REVIEW
Dan
Schneider
©
Dan Schneider 2006
www.Cosmoetica.com
Review
of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables
Introduction | Syllabus | Analysis
| Summary
Introduction
Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, is the type of work that is almost
beyond the measure of excellence or not. Hugo so indulgent, so
excessive, that the book becomes almost otherworldly, an edifice
out in an ether of its own, subject to its own literary riles.
It is simple in narrative construction, but byzantinely complex
in the curlicues of detail. It is such a diverse work that it
is almost a cosmos unto itself, apart from the time and reality
of mortal men and writers. If there was ever an over-the-top work
of prose that was the equivalent of a Walt Whitman song it is
this work. Then, again, I have used the qualifier almost, because
while the novel has quite a number of excellent moments, it has
just as many, or more, bad moments- and I mean horrifically bad
examples of writing; writing so bad that to believe it could belong
to a ‘classic’ or a ‘masterpiece’ of the
Western Canon boggles the mind.
I read the classic 1862 English translation by Hugo associate
Charles Wilbour, from the same year the novel was published in
France, in the unabridged version- all 1260 pages of it, from
the Random House Modern Library series, and in many ways it’s
a mass of contradictions, well beyond the idea of being a bad
or great read, although it is a surprisingly ‘easy’
read. It is humorous, operatic, and soap operatic, yet so ‘serious’,
in its desperation to be seen as a serious sociological tract,
as to be musty. It is discursive to the point of being formless,
yet has moments of crystal clarity. It is loaded with 1930s movie
serial style melodrama that borders on farce, such as this from
page 1209, between Valjean and Cosette:
Jean Valjean kissed that forehead, upon which there was a celestial
reflection.
‘Smile.’
Jean Valjean obeyed. It was the smile of a spectre.
‘Now defend me against my husband.’
‘Cosette!-’ said Marius.
‘Get angry, father. Tell him that I must stay. You can surely
talk before me. So you think me very silly. It is very astonishing
then what you are saying! business, putting money in a bank, that
is a great affair. Men play the mysterious for nothing. I want
to stay. I am very pretty this morning. Look at me, Marius.’
And with an adorable shrug of the shoulders and an inexpressibly
exquisite pout, she looked at Marius. It was like a flash between
these two beings. That somebody was there mattered little.
‘I love you!’ said Marius.
‘I adore you!’ said Cosette.
And they fell irresistibly into each other’s arms.
You would not be wrong to expect, ‘Next week on All My Children….’
to follow, yet, despite such, the book also has true moments of
drama. Its characters act in outrageous ways that go well beyond
the definition of caricature, yet also has genuine moments of
connection. This is what makes it, for all its virtues and flaws,
such an intriguing work.
Syllabus
The book is broken into five ‘books’- each of which
is the size of a typical modern novel. I will now give a synopsis
of each book.
Fantine
Fantine is broken into eight books, and numerous chapters, as
are all the books. The novel opens with background of a bishop
named Myriel and his church. In October 1815, a stranger enters
the bishop’s town, and is shunned. He is Jean Valjean, freed
after nineteen years in prison- the first five for stealing a
loaf of bread, and the rest for failed escape attempts. The bishop
takes him in and Valjean steals from him. The bishop forgives
him when caught, and gives him the booty he stole, with the understanding
Valjean will reform. He steals again, then regrets it. Hugo gives
a very simplistic portrayal of how the corrupt French penal system
brutalized Valjean, basically naïvely positing that all men
are good by nature. Two years later we are in Paris where a young
woman who was an orphan, fantine, finds she is pregnant via a
rich college student named Félix Tholomyès, who
plays a cruel joke on her, and leaves her. A few years later her
illegitimate daughter Cosette travels with her, and she leaves
her with a couple named Thénardier. They eventually extort
Fantine, playing on her shame over Cosette’s past. In the
town they live, Montreuil-sur-mer, in a man named Monsieur Madeleine
has proved a savior, and is elected Mayor. The town’s police
inspector, Javert, suspects Madeleine is actually Valjean, who
is notorious. He is correct. Fantine spirals downward- selling
off her hair, her teeth, and then becoming a prostitute. The absurdity
of her plight is dealt with in super-seriousness by Hugo, but
it’s rife with such clichés as the hooker with the
heart of gold. Thénardier demands more money from her,
and she is eventually arrested by Javert. Madeleine saves her,
and Javert determines to destroy him. Fantine worsens, while a
man named Champmathieu is arrested, and Javert believes he, not
Madeleine, is Valjean. Madeleine agonizes over whether to exculpate
an innocent man or continue to help his town. He recalls his earlier
vow to become good. Champmathieu’s trial is a farce, and
he is railroaded. Madeleine confesses he is Valjean.
