Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary
Les Misérables is a story about love, redemption, revenge, devotion, loyalty, commitment, and yes, misery. It takes place in France during the years from 1815-1832. The story centers around two main characters: Jean Valjean and Cosette. Jean Valjean is a convict who was imprisoned in the galleys for stealing bread to feed his family. He attempts to escape from prison several times, and each attempt adds more years to his sentence. After spending somewhere between 30 and 40 years in jail, he receives unexpected kindness from a man named Monsieur Bienvenu. Jean Valjean steals candlesticks from Monsieur Bienvenu, but after receiving forgiveness and even having Monsieur Bienvenu cover for him with the police, Jean Valjean decides to turn his life around. He slowly but surely develops a great fortune in manufacturing, and he becomes a well-respected mayor in a small town. Cosette's mother, Fantine, a lower-class woman who is abandoned by her lover/Cosette's father, ends up working in the same town where Jean Valjean is the mayor. Fantine leaves Cosette in the care of an innkeeper and his wife, the Thénardiers, because Fantine can't care for Cosette and work to keep her clothed and fed at the same time. Fantine sends money to the Thénardiers to support Cosette's existence, but the Thénardiers abuse Cosette and milk Fantine for all she has. Fantine eventually gets very ill and is fired. Here's where the story gets complicated. Javert, the police chief in Jean Valjean's town, suspects that Jean Valjean is really an escaped convict. Meanwhile, Jean Valjean is known to his town as Monsieur Madeleine. Javert tries to arrest Fantine for being on the street and being disorderly, but Jean Valjean takes her in. Javert tells JvJ (we'll abbreviate from here on out) that he knows who he is. JvJ denies it. Then Javert tells JvJ (a little later) that he's found the real JvJ, and that he is going to Paris to try this real JvJ for his crimes. JvJ now has a crisis of conscience, and decides that even though he's turned his life around, he can't let an innocent man go down for his crimes, so he leaves the very ill Fantine in the care of his servants and heads to Paris. He tells the court that he is JvJ, and at first they don't believe him, but two witnesses corroborate that he is the real JvJ, and after JvJ gets back to town, Javert comes to arrest him. JvJ asks for just a few days to go and retrieve Cosette (as he as at this point realized the Thénardiers are not good guardians, and Fantine has died when Javert comes to arrest JvJ) but Javert laughs at him and arrests him just the same. JvJ breaks out of the city prison and manages to get to Paris and take his large fortune out of the bank and hide it (but we don't know where). JvJ then gets retaken and ends up back in the galleys. During a crazy event on the galley ship, JvJ is presumed dead. At this point, he finds Cosette, takes her from the Thénardiers (who are NOT pleased to have lost their source of income and their little slave) and he travels to Paris with her. They live a very small existence in a very hidden, very poor corner of Paris, until JvJ recognizes Javert (who didn't believe JvJ was dead and was still hunting for him) and they manage to escape into a nunnery. They stay there for awhile and live a very private existence, after which they move on to a slightly nicer area. They are still very secretive, and can't be too obvious. At this point, they've become Monsieur and Mademoiselle Fauchelevent, the name of a man who took them in at the nunnery. Now Marius enters the story, a young boy who falls madly in love with Cosette after seeing her in the Jardin de Luxembourg, walking with JvJ. He basically stalks them for awhile, and eventually he and Cosette end up having a very tame nighttime-rendezvous-in-the-garden relationship. A situation happens where Marius is living next to the Thénardiers and the Thénardiers try to milk JvJ for all he's worth and trap him but Marius intervenes with the help of Javert and the Thénardiers all go to jail except Éponine, Azelma, and Gavroche, their kids. Éponine is in love with Marius, but he just wants her help finding Cosette, and she helps him track her down. Thénardier escapes from prison and inadvertently tries to rob JvJ (doesn't know it is him) but Éponine, who has been watching Cosette and Marius each night, threatens to get her father caught, and he has to go away. Eventually Éponine gets upset about their relationship, and she sends JvJ a secret note telling him to "Remove immediately." JvJ freaks out, thinks his identity has been compromised, and immediately takes Cosette to a different place and prepares to move them to London. Marius had heard that they were going to go, and he planned to follow, but they move so quickly that he hasn't time to find out where they're going. Totally in despair, he joins up with his friends who are launching the June Rebellion, a very short and ill-fated attempt by some students to re-launch the republic of France and revolt against the current power. JvJ finds out that Cosette is in love with Marius and freaks out, because he has basically lived only for Cosette for the last 15 years or so. He thinks about killing Marius, but ends up going to the building