Les Miserables – Fin.

I finally finished reading Les Miserables this week.

People curse the television as one of the great afflictions of the modern age, but me, I think that it has contributed to the world embracing shorter novels, and I am all for this.  There are very few novels I can think of which I have read and which come in at over 1000 pages where I have thought, ‘goodness, that was over a bit too soon.  If only they could have made the effort to write a few hundred more pages.’

War and Peace could have done with a significant amount of editing.  The story was good, the repetitive philosophy on the nature of war would not have been missed by me, at least not after the first time.  Les Miserables, coming in at a hearty 1500 pages could have done with a wee bit of pruning too.

Again, the actual story of Les Miserables was not half bad.  Jean Valjean, our hero, is imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread (I know. The utter swine).  After 19 years hard labour he is freed, only to steal tuppence from a chimney sweep’s boy.  He eventually and with the help of a funky Bishop and some candlesticks repents of his ways, and becomes an all round bona fide saint.  This does not help him much, as not only is he haunted by the hideous nature of his crime, but he is also pursued vigorously all over France by the anally retentive Inspector Javert who wants to bring him to justice for his heinous misdemeanours.

While all this is going on, Jean Valjean gets embroiled in the life of Fantine, a much misunderstood prostitute with a heart of gold.  He nurses her until her death and then sets off to rescue her abandoned child, Cosette, who has fallen into the hands of the wicked innkeeper Thenardier and his equally wicked, mustachioed wife.

Jean loves Cosette with all his heart and spends the rest of his life trying to atone for his sins, avoid the Thenardiers as well as Javert, and bring Cosette up to live a life of honour and perfection.  It is tragic, romantic, ridiculous and altogether a cracking read.

All this is very well, but in between every 100 pages of story there are about two hundred pages of exposition in which we learn all about French religious orders, the complex workings of the Parisian sewer systems, whether Napoleon and the Empire was a good thing or not; the battle plans of the Battle of Waterloo, and Hugo’s feeling about the justice system.

Unlike Tolstoy Hugo does not go in for a great deal of repetition, but I do not believe him when he tells me that having an intimate working knowledge of the history of the French and their dealings with sewage, will make me empathise more with Jean Valjean as he tries to make his escape from the forces of justice, wading up to his thighs in pooh.  Surely Victor, it is a visceral enough image. I do not need to know who built the pipes or what the bricks were made of.

Three out of five.  It would have gotten four if I hadn’t had to read the last three hundred pages with it balanced on a cushion because my wrists couldn’t hold the damn book up any longer.