Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

10/10

I absolutely love this book, one of the best of all-time. I always thought that the title translated into The Miserables, but in the introduction to my book it says that it comes "from the Latin miserabilis, worthy of pity, it refers to anyone who deserves to be pitied." This makes a lot more sense to me. Jean Valjean is, perhaps, my very favorite fictional character ever. That includes movies and other mediums that provide fictional characters. Jean Valjean is anything but a miserable character. But he is most certainly a pitiable one.

Reading this book was one of the funner reading experiences that I have had. We learn to care deeply for Valjean and discover his extreme goodness repeatedly. But it is the man, Myriel, who transforms Valjean's life. This book shows how people can be forever changed through simple acts of love and kindness.

Plus, the endless chase of Javert pursuing Jean Valjean is pretty dang intense. One of the best rivalries ever. It is through this chase that we really see how good a person Valjean actually has become. He has his chances to rid himself of Javert who causes Valjean so much constant anxiety but does not do it. He even saves Javert's life on one occasion much to Javert's bewilderment. We also learn of Valjean's goodness during a period when his adopted daughter is kept from him due to falsified or misleading accounts of his character and past life.

There is so, so much more to this book and things and characters that I didn't cover. The book is epic and cannot be covered in a relatively brief blog post. There are, indeed, some trecherous and villainous folk doing their dispicable, dastardly deeds.

This book "rules", as the kids say. As Hugo says in his preface: "So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilisation, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is devine...so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless."

Some of my favoriter quotes:

"One can no more pray too much than love too much."

"Yours is like a beautiful face, upon which someone has sat down by mistake." Awesome.

"To lie a little is not possible; he who lies, lies a whole lie."

"One can no more prevent the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. In the case of the sailor, this is called the tide; in the case of the guilty, it is called remorse. God upheaves the soul as well as the ocean."

"The highest duty is to think of others."

"Tomorrow performs its work irresistibly, and it performs it from today."

"People are ignorant of what they ought to know, and know those things of which they ought to be ignorant."

"When met by adversity, he saluted that acquantance cordially, he patted catastrophes on the back."

"There is one thing sadder than to see their children die - to see them lead evil lives."

"Cities, like forests, have their den in which hide all their vilest and most terrible monsters. But in cities, what hides thus is ferocious, unclean, and petty, that is to say, ugly; in forests, what hides is ferocious, savage, and grand, that is to say, beautiful. Den for den, those of beasts are preferrable to those of men."

"If there is anything more poignant than a body agonising for want of bread, it is a soul which is dying of hunger for light."

"Civil war? What does this mean? Is there any foreign war? Is not every war between men, war between brothers?"

"A cannon ball makes only two thousand miles an hour; light makes two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon."

"The pupil dilates in the night, and at last finds day in it, even as the soul dilates in misfortune, and at last finds God in it."

"God knows better than we do what we need....Because things are unpleasant, that is no reason for being unjust towards God."

"It is nothing to die; it is frightful not to live."

"There is scarcely anything else in the world but that: to love one another."