where Marius is fighting and helping out. Javert ends up getting taken hostage by Marius's friends because they think he is a spy. Éponine resurfaces dressed as a boy at the rebellion and tells Marius she loves him as she dies from a bullet meant for Marius. Marius still basically has a death wish since he thinks he's lost Cosette, and he ends up with some pretty serious injuries. Eventually, all of Marius's friends die. JvJ is charged with killing the spy (Javert) and he takes him outside where no one can see. He sets Javert free, tells him that after the scuffle is over he can be found at such and such an address and Javert can come to arrest him (which confuses Javert) and then takes a shot in the air; everyone thinks he has killed Javert, but Javert escapes. JvJ escapes with a possibly dead Marius to the sewers of Paris. Unsure of whether Marius is dead or alive, but now committed to returning his body to his grandfather (with whom Marius is estranged, as they fought over French politics), JvJ trudges miles and miles through the sewers, not knowing whether or not he is going the right way or whether Marius is dead or alive. He eventually reaches the end of the sewer, where, as it turns out Thénardier is hiding. Thénardier does not recognize JvJ, but thinks he has killed Marius and is trying to dispose of the body. He has a secret key for the sewer grate, but he knows that Javert is on the other side, as he had been caught in the act of trying to steal something and jumped into the sewer to escape. Thénardier tricks JvJ into giving him all of Marius's money, and he tears off a piece of Marius's coat as he's looking for more money. He then unlocks the grate. JvJ emerges triumphantly, only to find himself face to face with Javert. He tells Javert he is his prisoner, but begs Javert to let him take Marius to his grandfather's house. Javert assents, and the two men take Marius to his family. Marius is in very poor health for several months, but eventually recovers. JvJ then asks one more favor of Javert - to let him go home. Javert assents, and when JvJ looks down to see if Javert is waiting to take him to prison, Javert is gone. Javert has a crisis of conscience, because JvJ has saved his life, and he doesn't know what to do if he can't uphold the law and arrest him, and he ends up drowning himself in the Seine. JvJ visits Marius each day, and eventually Marius makes up with his grandfather and gets engaged to Cosette. They get married, and all is about to end happily ever after, but JvJ reveals to Marius that he is a convict. Marius (who has this whole time been looking for his mysterious savior from the sewers - he doesn't know it was JvJ, and JvJ hasn't told him) is horrified, and JvJ basically offers to sacrifice spending time with them and living with them because if he were to get caught one day while out with them in public, it would ruin their reputation and horrify Cosette. Marius tells JvJ he can come to visit her each day, so JvJ visits each day, but will only be seen in secret, in the basement. Marius refuses to accept JvJ's enormous fortune, which JvJ bequeaths to them, because he thinks that JvJ has stolen it from a man named Monsieur Madeleine. Eventually, JvJ stops coming entirely, because he thinks it is best, and he falls quite ill due to severe depression. Thénardier resurfaces and tries to tell Marius that JvJ is an assassin and an impostor(telling him the story of the sewer and showing him the ripped off bit of jacket and talking about him calling himself Monsieur Madeleine) but Marius finally realizes that JvJ is the one who saved him and that he didn't rob Monsieur Madeleine, he was Monsieur Madeleine. He immediately takes Cosette to see JvJ (she has been asking after him, wondering where he is) and they apologize profusely for abandoning him. He is ecstatic at their return, but too ill to recover, and after telling them how best to maximize their fortune, he dies with Cosette and Marius at his side.
Spoiler Over: Continue Here
Whew! This plot was quite tricky! This book was a really interesting reading experience. I hated about the first 250 pages, and I thought the book was going to be about nothing but misery and despair. Every character introduced had some sob story, and I just didn't feel any connection with the characters. I didn't think JvJ was a bad guy, but I really had no interest in what happened to him. I almost stopped reading the book.
I didn't, however, as my blog stipulates a 'cover-to-cover' effort, and I am so glad I didn't! The book had a stark turnaround for me, and I went from total lack of interest to not being able to put it down. The various stories finally came together, and the June Rebellion and a few other events brought the action to a climax. I suddenly found myself quite concerned about Marius, Cosette, and JvJ's fates, and when Javert had his crisis of conscience, I was seriously moved.
By the time I got to JvJ's sacrifice and his slow decline, I was tearing through each page, waiting and hoping for Marius to find out the truth! In the end, I certainly understood why the book was titled Les Misérables, but each character's misery was to a proper degree and made sense with the rest of the story and in balance with the eventual bliss of Marius, Cosette, and Marius's family.
