I am proud to say that I finally finished Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I am eager to share my thoughts and hear yours!
I'm going to begin with the ending: it was just overwhelming and truly, heart-shattering sad, but I liked it. I felt like it just wrapped up the story in a perfect manner, not with a huge plot twist that would change the whole vibe of the book, if that makes sense. I just got so attached to Jean Valjean's character because oh my goodness, this POOR MANNNN can't catch a break at all. His life was full of (besides of his love and care for Cosette) pain, running away and living in constant fear and regret. I don't recall a moment in which he truly ever felt at peace? Even when Cosette was safe in that monastery, just as I thought that things were sort of settling down, he was abruptedly ambushed by worrying thoughts about her future and about how he can't really stay there forever. Correct me if I'm wrong, this is what I'm remembering from the previous volumes that I read in the span of like..2 years I think?
I just love how Jean Valjean is written, what a writing masterclass from Victor Hugo, really. Even in the final moments of his life, he remembered about the bishop from the begging of the book and honestly, I could not finish this masterpiece without crying. The kindness and support the bishop showed truly changed Jean Valjean's and his way of being. The contrast between his fierce, strong appearance and his tired mind, his remorseful thoughts and his general kindness, I feel like it's something that gets me every time: to write about a person who is not who he seems to be. Victor Hugo took it to the next level, he wrote about a man who on the outside is all though but in reality, his mind is preoccupied 24/7 with distressing and sad thoughts, he feels like his past is out to get him and he can't separate it from the present. He wrote about a man who just reaches his hands to the reader and says `This is who I am, this is what I am.` He knows he has done wrong but hopes, and oh, how this man hopes, to become a better human being, which he does.
Just a few more things I want to yap about: I just adore Victor Hugo's writing style. The dialogues are so wonderfully crafted and the moments in which the author talks about the characters' mental state or feelings…he uses such simple words but somehow he just perfectly transmits pure emotion that makes you feel bad for the characters' pain. You may say `yeah, this is what an author is supposed to do??` but I don't know, this book was different. I feel like I only read a few masterpieces that truly transmit emotion and make you feel things just like this book did.
Many moments, quotes and chapters in this book broke my heart a little bit each time I read them, but here are some of my favourite ones:
When the prisoners pass Cosette and Jean Valjean when they are on their walk and Jean Valjean is just FROZEN in fear and pain as he is reliving his old experience. Cosette is purely disgusted by these men and an barely understand what is going on and asks Jean Valjean if they are still humans?!!! like that was *chef's kiss*.
Every moment in which Victor Hugo talks about Cosette's childhood at the Thenardiers Inn and how each time the Thenardiers did this poor child wrong, Fantine would just roll in her grave, 'cause let me tell you this woman did not die for her child to be treated like that.
Also every single moment in which Jean Valjean's thoughts and pain are analyzed bit by bit, Fantine's `desperate measures`, every single time the word `miserable` appears in the book, the Thenardiers moments and the description of the purely disgusting environment they were living in (Eponine, you sweet summer child) etc. etc. etc.
In the last pages there was a `Letter to M. Daelli`, in which there was a quote that struck me greatly: `In every place where man is ignorant and despairing, in every place where woman is sold for bread, wherever the child suffers for lack of the book which should instruct him and of the hearth which should warm him, the book of Les Misérables knocks at the door and says: "Open to me, I come for you."` The way Victor Hugo talked about social classes, poverty, acceptance, religion, faith, history, emotions, human connections, woman, man, child…about life basically, really did leave a great impression upon me and I could only wish to read something like this again. I can simply not put into words what this whole book made me feel.
I just want to hear your thoughts about this book: what you love about it, what you dislike about it, opinions regarding the characters, the ending, the lengthy chapters that weren't always contributing to the plot etc.
I'm glad I got to finish it and consider this post a sign to read (or finish) the book!!! Happy reading.
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