Cosette
Cosette is broken into eight books. Hugo digresses for many pages
on the battle of Waterloo, for only one purpose- to introduce
the character of Colonel Georges Pontmercy, who mistakenly feels
he is endebted to Thénardier for saving his life, even
though Thénardier was only trying to rob him, thinking
him dead. Valjean’s trial is a scandal, and he is sent to
jail, but presumed dead after saving a drowning officer, and seeming
to drown himself. Cosette is now eight, and still with the Thénardiers
in Montfermeil. They now have a son named Gavroche, whom they
loathe like Cosette, while they adore their daughters Eponine
and Azelma. One night, Valjean appears to Cosette, and he is shocked
at her treatment. Valjean pays 1500 francs to take Cosette away
from her abusers. Thénardier tries to gouge Valjean, stating
he needs Cosette’s mother’s approval. Valjean produces
a letter from Fantine, granting him custody. Thénardier
reluctantly gives up on Cosette. They move into Gorbeau House,
and he pretends he is Cosette’s grandfather. He is paranoid
that Javert is on his trail and leaves. Javert pursues him, but
he escapes with Cosette. He meets Fauchelevent, a man he once
saved in Montreuil. He helps the duo. We find out Javert has doubted
Valjean’s detah, once he realizes a man came and took Cosette
from the Thénardiers. He was toying with Valjean, to torture
him, but when his prey escaped he was humiliated. Both Javert’s
unprofessional arrogance and Fauchelevent’s reappearance
stretch realistic credulity, but by this point in the novel symbolism
is so dominant- realism cannot be expected. We then digress for
a whole chapter on the convent whose garden Valjean and Cosette
met Fauchelevent in. Intrigues abound at the convent, one which
involves Valjean’s being buried alive.
Marius
Marius is broken into eight books. We meet Gavroche again- now
a beggar. His parents, the Thénardiers use the alias Jondrette.
Gavroche is happy, though. Then, we meet Marius Pontmercy, the
son of the man who was robbed by Thénardier at Waterloo.
His family is persecuted for supporting Napoleon. His father turns
Marius’s custody over to Gillenormand, his father-in-law.
In 1827 Marius is eighteen, and visits his ill father, but arrives
too late. He sees a note from his father for Marius to find Thénardier,
and help him in any way he can. Marius decides to learn of his
father’s life, and supports Napoleon. Gillenormand and marius
argue and he leaves. Marius gets involved with radicalized student
politics, and indulges poverty. He then meets Cosette, who is
with Valjean, but takes months to get to know her. He gives her
nicknames, but loses track of them, and decides to find her. Marius
encounters the Thénardiers, pities them, but knows them
as the Jondrettes. He hears Jondrette planning to kill Valjean,
whom he still does not know, and suspects they share a past. Marius
goes to the police to prevent the murder- and encounters Javert.
He discovers Jondrette is Thénardier, whom he believes
saved his father’s life, and is perplexed. In the end, Marius
ends up preventing the murder, Javert arrests Thénardier,
and Valjean escapes. Yet, like so much of the action in the novel,
the string of coincidences that allow all the major players to
be involved in this criminal endeavor stretches credulity, and
is a sign of plot dictaking logical and realistic storytelling.
St.
