Who Are Les Miserables?

A response to @matthewjmandel asking my thoughts on A Comparative Book / Movie Review of LES MISÉRABLES

It’s interesting. I agree with a lot of the comments about losing complexity, but I don’t have as much of a problem with the character changes (partly because I’m used to the stage version, where Gavroche is less political & the the Thenardiers are funny, but still dangerous)

Eponine’s probably the biggest change that isn’t just a simplification, but I think her role in the story still works, even if the details have been changed.

I do have a problem with the finale, because it’s *not* Jean Valjean’s heaven by any stretch of the imagination. It works better on stage, where it’s more like a curtain call for all the characters who have died.

The main place I disagree with the post, though, is about the theme and title. Listening to @readlesmispod talking about how the word is perceived in French makes it clear that *all* of the main characters are “miserables” and Hugo is linking the sympathetic wretched like Valjean and Fantine with the clearly evil wretched like the Thenardiers because, as far as society is concerned, they’re the same. Society looks at Fantine and thinks she’s just as depraved as Thenardier.

And Hugo is arguing that they *all* deserve compassion, that they *all* should have a better life, that society should treat them *all* better, whether they turn to evil when they fall or not.

So the musical is less of a complete inversion of the theme and (once again) more of a simplification.

The latest episode of @readlesmispod covers the amazing scene where Eponine single-handedly stares down 6 hardened criminals and wins. As always, their analysis turns up some really interesting connections with other parts of the book!

The latest episode of @readlesmispod covers the amazing scene where Eponine single-handedly stares down 6 hardened criminals and wins.

As always, their analysis turns up some really interesting connections with other parts of the book! https://readlesmis.libsyn.com/ep40-iv8i-v-the-dangers-girls-face

…like the fact that Eponine channels both Javert and Thenardier, the two main antagonists, but uses their traits to act heroically.

@readlesmispod Yeah, I really like how it shows her resourcefulness as she switches tactics repeatedly, and the “you think you can intimidate *me*?” speech. And now I’m thinking of parallels with the chisel & powder keg.

@readlesmispod Yeah, I really like how it shows her resourcefulness as she switches tactics repeatedly, and the “you think you can intimidate *me*?” speech.

And now I’m thinking of parallels with the chisel & powder keg.

Malleability of identity: the two youngest Thénardier children swapped to Magnon, Thénardier becoming Jondrette, the obvious pseudonym of Mademoiselle Miss, taking up a new ID by moving a block away…

Malleability of identity: the two youngest Thénardier children swapped to Magnon, Thénardier becoming Jondrette, the obvious pseudonym of Mademoiselle Miss, taking up a new ID by moving a block away…

“Woe to the intellectual kind of worker whose thinking completely subsides into daydreaming! He thinks he will easily regain lost ground, and he tells himself that after all they both amount to the same thing. Wrong!” Ok, M. Hugo, no more Twitter during work hours…

“Woe to the intellectual kind of worker whose thinking completely subsides into daydreaming! He thinks he will easily regain lost ground, and he tells himself that after all they both amount to the same thing. Wrong!”

Ok, M. Hugo, no more Twitter during work hours…

Grantaire, trying to impress Enjolras, insists he’s perfectly capable of both walking to the quarry to meet with the marble workers (his shoes are capable too!) and talking revolution with them. I know stuff! Naturally he ends up playing dominoes with them instead. Le sigh. 🤦

Grantaire, trying to impress Enjolras, insists he’s perfectly capable of both walking to the quarry to meet with the marble workers (his shoes are capable too!) and talking revolution with them. I know stuff!

Naturally he ends up playing dominoes with them instead.

Le sigh. 🤦

Despite the specifics to the July Monarchy, there are a lot of universal issues: political philosophy breaking into factions, solving both the production & distribution of wealth (Hugo disparages both communists & unrestricted capitalism on the same page), etc.

Despite the specifics to the July Monarchy, there are a lot of universal issues: political philosophy breaking into factions, solving both the production & distribution of wealth (Hugo disparages both communists & unrestricted capitalism on the same page), etc.

Yeah, and hierarchy is so important to Javert that it overshadows just about everything else. I figure that’s what makes Valjean such a sore point for him, is that he forces him into severe cognitive dissonance — more than once!

@readlesmispod Yeah, and hierarchy is so important to Javert that it overshadows just about everything else. I figure that’s what makes Valjean such a sore point for him, is that he forces him into severe cognitive dissonance — more than once!

Marius & Cosette…

I really appreciate that in the novel, Marius & Cosette have an actual courtship, not the love at first sight that most of the adaptations go with for time.

It’s also amusing how much of it is done stealthily, stealing glances at each other across the park.

And it’s really amusing to watch how clumsy Marius is when it comes to not being noticed, while Cosette manages to keep things secret from her father even after Marius starts visiting her in her own garden, months later.

OTOH, there’s also the awkward stalker stage in between.

I’d forgotten just how much fool he makes himself over the handkerchief! 🤣🤣🤣

“We ourselves respect the past in certain instances and in all cases grant it clemency, provided it consents to being dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack and try to kill it.” – Victor Hugo on social attitudes and practices once commonplace, but now seen as harmful.

“We ourselves respect the past in certain instances and in all cases grant it clemency, provided it consents to being dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack and try to kill it.”

– Victor Hugo on social attitudes and practices once commonplace, but now seen as harmful.