Just Finished Reading Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Les Misérables, Victor Hugo's extremely long 1862 novel on the conflict between legalism and grace in the context of the tumultuous early eighteenth century in France, was a reading project I had begun a few years earlier but had curtailed after a few chapters, being occupied by other things.  Studiously avoiding in the interim any film or TV adaptations...including the 2012 musical starring Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, and Russell Crowe...I picked it up again recently and was rewarded with a wonderful reading experience...and a new perspective on France, its society, and history...

Jean Valjean, the story's main protagonist, is an unfortunate man who was caught up in the legal system, first as a convict for initially stealing a loaf of bread to feed a poverty-stricken family and then having his imprisonment extended to nineteen years after numerous failed escape attempts.  He is disillusioned and cynical, despised and shunned by others after his release for being an ex-con and forced to carry a passport branding him so, effectively barring him from employment or even lodging.  But after encountering the grace-filled and generous Bishop Myriel...about whom Hugo devoted a lengthy and very enlightening preface showing what true Christianity is...Valjean repents and embarks on a life of forgiveness and helping others.  But he has an adversary, police inspector Javert, who equates goodness and propriety with legalistically following the letter of the law without any regard to extenuating circumstances of those he pursues and persecutes.  Javert recognizes Jean Valjean from his convict days years after the latter had disguised himself as an industrialist and then economically transformed and reinvigorated a small city.  Along the way, while serving as the town's mayor, Valjean rescues from Javert's clutches an unfortunate woman Fantine, who had given her daughter Cosette up for care to an unscrupulous couple, the Thénardiers...and so progresses the plot in this tale for which I recommend you read it yourself in its entirety...

Although the story line about Jean Valjean, Cosette, Fantine, and Javert...to name just a few of the characters...was interesting, the thing I enjoyed the most about Les Misérables was when the author would digress into lengthy discussions about history or aspects of France.  His detailed description of the pivotal 1815 Battle of Waterloo between the victorious British under the Duke of Wellington and the resurgent French forces under Napoleon is something that no student of European history or the military will want to miss.  On the other hand, I probably could have done without Hugo's elaborate discussion of the sewer system of Paris, along with his notion that this system was wasteful in that it sent into the river...and eventually the ocean...human excrement that could have been put to better use in agriculture as fertilizer.  And although Hugo's preface about Bishop Myriel was about a fictional character, he described in a compelling way how someone who has turned to God to guide his life will correspondingly change his priorities to match that new direction...

Now that I've read Les Misérables, I'm ready to try out the film adaptation, and by that I mean the celebrated 2012 musical.  Of course, I don't expect the extensive commentary that Victor Hugo inserted into his excellent book to be in it and I do expect quite a lot of artistic license to have been taken by those responsible for the movie.  Still, I'm curious to see how they interpreted the characters and managed to create a successful musical out of it, of all things...