Denis
St. Denis is broken into fifteen books. We get a lengthy digression
that backgrounds the revolutionary student movement of 1830, which
ensnared Marius. He is still enthralled by the elusive Cosette,
whom he calls Ursula, or The Lark. Eponine tells Marius where
to find Cosette, even though she loves him. Valjean and Cosette
are in hiding, and he fears his own lack of experience in love
will hinder her. Eventually Marius declares his love for her,
and she reciprocates- in a very saccharine manner. Gavroche the
urchin has adventures, including watching Valjean survive a murder
attempt and unwittingly aiding his own father, Thénardier,
who has escaped from prison. Hugo then digresses for a chapter
on street slang. Valjean declares he and Cosette must leave for
England, and Marius panics. Marius seeks Gillenormand’s
permission to marry Cosette, but his grandfather insults him buy
suggesting he make her his mistress. He attempts to return to
her, but she and Valjean are gone, fleeing the coming anarchy.
Riots ensue. Marius’s classmates and Gavroche are among
the rioters. They notice Javert is spying on them, and capture
him. Marius tries to quell things, and is saved by Eponine, who
gives her a letter from Cosette. Marius writes a letter to Cosette
and gives it to Gavroche to deliver. Valjean intercepts him, and
rushes to aid his adopted daughter’s suitor.
Jean
Valjean
Jean Valjean is broken into nine books. The rioters and army battle.
Gavroche is killed. The rioters’ leader orders Javert be
killed. Valjean volunteers to kill him, but sets Javert free.
Marius is shot, but Valjean saves him and carries Marius through
the sewers. Hugo then discourses on the history of the Parisian
sewers. Thénardier, not recognizing Valjean, tries to extort
him to help him escape, thinking Valjean’s killed Marius,
whom he thinks is a wealthy man. Javert captures Valjean, but
begs him to allow him to return Marius to Gillenormand, and to
see Cosette one last time. Javert agrees, then departs, much to
Valjean’s surprise. Deus ex machinae play a great part in
this section, to the point of unbelievability. Characters are
always just around the corner, etc. Valjean apotheosizes in this
book. Javert implodes. His world of rules is in chaos, as Valjean
is not what he thought he was. He suicides into the Seine, a wholly
ridiculous end for this stalwart character. Marius recovers, and
Gillenormand allows him to marry Cosette. He is happy when he
sees she is beautiful and has a large dowry from Valjean, who
is ambivalent that hi s’daughter’ will be leaving
him. He confesses his past to Marius, who belives it, for he still
feels Valjean executed Javert. Marius tries to cut Valjean out
of Cosette’s life. Thénardier tries to sell Marius
information on Valjean, and Marius learns of Valjean’s work
as Madeleine, and that Javert killed himself. Thénardier
then claims Valjean killed a rich man in the sewers, and Marius
knows he’s lying, since the supposed dead man was himself.
Marius pays him, then makes sure he leaves France for America,
where he becomes a slaver trader. Marius tells Cosette of his
error in misjudging Valjean. They go to his bedside. He hugs them
both, then dies in peace and joy, fulfilling his early promise
to Bishop Myriel to reform.
Analysis
While Les Miserables is clearly a cut above the usual pabulum
that is published and passed off as ‘literary fiction’
today, it is not a great work of literature. It could be significantly
cut without losing much, as some of the better abridged versions
of the book have proved, as it could be shorn of its didactic
to the point of condescension impulses. In this regard, it is
even more egregious in such violations than its near contemporaneous
counterpart examining society and crime, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s
Crime And Punishment. Where that book was based upon the posit
that the human condition is basically static, Hugo’s book
presumes that evil is borne of institutions, not the individuals
that comprise them- a fairly absurd assertion, which posits that
evil must appear ex nihilo in the interstices between the individual
alone and the individual of the crowd.
A related flaw that Les Miserables shares with Crime And Punishment
is its pre-modern outlook on life and society, and the attendant
symbolism and stereotypes that such a view forces upon the reader.
Jean Valjean is outwardly more dynamic a character than Rodion
Raskolnikov, yet has little of the internal plumbing, as it were.
He is a veritable cipher, for through the hundreds of pages, rare
is it that we explore his internal mindset, youth, or the like,
without Hugo’s first resort to swashbuckling or intrigue.
In one of the most obvious flaws of the novel, the reason why
Valjean is loathed by many others throughout the book is never
properly explained, it is merely a construct to propel the narrative,
and not given any grounding in the pasts of the characters- although
many other more minor aspects of the characters and their interactions
are plumbed, nor is it elucidated upon by later actions. Raskolnikov
is a true antihero, whereas Valjean has far more in common with
the heroes of Dickens or Dumas, always making daring rescues and
escapes, self-sacrificing, and struggling against all odds, etc.
