence known to be in print.  It’s a description of King Louis-Philippe.  It is two full pages long.  Yes.  One sentence.  Two pages. 

How about a description of the revolutionaries:  “Savage.  We must explain this word.  What was the aim of those bristling men who in the demiurgic days of revolutionary chaos, tattered, howling, wild, with cudgel raised and pike aloft, rushed over old overturned Paris?  They wanted the end of oppressions, the end of tyrannies, the end of the sword, work for man, education for children, an amenable social climate for women, liberty, equality, fraternity, bread for all, ideas for all; the Eden-ization of the world, Progress.  Pushed to the limit and beside themselves, terrible, half-naked, a club in their hands and a roar in their mouths, they demanded this holy, good, and gentle thing, progress.  They were savages, yes, but the savages of civilization.”

I don’t remember why I marked this quote, but I find it interesting.  “Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins.  Which of the two has the greater view?  Choose.  A bit of mold is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an anthill of stars.  The same promiscuity, and still more wonderful, between the things of the intellect and material things.  Elements and principles are mingled, combined, espoused, multiplied one by another, to the point that the material world and the moral world are brought into the same light.  Phenomena are perpetually folded back on themselves.”

I love this description of laziness:  “My child, through laziness you are entering into the most laborious of existences.  Ah!  You declare yourself a loafer!  Prepare to labor.  Have you seen a terrible machine called the rolling mill?  Beware of it, it is a clever, fierce thing.  If it catches your coattail, you’re entirely drawn in.  This machine is idleness.  Stop, while there’s still time, and save yourself!  Otherwise, it is all over; you’ll soon be between the gears.  Once caught, give up hope for anything more.  On to fatigue, idler!  No more rest.  The implacable iron hand of labor has seized you.  Earn a living, have a task, accomplish a duty, you don’t want that!  To be like others is tiresome! Well then!  You’ll be different.  Work is the law; whoever spurns it as tiresome will have it as punishment. “   

I think this description of young love could be considered fairly accurate:  “The future belongs still more to the heart than the mind.  To love is the only thing that can occupy and fill up eternity.  The infinite requires the inexhaustible.

                “Love partakes of the soul itself.  It is of the same nature.  Like the soul, it is a divine spark; it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable.  It is a point of fire within us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can limit and nothing can extinguish.  We feel it burning even in the marrow of our bones, and we see it radiate even to the depths of the sky.”

One aspect of the novel I found interesting is the essays that Hugo put into the middle of the story.  One essay or argument was about argot, which I understand is the language of the prison.  These next two quotes are from that section of the novel.  “Argot is nothing more nor less than a wardrobe in which language, having some bad deed to do, disguises itself.  It puts on word-masks and metaphoric rags.  In this way it becomes horrible.” 

                “Thoughtful minds make little use of this expression:  the happy and the unhappy.  In this world, clearly the vestibule of another, no one is happy.  The true division of humanity is this:  the luminous and the dark.  To diminish the number of the dark, to increase the number of the luminous, there is the aim.  That is why we cry:  education, knowledge!  To learn to read is to kindle a fire; every syllable spelled sparkles.”

This quote seemed like it could be a statement on current welfare issues:  “Let us not weary of repeating it, to think first of all of the outcast and sorrowful multitudes, to solace them, give them air, enlighten them, love them, enlarge their horizon magnificently, spare nothing on education in all its forms, offer them the example of labor, never the example of idleness, diminish the weight of the individual burden by intensifying the idea of the universal object, limit poverty without limiting wealth, create vast fields of public and popular activity, have like Briareus, a hundred hands to stretch out on all sides to the exhausted and the feeble, employ the collective power in the great duty of opening workshops for all hands, schools for all aptitudes and laboratories for all intelligences, increase wages, diminish suffering, balance the ought and the have, that is to say, proportion enjoyment to effort and gratification to need, in a word, evolve from the social structure, for the benefit of those who suffer and those who are ignorant, more light and more comfort; this is, as sympathetic souls should not forget, the first of fraternal obligations; this is, as selfish hearts should know, the first of political necessities. “

Here’s a quote from when Marius and Cosette fell in love, and whispered sweet nothings to each other:  “These absurdities, these poverties, the man who has never heard them, the man who has never uttered them, is an imbecile and a sorry man.”

