 | A WRITER'S WIT |  J. K. Rowling |
MY BOOK WORLD
Hugo, Victor. With an introduction by Adam Gopnik and notes by James Madden. Les Misérables. Translated by Julie Rose. New York: Modern Library, 2008 (1862).
I was aware that my brother had read Les Misérables, but when he recently informed me that he had plowed through it three times, I was astounded and a little cowed. I’d read Melville’s Moby Dick twice, and those readings were fifty years apart. When bro actually brought me his copy (I’d said I would like to read it, after all), I sensed that he’d thrown down a certain gauntlet, and, of course, I felt I must accept. Now here I am at the end of 1,194 pages not knowing quite how to begin.
A little bit about how I read the novel. I began by perusing it silently, and after one hundred pages, I decided to listen to this very version on Audible, as I followed the written text silently. This method forced me to concentrate. The narrator, George Guidall, an American stage actor, does a mahvelous job of reading the English as well as the French peppered throughout each and every page. I decided I must listen/read at least two hours per evening until I finished the book, and that I have gladly done. I may follow this procedure with more classics. Oh, and most people know that you can listen to the narrator at 1.5 times the normal speed and still understand what is being said!
As I reached the three-quarter mark of my reading, it occurred to me that the novel is structured perhaps like a pageant of tableaux, where, in some sense, the characters do freeze into a certain pose, so that readers may soak up what is happening. For example, in one place where Hugo wishes for us to “pan the crowd,” so to speak, he takes us through the minds of twenty different characters and does so rather economically. No wonder the novel has so easily been adapted into the American musical style—a format cleverly attuned to the concept of pageantry.
The five major “Parts” are divided into “books.” Each book is then divided into titled subchapters—these titles aid in knitting the gigantic (yet simple) narrative together. To think that the novel begins with Jean Valjean, a man who steals a loaf of bread and is imprisoned for nineteen years. Four of the five Parts are named after principal characters: Fantine, a prostitute whom Jean Valjean rescues from being arrested; Cosette, Fantine’s out-of-wedlock daughter; Marius, a young man who falls in love with Cosette, a very chaste love; and Jean Valjean, the thief, who eludes the detective; and Javert, who seeks to capture the parole-breaking Valjean. Simple, right?
No! Hugo goes into great detail about everything: history, architecture, art, French law, the French Revolution, the Paris sewer system, and more. For example, he flashes back to 1815 to the Battle of Waterloo. One must almost be a student of history, or else learn one’s history from Hugo. The reader learns the intimate thoughts of all the major characters and a few of the minor ones, too. At one point, when Valjean rescues Cosette from the family who have been exploiting her, the following takes place:
“Cosette walked gravely, opening wide her huge eyes and studying the sky. She had put her louis in the pocket of her new smock. From time to time she bent over and took a peek at it, then she looked at the man. She felt a bit like she was walking along next to God” (350). This passage brought tears to my eyes.
In keeping with the scale of the book, the denouement seems to spread languorously over the last one hundred pages, yet they are no less interesting than the first 1,100. Valjean makes an important decision for himself, and Marius, though frustrated with it, helps Valjean to carry out his plan. Hugo is one of those nineteenth-century writers who employs the omniscient point of view but as if he, the author, is part of the story. His sweeping use of first-person plural is stupefying, yet while being omniscient, it is oddly personal—as if he knows each character as well as he would be acquainted with a member of his family. I can see why the first-person plural is sometimes referred to as “the royal we, (or majestic plural)” because it seems a commanding position in which to be when creating such an outsized narrative. I apologize for presenting perhaps an impressionistic discussion of the book, but if you wish to know the plot, you must, as I have, read the damn book yourself. That said, I loved every word of it, and thank my brother (whose name is also Victor, hmm) for introducing it to me. Read it a second or third time? Hmm, how much time do I have left (on earth, I mean)?
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I was aware that my brother had read Les Misérables, but when he recently informed me that he had plowed through it three times, I was astounded and a little cowed. I’d read Melville’s Moby Dick twice, and those readings were fifty years apart. When bro actually brought me his copy (I’d said I would like to read it, after all), I sensed that he’d thrown down a certain gauntlet, and, of course, I felt I must accept. Now here I am at the end of 1,194 pages not knowing quite how to begin.
A little bit about how I read the novel. I began by perusing it silently, and after one hundred pages, I decided to listen to this very version on Audible, as I followed the written text silently. This method forced me to concentrate. The narrator, George Guidall, an American stage actor, does a mahvelous job of reading the English as well as the French peppered throughout each and every page. I decided I must listen/read at least two hours per evening until I finished the book, and that I have gladly done. I may follow this procedure with more classics. Oh, and most people know that you can listen to the narrator at 1.5 times the normal speed and still understand what is being said!
As I reached the three-quarter mark of my reading, it occurred to me that the novel is structured perhaps like a pageant of tableaux, where, in some sense, the characters do freeze into a certain pose, so that readers may soak up what is happening. For example, in one place where Hugo wishes for us to “pan the crowd,” so to speak, he takes us through the minds of twenty different characters and does so rather economically. No wonder the novel has so easily been adapted into the American musical style—a format cleverly attuned to the concept of pageantry.
The five major “Parts” are divided into “books.” Each book is then divided into titled subchapters—these titles aid in knitting the gigantic (yet simple) narrative together. To think that the novel begins with Jean Valjean, a man who steals a loaf of bread and is imprisoned for nineteen years. Four of the five Parts are named after principal characters: Fantine, a prostitute whom Jean Valjean rescues from being arrested; Cosette, Fantine’s out-of-wedlock daughter; Marius, a young man who falls in love with Cosette, a very chaste love; and Jean Valjean, the thief, who eludes the detective; and Javert, who seeks to capture the parole-breaking Valjean. Simple, right?
No! Hugo goes into great detail about everything: history, architecture, art, French law, the French Revolution, the Paris sewer system, and more. For example, he flashes back to 1815 to the Battle of Waterloo. One must almost be a student of history, or else learn one’s history from Hugo. The reader learns the intimate thoughts of all the major characters and a few of the minor ones, too. At one point, when Valjean rescues Cosette from the family who have been exploiting her, the following takes place:
“Cosette walked gravely, opening wide her huge eyes and studying the sky. She had put her louis in the pocket of her new smock. From time to time she bent over and took a peek at it, then she looked at the man. She felt a bit like she was walking along next to God” (350). This passage brought tears to my eyes.
In keeping with the scale of the book, the denouement seems to spread languorously over the last one hundred pages, yet they are no less interesting than the first 1,100. Valjean makes an important decision for himself, and Marius, though frustrated with it, helps Valjean to carry out his plan. Hugo is one of those nineteenth-century writers who employs the omniscient point of view but as if he, the author, is part of the story. His sweeping use of first-person plural is stupefying, yet while being omniscient, it is oddly personal—as if he knows each character as well as he would be acquainted with a member of his family. I can see why the first-person plural is sometimes referred to as “the royal we, (or majestic plural)” because it seems a commanding position in which to be when creating such an outsized narrative. I apologize for presenting perhaps an impressionistic discussion of the book, but if you wish to know the plot, you must, as I have, read the damn book yourself. That said, I loved every word of it, and thank my brother (whose name is also Victor, hmm) for introducing it to me. Read it a second or third time? Hmm, how much time do I have left (on earth, I mean)?
Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Dennis Lehane
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Ruth Sawyer
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Andy Warhol
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Betsy Byars
My Book World | Namwali Serpell, On Morrison (Toni)
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