Whereas Raskolnikov’s very name suggests he is a torn man
declining toward his baser naure, Valjean’s tale is one
of upward ethical mobility- from impoverished and persecuted justifiable
bread robber to embittered criminal, upon his release, he become
a near-saint, all due to the supposed words and actions of a holy
man with little place in the novel. The murderous Thénardier
has more truck with Raskolnikov, in that he is a baser man than
Valjean, and, like Raskolnikov, is mistaken for a man with a noble
soul by the Pontmercys throughout the book, until the end. Yet,
there is no shading to his character. The same is true for his
wife. Only his outcast son Gavroche and his daughter Eponine show
redeeming qualities, yet they are stereotypes, too. Gavroche is
right out of the Dickens mold for a gamin. In fact, much of Les
Miserables reads like Dickens suffering from ‘roid rage,
yet absent the satirical humor and fun.
A good example comes from the obvious and heavy-handed juxtaposition
of Eponine and Cosette, both stereotypes. Eponine is the selfless
heroine whose only purpose in the novel is to serve as counterbalance
to the even more stereotyped Cosette. Eponine is legitimate. Cosette
is a bastard. Eponine shows a little growth, while Cosette shows
none. Cosette is the Madonna figure of the book, yet immature
and ignorant of the world’s cruelties, rescued by the dashing
Valjean. Eponine’s life is tuined by her father’s
evil. Marius is the lovestruck swain manqué, almost as
ignorant of life as his love, Cosette. He understands little of
the revolution he is at the fringes of, but does heroic things
nonetheless. He is paper-thin, even more so than the two most
egregious stereotypes in the book, his grandfather Gillenormand-
last of the Bourgeois dinosaurs, and Cosette’s mother Fantine,
who is even more of the trite hooker with a heart of gold than
Raskolnikov’s paramour from Crime And Punishment, Sonia.
Is it any wonder that the love that Valjean felt for her is never
consummated, but forever purified by her death, and that he selflessly
takes it upon himself to care for her daughter? How could he not,
given the logy of such a trite narrative? Putative antihero falls
in love with doomed heroine. Yes, no one could accuse Hugo of
narrative originality, for this is the template for many French
novels of the time.
The only character that nearly rises above stereotype is Javert.
Yet, he is not the typical detective of later fiction, as proclaimed
in the Modern Library jacket notes. He is no predecessor to Lieutenant
Colombo, nor Sherlock Holmes. He is a stickler for law and order,
and one senses there must be some daemon that drives this. Hugo’s
answer seems utterly ad hoc- his shame over his gypsy background-
and reveals a serious flaw in Hugo’s ability to sketch believable
characters, or his petty reliance on stereotypes to serve merely
as action-pushers. Yet, after the many ridiculous times Valjean
escapes him- either by deus ex machinae or Javert’s own
overweening confidence- he finally gets his man, but after Valjean
has speared his life, he lets him go, and then this man merely
tosses himself to death? Utterly trite, and wholly unbelievable.
People with that sort of iron will simply do not behave in such
a way, no matter what! Does it make for melodrama? Sure. But in
a piss-poor 1930s Hollywood tearjerker sort of fashion. It is
not the stuff of great and deep and true ‘literature’
of the highest order. In the real world, Valjean’s saving
of his life might have been the cause of an existential crisis
within Javert that finally forced him to step outside of his black
and white view of legality and question what is the ethical thing
to do when the laws and system are corrupt? Suicide would not
be an option for such a detached and coolly logical character
as Javert, yet Hugo never refuses the cheap nor theatrical stunt
over the realistic outcome of the events he portrays, much to
the novel’s everlasting detriment.
Likewise, the moralizing in the novel can be interminable. If
Hugo’s diagnosis of the human condition is to be believed
then we are all fixed at birth and anything positive or negative
that occurs to us is due to the overwhelming force of pressures
which separate us from our own true selves. Here is an early example
(page 35) of Hugo’s naïve view of life:
‘I
congratulate you,’ he said, in a tone of reprimand. ‘At
least you did not vote for the execution of the king.’
