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Les Misérables
by Victor Hugo, Norman MacAfee , Lee Fahnestock
by Victor Hugo, Norman MacAfee , Lee Fahnestock
I can't give this book any less than five stars, even though I know its flaws (which I'll get to in a minute). I become an obsessed melancholy fangirl when I read it--this was the third or fourth time I've read it in my life, and surely not the last--and it kept me up late turning pages time and time again. Notice how I finished it in three weeks, despite turning each of those 1,200 pages. (Well, this time it was on Nook, so it was more like tapping than turning.)
Technically I did read the unabridged, but I skimmed the parts that likely get abridged--histories, monologues, and other flights of dense detail. That said, I think it might be good to choose the unabridged and give yourself the option of dwelling in those historical moments or Deep Hugo Thoughts if you feel like it.
Things I love:
The seriously difficult character dilemmas.
The way you can feel sympathy for every character (okay, not so much the Thenardiers).
The cool adventure.
The totally swoonworthy romance.
The feeling of this being utterly real despite it being obviously dated.
The feeling of wanting to be a better person yourself because of what you see these characters go through.
The flaws:
Really, those wordy chapters that aren't about the main characters do get irritatingly in the way at exciting places sometimes.
Fair dose of Victorian melodrama. ("See Marius angst. Angst, Marius, angst," as a Les Mis forum summarized one section. And the angst is certainly not confined to Marius.)
Too many crazy coincidences. You'd think France was about a mile square with a population of fifty people, the way they all keep running into each other in the darnedest places.
Still, I absolutely love this story, and will surely spend more time with it over the course of my life. Likely I'll begin by writing a condensed parody version of the unabridged, just to make myself smile and allow myself to linger in Les-Mis world.
Random update, from June 25: Note for self and posterity: in the past, in reading this book, I assumed the chapter "A Heart Beneath a Stone" was Hugo rhapsodizing about love, rather than giving us the actual text of Marius' letter to Cosette. I suppose I figured the letter was too personal to share or something. This time around, I succeeded in realizing that "A Heart Beneath a Stone" (http://www.classicreader.com/book/268... ) *is* Marius' letter to her--his assorted heartfelt thoughts that he occasionally scribbled in a notebook, which was mentioned in an earlier chapter, in which he called it "writing to her." Yes, hi, I'm dense. Makes me love Marius that much more, though, if those are *his* words.
Technically I did read the unabridged, but I skimmed the parts that likely get abridged--histories, monologues, and other flights of dense detail. That said, I think it might be good to choose the unabridged and give yourself the option of dwelling in those historical moments or Deep Hugo Thoughts if you feel like it.
Things I love:
The seriously difficult character dilemmas.
The way you can feel sympathy for every character (okay, not so much the Thenardiers).
The cool adventure.
The totally swoonworthy romance.
The feeling of this being utterly real despite it being obviously dated.
The feeling of wanting to be a better person yourself because of what you see these characters go through.
The flaws:
Really, those wordy chapters that aren't about the main characters do get irritatingly in the way at exciting places sometimes.
Fair dose of Victorian melodrama. ("See Marius angst. Angst, Marius, angst," as a Les Mis forum summarized one section. And the angst is certainly not confined to Marius.)
Too many crazy coincidences. You'd think France was about a mile square with a population of fifty people, the way they all keep running into each other in the darnedest places.
Still, I absolutely love this story, and will surely spend more time with it over the course of my life. Likely I'll begin by writing a condensed parody version of the unabridged, just to make myself smile and allow myself to linger in Les-Mis world.
Random update, from June 25: Note for self and posterity: in the past, in reading this book, I assumed the chapter "A Heart Beneath a Stone" was Hugo rhapsodizing about love, rather than giving us the actual text of Marius' letter to Cosette. I suppose I figured the letter was too personal to share or something. This time around, I succeeded in realizing that "A Heart Beneath a Stone" (http://www.classicreader.com/book/268... ) *is* Marius' letter to her--his assorted heartfelt thoughts that he occasionally scribbled in a notebook, which was mentioned in an earlier chapter, in which he called it "writing to her." Yes, hi, I'm dense. Makes me love Marius that much more, though, if those are *his* words.
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Quotes Molly Liked
“Marius and Cosette were in the dark in regard to each other. They did not speak, they did not bow, they were not acquainted; they saw each other; and, like the stars in the sky separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing upon each other.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“He fell to the seat, she by his side. There were no more words. The stars were beginning to shine. How was it that the birds sing, that the snow melts, that the rose opens, that May blooms, that the dawns whitens behind the black trees on the shivering summit of the hills?