This was truly an excellent novel in every sense of the word. The characters were well drawn, the plot was moving, and the descriptions and sentences themselves were beautifully constructed. Victor Hugo, I am well pleased!
The title of this post is a line Cosette says to JvJ during one of their meetings in the basement. I think it perfectly sums up JvJ's character in the book; he is frightening in a lot of ways - powerful, an amazing impostor who leads a double life for most of his life, frighteningly strong, fiercely protective of Cosette - but as we come to know him throughout the book, we are bombarded again and again by his good deeds and his humility after each one.
Other phrases in contention for the title:
"Should I spare myself more than others?" - this is what JvJ asks himself as he decides whether or not to go to Paris and admit he is the real JvJ, but it is also a question he asks himself over and over again. He saves Marius when he really wants to kill him, because he knows he loves Cosette and she loves him, and he stops seeing Cosette and cuts himself out of her life to protect her, even though it literally kills him.
"I am going, since I am not arrested. I have many things to do." - JvJ says this after revealing he is the true JvJ and no one believes him at first. I think this is a great moment; JvJ is like, seriously? no one believes me? okay, fine, I've got shit to do. Peace!
"The highest justice is conscience" - Javert says this early in the novel, and it's really what he struggles with as he decides whether to arrest JvJ or kill himself.
"Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers." - JvJ goes into the battle planning to kill Marius, but he ends up leaving it with Marius on his back and trudging through the nastiest muck for hours and hours across the underground network of Paris to save him. He finds this fraternity with Marius during the battle.
"I should not come often. I would not stay long." - JvJ says this to Marius after he asks if he can come to visit Cosette. It is so painfully sweet. JvJ has just offered to give up the one thing he cares most about in the world, and he can barely bring himself to ask to visit, so he says, beseechingly, that he would only come for a moment every once in a while. This is so tender, it broke my heart.
"I will wait here for you." - These are Javert's last words to JvJ, and ones he ends up going back on. His departure and eventual suicide was one of the book's really big surprises for me. I was shocked when he threw himself into the Seine, and I thought Hugo's description of Javert's mental anguish was exquisite.
Some scenes you should really re-read or pay close attention to if you haven't read it:
-The crazy way that JvJ gets into the nunnery (there's a buried alive scene - it's NUTSo!)
-Marius' borderline stalking of Cosette (I think it would seriously be considered restraining-order-worthy in current days, but it's sort of adorable here) and how he comes to think her name is Ursula. (hiLarious)
-The crazy scene with the Thénardiers trying to take JvJ prisoner. Really well written.
-The scene where Marius reconciles with his grandfather. It is adorable and endearing and one of the happiest moments I've ever read in literature. So cute! (By Jove! I decree Joy!)
-June Rebellion battle scene - Marius is crazy in this, but it is so intricate and complex and rife with emotion and turmoil. Really really good stuff. Reminded me of Helm's Deep in the Two Towers (yes, I know, LOTR nerd, so sue me!)
Hugo really is a lyricist. He has an incredible way with words that I found riveting. Reminiscent of Steinbeck, though I admit I found Hugo's plot more interesting. Here are a few examples I really enjoyed, keeping in mind that I read this in translation, so some kudos is definitely due to the translator and Hugo's words may be even better in the original French:
-Jean Valjean had one of those rare smiles which came over him like the aurora in a winter sky.
-A certain oscillation shook the whole horizon of his brain, a strange internal moving-day.
-The evening had that serenity which buries the sorrows of man under a strangely dreary yet eternal joy.
Cosette's character has a fascinating trajectory. She goes from being this unloved and unlovable wretch to a loved but homely foundling, to a captivating beauty, to a devoted lover and a borderline spoiled rich girl who's still really good at heart. I loved this whole journey of hers and not knowing where exactly she'd end up on the spectrum of poor and rich, good and bad.
I like that JvJ takes Cosette out of the nunnery, despite the fact that, like many fathers, he'd rather keep her away from men forever, because, as he says, "This child had a right to know what life is before renouncing it." This is so true, and I often feel that things are foisted on children before they're old enough to make their own decisions about it (religion, for one). I really respected JvJ as a parent after this moment.
I'll end with some of JvJ's last words to Cosette and Marius - "There is scarcely anything in the world but that; to love one another." So go about your lives, read this book if you haven't (can't speak to the musical, so cast that aside for now and check out the original) and love one another.
Off to read the killing fields 17. Or is it animal death 21? Oh right, Slaughterhouse-Five.
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