The conventionist did not seem to notice the bitter emphasis placed
upon the words ‘at least.’ The smiles vanished from
his face, and he replied:
‘Do
not congratulate me too much, monsieur; I did vote for the destruction
of the tyrant.’
And the tone of austerity confronted the tone of severity.
‘What
do you mean?’ asked the bishop.
‘I
mean that man has a tyrant, Ignorance. I voted for the abolition
of that tyrant. That tyrant has begotten royalty, which is authority
springing from the False, while science is authority springing
from the True. Man should be governed by science.’
‘And
conscience,’ added the bishop.
‘The
same thing: conscience is innate knowledge that we have.’
Monsieur Bienvenu listened with some amazement to this language,
novel as it was to him.
The conventionist went on:
‘As
to Louis XVI.: I said no. I do not believe that I have the right
to kill a man, but I feel it a duty to exterminate evil. I voted
for the downfall of the tyrant; that is to say, for the abolition
of prostitution for woman, of slavery for man, of night for the
child. In voting for the republic I voted for that: I voted for
fraternity, for harmony, for light. I assisted in casting down
prejudices and errors: their downfall brings light! We caused
the old world to fall; the old world, a vase of misery, reversed,
becomes an urn of joy to the human race.’
To deny that this is heavy-handed and purple prose is to manifest
ignorance in all things literary. Hugo’s propensity for
self-indulgent rambling and moralizing- especially his ‘love
conquers all’ mantra- is more suited for Danielle Steel
than classic literature. Most translators have tried to correct
this flaw, as they have abridged while translating. Some have
done well, others not, but when they have given their reasons
for doing so by pointing to the novel’s flaws, such as being
self-indulgent’, ‘exasperating’, ‘undisciplined’,
‘wholly unrestrained’, and ‘condescending rhetoric’,
they are a hundred percent correct. From page 1073, here is one
of dozens of typically Hugovian rants
The modern ideal has its type in art, and its means in science.
It is through science that we shall realise that august vision
of the poets: social beauty. We shall reproduce Eden by A + B.
At the point which civilisation has reached, the exact is a necessary
element of the splendid, and the artistic sentiment is not merely
served, but completed by the scientific organ; dream must calculate.
Art, which is the conqueror, must have its fulcrum in science,
which is the mover. The solidity of the mounting is important.
The modern, spirit is the genius of Greece with the genius of
India for its vehicle; Alexander upon the elephant.
Races petrified in dogma or demoralised by lucre are unfit to
lead civilisation. Genuflexion before the idol or the dollar atrophies
the muscle which walks and the will which goes. Hieratic or mercantile
absorption diminishes the radiance of a people, lowers its horizon
by lowering its level, and deprives it of that intelligence of
the universal aim, at the same time human and divine, which makes
the missionary nations. Babylon has no ideal. Carthage has no
ideal. Athens and Rome have and preserve, even through all the
thick night of centuries, haloes of civilisation.
As one can read, Hugo is not the sort of writer one reads for
gorgeous sentences, images, nor metaphors. His weaknesses lead
him into such banal constructions- in idea and presentation- as
above. His strength, however, is focusing in on a thing or moment,
and dissecting it microscopically, then pulling back and telescopically
probing beyond that moment or place. Yet, such moments kill for
a) they are dull, flowery and over-written, and b) larded with
simplistic moralizing. In short, Hugo was not a great social thinker.
His ideas on human nature and societies are almost embarrassingly
naïve. His pre-genetic and pre-Freudian view of life may
explain why his characters are caricatures, but explanation is
not mitigation. Hugo’s book is utterly divorced from any
real understanding of poverty and crime- to him it is ennobling,
or the work of conspiracies to enslave. It’s just too fantastical
and unrealistic a view of human nature to qualify it as a work
of serious social import. His remedy for it all is simply love.
