Les Miserables: “the immense”

Like War and Peace, Les Miserables is a book that many people reference but few people read. Both books each seem longer than Webster’s dictionary, which is reason enough for people to avoid them. To compare them would perhaps be a temptation, but they are as different as they are long.

In recent weeks, I have trekked through the fields and allies of Les Miserables, and I am beginning to think that even if people begin to read it they will not finish it simply because Hugo spends so many pages providing “back stories” for the characters. This, however, does not detract from the narrative; in my opinion, it adds layers to the story.

It would seem that the twentieth century would have us believe that there is one way to go about writing a novel: showing the story that the reader might eavesdrop. Hugo, however, has reminded me that there is a real art and beauty in telling a story. Layer after layer, Les Miserables unfolds divulging events from various persons’ lives that converge into conflict, terror, and redemption. It’s a five-act play with all the drama and irony Shakespeare could imagine.  

It’s no secret that I enjoy reading novels and that Dostoevsky is my favorite novelist. It would likely make sense then that I make a smattering of comments contrasting Hugo’s Les Miserables with bits of Dostoevsky’s corpus. First, however, a few notes of similarity are in order. Both seem to focus on the underbelly of society, and this focus sets a variety of trajectories that color the complexions of their respective narratives. In this bleak context of criminality and moral ambiguity, both paint poignant pictures of abuse, neglect, and deliverance of women – consider for a moment the tragic stories of Fantine in Les Miserables and Sonya in Crime and Punishment. This is especially appropriate considering it is most often women’s abuse that is ignored. There are numerous other similarities, but that will suffice for the moment.

Their respective anthropologies are no doubt a point of departure. For Hugo, it would seem that people are basically good and that it is society that grinds people into the sort of corrupt people that would commit abominable crimes. This would almost seem to be the case in Crime and Punishment, but Dostoevsky does not quite give us the luxury. Because the protagonist of Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov, is a destitute student at the end of his rope who then commits murder, we might be inclined to deduce that like Hugo Dostoevsky shows Raskolnikov to be a product of a system that failed him. However, as the story builds, Dostoevsky shows Raskolnikov’s motives for crime to be sundry and inscrutable (in a letter to a friend, Dostoevsky admits that even he does not know why Raskolnikov committed the murder). Unlike Hugo, for Dostoevsky humans are not basically good. For Dostoevsky, rich and poor alike are prone to crime and/or immorality. Dostoevsky’s anthropology of rather cynical ambiguity and depravity seems to be at a different point of the spectrum from Hugo’s. It may prove illuminating for future considerations if Hugo’s focus on systemic complicity and Dostoevsky’s focus on personal complicity are held together.

This then sets the stage for another point of difference: the path to redemption. Because Hugo is in the business of disparaging the corrupt justice system, it is precisely the corrupt system that must break down before Jean Valjean can be free. For Jean Valjean good deeds, escape, and the cessation of the system’s pursuit shall pave the road to redemption. However, Jean Valjean still battles with his conscience even when he evades the justice system. In contrast, it is the justice system that paves the road to redemption for Raskolnikov; for Raskolnikov confession and prison shall be the road to redemption. In my judgment, it seems that the breakdown of corrupt systems and confession could beneficially be held together. For both Hugo and Dostoevsky, conscience is a major player in the lives of their protagonists, albeit the justice system is portrayed variously.

Intertwined with their respective anthropologies and their notions of redemption are their exemplar humans or Christ figures. Setup as the exemplar in Les Miserables is the Christ-like bishop who rides on a donkey and who quite literally cares for the poor and disenfranchised. This seems to focus on Jesus’ acts towards the poor – e.g. see the gospel of Luke: the gospel is for the poor. And by the end of Les Miserables, Jean Valjean the convict has evolved into an angel and Christ-figure from the seed that the bishop planted at the beginning of the novel. In The Idiot the Christ figure is a protagonist who basically lacks common sense not because the protagonist is stupid but because the protagonist has not been corrupted by the “common sense” of the world; for example, the protagonist is completely naïve in regards to relations with women. This seems to focus on Jesus’ sinlessness. It seems that their Christ figures bespeak their differing anthropologies: while Hugo focuses on acts of justice, Dostoevsky focuses on innocence.

There are numerous other comparisons that could be mentioned, but these are merely a few considerations that kept cropping up in my mind as I meandered through the shadowy cobblestone streets, dank sewers, and battlefields of Les Miserables.

Les Miserables is a touching story of abuse and healing, and it is no surprise that quite a few movies have been “based” on this story. It’s a story about the evolution of a galley slave becoming an angel, a convict becoming a christ. It’s one of the most memorable stories in world literature. I would like to recommend this novel. However, considering that we live in an age of sound bytes, I suspect almost nobody would be too keen on having such an immense adventure.