Here’s another interesting perspective on modern history:  “Since the solution of everything by universal suffrage is an entirely modern occurrence, and all history, for four thousand years before that, filled with violated rights and the suffering of the people, each period of history brings with it such protest as it can.”

I think the best summary of the suffering, of the battle between good and evil, right and wrong, comes on page 1279.  Val Jean has been carrying Marius through the sewers of Paris trying to escape the infantry. 

“To find his way was difficult.” 

This book is ultimately a discussion on redemption and how one goes about becoming a good person. 

Mom’s rating:  This story actually opens with one of my favorite characters, so it did not take long for me to get hooked into the story.  I give this a 5 page rating.

Les Miserables, Part 1

Mom's Introduction:  As much as I loved the music of The Phantom of the Opera when I was a teenager, Boo loves the music of Les Miserables.  With a movie release approaching, I decided that she needed to actually read the story before she saw the movie.  What she didn't know was that the musical was actually coming to town as well.  (Hello, Christmas present!)  I had also been challenged by a friend to read the unabridged version.  It only took me 4 years to finish it.  ;-)  Since we have both read it (even though they were different lengths), we are going to both do a review of the book.  But Boo gets to go first.

Title:  Les Miserables, Abridged
Author:  Victor Hugo
Publisher:  Barnes & Noble Books
Date:  B&N edition 2003, originally published in 1862
ISBN:  ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-066-2
   ISBN-10:  1-59308-066-2
Pages: 843


Title:  Les Miserables, Unabridged
Author:  Victor Hugo
Publisher:  Penguin Putnam, Inc.
Date:  March 1987
ISBN:   0-451-52526-4
Pages:  1463

Summary from the abridged version:  Les Miserables tells the story of the peasant Jean Valjean-unjustly imprisoned, baffled by destiny,and hounded by his nemesis,the magnificently realized, ambiguously malevolent police detective Javert. As Valjean struggles to redeem his past, we are thrust into the teeming underworld of Paris with all it's poverty, ignorance, and suffering. Just as cruel tyranny threatens to extinguish the last vestiges of hope, rebellion sweeps over the land like wild fire, igniting a vast struggle for the democratic ideal in France.

Personal note from Mom:  We're still figuring out this whole 2 blogger thing.  I've added Boo as a blog author, but she apparently can't edit posts that I've started.  So for now....  we're going to be doing this one at a time.  

Rating System

So we've decided on a rating system.  It's a bit unusual, because it will be "backwards" from most normal systems.  We've decided we are going to rate on a 1-100 page basis.  We are going to rate on how many pages we have to read before we are "hooked."  So a 1 page rating would be a fantastic-go-out-and-read-this-book-now rating.  A 100 page rating might be either a classic that is really hard to read, or a snoozer of a book.

Also, if anyone has any cute ideas for a graphic for the rating, I would be much obliged for your help.

Happy reading!
Mom

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog!  We are going to have so much fun!  Boo and I are going to be writing book reviews of all shapes and sizes.  Boo is mainly writing for her school purposes.  I'm lucky because I get to read for fun.  :)  I like to read a lot of YA fiction and a LOT of fantasy, but I also enjoy mysteries and historical novels.  Boo, what do you like to read?

Well, while school has me read lots of historical fiction I enjoy reading fantasy fiction. Stuff like dragons and other worlds really gets me going. But I am learning to like other books too. historical fiction is not as bad as i once thought it was. I also like how-to books. Even if I never do what they say, they are fun to look at.Also we both enjoy musicals, if you count that as books.

For the most part, Boo will be doing most of the book reviews, and we will also be doing individual book reviews.  But our first... that will be the best one!  We are going to be reviewing Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.  Boo read the abridged version, and I read the unabridged.  Our next post will be our very first joint review.

For now, we hope you sit back, relax, maybe pick up a nice hot cup of cocoa, and read!

Have Fun!