Yes, to Hugo, love conquers all: materialism, hatred, war, greed,
bigotry, jealousy, etc. The central moment of the book, the one
that Hugo posits as the axle upon which the rest of the novel
turns, is when Valjean takes Cosette away from the Thénardiers,
for his love for her mother has failed, yet his love for her daughter
will be the thing that redeems him, forcing him to keep to the
straight and narrow. Even Dostoevsky, as naïve and frustrating
as his ideas on poverty and criminality can be, in Crime And Punishment,
does not sink to this level of simplemindedness.
Here is an excerpt from the penultimate section of the book, pages
1259-1260, when Valjean, on his deathbed, confesses Cosette’s
past to her. It is embarrassingly bad- in its trite written presentation,
in its dramatic content, and in its context as the final climax
to this book:
….Those
are things of the past. The forests through which we have passed
with our child, the trees under which we have walked, the convents
in which we have hidden, the games, the free laughter of childhood,
all is in shadow. I imagined that all that belonged to me. There
was my folly. Those Thenardiers were wicked. We must forgive them.
Cosette, the time has come to tell of your mother. Her name was
Fantine. Remember that name: Fantine. Fall on your knees whenever
you pronounce it. She suffered much. And loved you much. Her measure
of unhappiness was as full as yours of happiness. Such are the
distributions of God. He is on high, he sees us all, and he knows
what he does in the midst of his great stars. So I am going away,
my children. Love each other dearly always. There is scarcely
anything else in the world but that: to love one another. You
will think sometimes of the poor old man who died here. O my Cosette!
it is not my fault, indeed, if I have not seen you all this time,
it broke my, heart; I went as far as the corner of the street,
I must have seemed strange to the people pass, I looked like a
crazy man, once I went out with no hat. My children, I do not
see very clearly now, I had some more things to say, but it makes
no difference. Think of me a little. You are blessed creatures.
I do not know what is the matter with me, I see a light. Come
nearer. I die happy. Let me put my hands upon your dear beloved
heads."
Cosette and Marius fell on their knees, overwhelmed, choked with
tears, each grasping one of Jean Valjean’s hands. Those
august hands moved no more.
He had fallen backwards, the light from the candlesticks fell
upon him; his white face looked up towards heaven, he let Cosette
and Marius cover his hands with kisses; he was dead.
The night was starless and very dark. Without doubt, in the gloom
some mighty angel was standing, with outstretched wings, awaiting
the soul.
Amid the self-indulgence, though, there are some interesting moments
in his long digressions on the battle of Waterloo, the background
of the student unrest, the origins of Parisian slang, and the
history of the Paris sewers, but they are surrounded by dozens
of pages of Hugo’s need to prove his didacticism is not
mere sciolism, and to satisfy his love affair with his own pen.
Hugo’s apologists point to the fact that he was, indeed,
writing to a pre-modern audience, to justify his gratingly dull
descriptive overkill; an audience that had no television nor movies,
and were thus impoverished in modern visualization skills. Many
had no idea what a battlefield or sewers were like. Yet, even
if one were to accept such an explanation, it does not wash for
his ornately brocaded biographies of minor characters, some for
dozens or hundreds of pages. We get book length backgrounds of
minor characters, like Bishop Myriel and Marius Pontmercy, merely
to justify the most minor plot points later on, whose only payoff
is to try to make ‘real’ the outrageous and implausible
coincidences Hugo tries to fob off in his Romance with overtones
of seriousness. Many poor critics similarly try to cover up gaping
flaws in logic and artistry with claims of the book’s or
author’s decency and humanity. Even in today’s PC
Age, such claims are a de facto admission that the art of the
work is not its prime ‘benefit’. Yet, how can you
cover up such gaping artistic flaws as the lack of suspense in
the work when after the third or fourth ‘providential’
encounter you know exactly when certain characters will reappear
and what they will do, simply by the setting of the moment?