One kiss, and that was all.
Both trembled, and they looked at each other in the darkness with brilliant eyes.
They felt neither the cool night, nor the cold stone, nor the damp ground, nor the wet grass; they looked at each other, and their hearts were full of thought. They had clasped hands, without knowing it.
She did not ask him; did not even think where and how he had managed to get into the garden. It seemed so natural to her that he should be there.
From time to time Marius’ knee touched Cosette’s. A touch that thrilled.
At times, Cosette faltered out a word. Her soul trembled on her lips like a drop of dew on a flower.
Gradually, they began to talk. Overflow succeeded to silence, which is fullness. The night was serene and glorious above their heads. These two beings, pure as spirits, told each other everything, their dreams, their frenzies, their ecstasies, their chimeras, their despondencies, how they had adored each other from afar, how they had longed for each other, their despair when they had ceased to see each other. They had confided to each other in an intimacy of the ideal, which already, nothing could have increased, all that was most hidden and most mysterious in themselves. They told each other, with a candid faith in their illusions, all that love, youth and the remnant of childhood that was theirs, brought to mind. These two hearts poured themselves out to each other, so that at the end of an hour, it was the young man who had the young girl’s soul and the young girl who had the soul of the young man. They interpenetrated, they enchanted, they dazzled each other.
When they had finished, when they had told each other everything, she laid her head on his shoulder, and asked him: "What is your name?"
My name is Marius," he said. "And yours?"
My name is Cosette.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
One kiss, and that was all.
Both trembled, and they looked at each other in the darkness with brilliant eyes.
They felt neither the cool night, nor the cold stone, nor the damp ground, nor the wet grass; they looked at each other, and their hearts were full of thought. They had clasped hands, without knowing it.
She did not ask him; did not even think where and how he had managed to get into the garden. It seemed so natural to her that he should be there.
From time to time Marius’ knee touched Cosette’s. A touch that thrilled.
At times, Cosette faltered out a word. Her soul trembled on her lips like a drop of dew on a flower.
Gradually, they began to talk. Overflow succeeded to silence, which is fullness. The night was serene and glorious above their heads. These two beings, pure as spirits, told each other everything, their dreams, their frenzies, their ecstasies, their chimeras, their despondencies, how they had adored each other from afar, how they had longed for each other, their despair when they had ceased to see each other. They had confided to each other in an intimacy of the ideal, which already, nothing could have increased, all that was most hidden and most mysterious in themselves. They told each other, with a candid faith in their illusions, all that love, youth and the remnant of childhood that was theirs, brought to mind. These two hearts poured themselves out to each other, so that at the end of an hour, it was the young man who had the young girl’s soul and the young girl who had the soul of the young man. They interpenetrated, they enchanted, they dazzled each other.
When they had finished, when they had told each other everything, she laid her head on his shoulder, and asked him: "What is your name?"
My name is Marius," he said. "And yours?"
My name is Cosette.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“...The first symptom of true love in a man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other's qualities.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“To pay compliments to the one we love is the first method of caressing, a demi-audacity venturing. A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“You are adorable, mademoiselle. I study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“Cosette, in her seclusion, like Marius in his, was all ready to take fire. Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, was slowly bringing these two beings near each other, fully charged and all languishing with the stormy electricities of passion,—these two souls which held love as two clouds hold lightning, and which were to meet and mingle in a glace like clouds in a flash.
The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only. The rest is only the rest, and comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than these great shocks which two souls give each other in exchanging this spark.
At that particular moment when Cosette unconsciously looked with this glance which so affected Marius, Marius had no suspicion that he also had a glance which affected Cosette.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only. The rest is only the rest, and comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than these great shocks which two souls give each other in exchanging this spark.
At that particular moment when Cosette unconsciously looked with this glance which so affected Marius, Marius had no suspicion that he also had a glance which affected Cosette.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“Marius and Cosette did not ask where this would lead them. They looked at themselves as arrived. It is a strange pretension for men to ask that love should lead them somewhere.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“I have an old hat which is not worth three francs, I have a coat which lacks buttons in front, my shirt is all ragged, my elbows are torn, my boots let in the water; for the last six weeks I have not thought about it, and I have not told you about it. You only see me at night, and you give me your love; if you were to see me in the daytime, you would give me a sou!”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
