Les Misérables

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Les Misérables

Victor Hugo

Literature

Aug 11, 2018

The product of two decades of literary labor, Les Misérables was begun while the author enjoyed political favor in Paris and finished during Hugo’s nineteen-year political exile in the Channel Islands. At the core of its vast narrative is Jean Valjean, a peasant imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving children. This rash act will haunt him through all the events that follow, for even though the noble Valjean can escape prison, he cannot escape his past, which relentlessly pursues him in the body of the implacable Inspector Javert. Hugo’s fierce advocacy for the poor and oppressed (the book’s title might be translated as “The Wretched” or “The Outcasts”) runs like an electric current through the intricate plot that leads readers from the countryside to the urban underworld, from the Battle of Waterloo to the Parisian sewers through which Valjean flees in one of the most famous episodes in all of fiction. Teeming with unforgettable characters—including the saintly bishop known as Monseigneur Bienvenu, the young and unfortunate seamstress Fantine, her orphaned daughter Cosette, the street urchin Gavroche, the villainous Thénardier, and the fiery revolutionary Marius—Les Misérables encompasses historical events, societal injustice, personal suffering and sacrifice, and love in all its hopes and heartaches.

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Mr. Griebel

Mar 27, 2019

Victor Hugo's awareness of humble faithful Christians, legalistic Christians, and Christian posers is spot-on in this enthralling French tale of life and revolution.

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