Hugo tried to concoct a novel of social realism out of his swashbuckling
Romance, and almost succeeds, for everything the book does is
so large that it has its own gravity and inertia, and almost draws
even the most astute readers into its orbit….until you put
the book down and realize how implausible much of the action and
characterization is, as well how blatantly manipulative. That
the book has such a hardy pull is a testament to Hugo’s
powers with the word, but even that is not enough to propel the
book into true greatness. Nor does the excruciating detail that
he renders allow this novel to claim a mantel of ‘slice
of life’, for it is far too judgemental, as well self-aware-
in the best sense, not the cheap Postmodern sense. Compared with
a novel such as A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, written almost a century
later, and with similar political views, Hugo’s book’s
flaws are writ large. Betty Smith’s book never condescends,
her characters speak and act in realistic ways, and there is never
the pervasive maudlin undertow that Les Miserables makes it raison
d’etre. Yet, at only about a third the length of Les Miserables
(and itself a long book), A Tree Grows In Brooklyn is much denser,
more poetic and even more encompassing, for it actually explores
the inner worlds of several characters, with far more realism,
and that’s the point- Les Miserables is a pre-modern novel,
where adventure comes first. Second comes melodrama, and melodrama
is a cheap way to propel a story for it manipulates sentiment
in a false manner, and posits corny contrivances as realistic
interactions, by playing to the basest parts of the human psyche,
manifesting a profound lack of originality and depth. Thus, like
most soap operas, the characters are skimmed superficially, and
a reader feels no genuine connection to them. And no amount of
volume nor minutia of detail can make up for the lack of insight
the melodrama limns, even as it blurs the line between fiction
and nonfiction by describing real events the novel’s characters
must deal with. Yet, this is clearly a tactic to try to make the
book seem ‘realistic’, since all the fictive elements
are clearly swashbuckling. At times, Hugo almost loses his fictive
tale in the overwhelm of detailed real histories, yet never- despite
his lengthy biographical digressions- does he succeed of getting
inside his characters the way, say, Sandor Marai does in his sterling,
psychologically experimental novel Embers.
Summary
Les Miserables is one of the most unique works of art in human
literature, but that does not necessitate its greatness. Crime
And Punishment, published just four years later, in 1866, while
still suffering from some of the naïve-te and caricaturization
that Hugo’s novel suffers from, clearly represents a significant
step forward toward modern thought, as it is a much psychologically
richer book that limns its coeval Russian counterparts to a greater
internal degree than Hugo was capable of. It is shorn of the Capital
R Romance that bogs down much of Les Miserables. Its action is
mostly interior, spread over a relatively short period, while
Les Miserables’ action is spread over decades and often
leaves its characters abruptly hanging, to take a more deific
view of the human panorama. Crime And Punishment’s view
is microscopic, while Les Miserables’ is macroscopic, to
the point of losing its way far too often in the grand, as its
main characters flounder. That’s why Hugo’s novel
is three times the length of Dostoevsky’s, and would fall
apart if not propped up by the action-driven narrative. Crime
and Punishment’s narrative, by contrast, is driven not by
action, but reaction.
It is interesting to note that not many published literary critics-
Helen Vendler, Lionel Trilling, Harold Bloom, nor Edmund Wilson-
write of Les Miserables in the awed way they approach other works
of that age- be it Crime And Punihment, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina,
Melville’s Moby-Dick, or Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
It’s as if it’s tacitly accepted, as a way station
between the pre-modern and the modern novel; one far more dependent
upon its entertainment than intellectual value. This is the correct
assessment to give the book. Les Miserables, to a modern eye,
reads far more like a gay, cavalier farce, or outright comedy,
than a serious work of realistic fiction in the A Tree Grows In
Brooklyn or Embers vein.
Les Miserables is a good novel, one might even call it a very
good novel, and one that I ‘liked’, but it’s
nowhere near great, despite its bulk meaning it has as much actual
great writing as some great books a tenth its size. Yet, one simply
cannot pretend all the bad writing does not exist- there’s
far too much of it, and its no comfort to know that editing a
century and a half ago was capable of being as derelict as it
routinely is today, even granting the glory of its Whitmanian
excesses. Here is a sample of it, from pages 98-99, on Valjean’s
moment of conversion from evil:
….Jean
Valjean shrank and faded away. At one moment he was but a shadow.
Suddenly he disappeared. The bishop alone remained.
He filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a magnificent
radiance.
Jean Valjean wept long. He shed hot tears, he wept bitterly, with
more weakness than a woman, with more terror than a child.
While he wept, the light grew brighter and brighter in his mind-
an extraordinary light, a light at once transporting and terrible.
His past life, his first offence, his long expiation, his brutal
exterior, his hardened interior, his release made glad by so many
schemes of vengeance, what had happened to him at the bishop’s,
his last action, this theft of forty sous from a child, a crime
meaner and the more monstrous that it came after the bishop’s
pardon, all this returned and appeared to him, clearly, but in
a light that he had never seen before. He beheld his life, and
it seemed to him horrible; his soul, and it seemed to him frightful.
There was, however, a softened light upon that life and upon that
soul. It seemed to him that he was looking upon Satan by the light
of Paradise.
This cliché-riddled piece of tripe could have been written
by any PC Elitist published in the last twenty years. It’s
truly that bad. However, despite such egregious lapses, I would
state that one should read the full version, even though, literally,
some of the abridged versions are more enjoyable to read, simply
because there are many gems in the excess that are worth reading.
Still, shit is shit, no matter how many roses bloom here and there,
and this is why the worst parts of the book weigh down the whole.
It is also a surprisingly quick read, considering its size, precisely
because it is not particularly deep. Complex? Yes. But not deep,
and that’s an important distinction. Another is that, despite
Hugo’s and the book’s reputations as Left Wing icons,
when one steps back, Hugo’s hero, Valjean, is really a very
Conservative figure- a dashing hero who fights for truth and justice,
seeks to protect women and children, and seeks to preserve traditions
that are good. Here is a snippet from page 162 that is startlingly
Conservative, and it’s merely one of many:
What is this history of Fantine? It is society buying a slave.
From whom? From misery.
From hunger, from cold, from loneliness, from abandonment, from
privation. Melancholy barter. A soul for a bit of bread. Misery
makes the offer, society accepts.
The
holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilisation, but it does
not yet permeate it; it is said that slavery has disappeared from
European civilisation. This is a mistake. It still exists: but
it weighs now only upon woman, and it is called prostitution.
It weighs upon woman, that is to say, upon grace, upon feebleness,
upon maternity. This is not one of the least of man's shames.
At the stage of this mournful drama at which we have now arrived,
Fantine has nothing left of what she had formerly been. She has
become marble in becoming corrupted. Whoever touches her feels
a chill. She goes her ways, she endures you and she knows you
not; she wears a dishonoured and severe face. Life and social
order have spoken their last word to her. All that can happen
to her has happened. She has endured all, borne all, experienced
all, suffered all, lost all, wept for all. She is resigned, with
that resignation that resembles indifference as death resembles
sleep. She shuns nothing now. She fears nothing now. Every cloud
falls upon her, and all the ocean sweeps over her! What matters
it to her! the sponge is already drenched.
She believed so at least, but it is a mistake to imagine that
man can exhaust his destiny, or can reach the bottom of anything
whatever.
Alas! what are all these destinies thus driven pell-mell? whither
go they? why are they so?
He who knows that, sees all the shadow.
He is alone. His name is God.
Or, how about this bit, from page 513, a section called Ecce Paris,
Ecce Home?:
To sum up all once more, the gamin of Paris of the present day,
is as the graeculus of Rome was in ancient times, the people as
a child, with the wrinkles of the old world on its brow.
The gamin is a beauty and, at the same time, a disease of the
nation- a disease that must be cured. How? By light.
Light makes whole.
Light enlightens.
All the generous irradiations of society spring from science,
letters, the arts, and instruction. Make men, make men. Give them
light, that they may give you warmth. Soon or late, the splendid
question of universal instruction will take its position with
the irresistible authority of absolute truth; and then those who
govern under the superintendence of the French idea will have
to make this choice: the children of France or the gamins of Paris;
flames in the light or will o' the wisps in the gloom.
The gamin is the expression of Paris, and Paris is the expression
of the world.
In short, it’s really hard to take Victor Hugo seriously,
philosophically, as a Leftist, Rightist, or anything in between,
with such ill-written, over-the-top banalities as this at the
base of the book’s reason. No amount of apologism based
upon ‘different eras’ can make bad writing good. Fortunately,
the book has much good writing, and does serve as a document of
its time and ethos, so it should be read. Just do not expect it
to change your life, only claim a minor portion of it.
Dan
Schneider
©
Dan Schneider 2006
www.Cosmoetica.com
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