5 ms·

How Victor Hugo came to write “Les Misérables”

79 points by ghosh 10y ago

devindotcom 10y ago
Hugo is fantastically intelligent but also unabashedly romantic - perhaps even sentimental. I loved Les Miserables, and one of the good things about it was its exoneration of the conscience, of what the main characters unshakingly feel to be be good. He also packs a fair amount of (occasionally apocryphal) history into it. I love the many pages spent describing Waterloo from start to finish, and his judgment of the battle is sobering: http://coldewey.cc/post/19163335604/the-victor-of-waterloo-assembled-from-les http://coldewey.cc/post/19163335604/the-victor-of-waterloo-a...
- clairity 10y ago
  what do you mean when you say "exoneration of the conscience"? it's an interesting phrase that can be taken many ways. i also loved les miserables, and took the story to be an implication of the state: of law & order and it's imperfections and corruptibilities. of how right and wrong aren't forever attached to labels, titles, persons, or any of the other mental shortcuts we take in our daily judgements. it's really interesting to see how this dichotomy continues to play out in the current political environment. some people believe we are safer when we lock up criminals and thugs, to separate our good selves from those bad selves, to harshly punish in the hopes of instilling order in the world. yet we are each but a single mistake away from crossing that divide into a label we would never apply to ourselves. it goes against our own ego to understand that we are, in the same person, at times lawful and at other times lawless, and the application of justice against that backdrop is often neither fair nor just.
  - devindotcom 10y ago
    I think that in Les Miserables, the main characters are driven by their consciences, and unfailingly make their decisions based on what they feel is right. Sometimes that has ugly or unforeseen consequences, or is even fatal. Many of the characters are plunged into poverty or despondency because they chose to act according to their conscience. Meanwhile people making choices out of expedience or because of external forces they obey (Javert, Thenardier) prosper at least temporarily. But ultimately the story and characters who do what they think is right end up on top. Now this is also in a way the case in many a moralistic book (the patient Christian triumphs over the predatory thief or what have you) but in Les Miserables I think it is deeper than that, an indication that it is the strong and principled that buoy those around them and feed the matrix of society, even at times with their own lives. Naturally it's all a bit artificial but I liked it immensely nevertheless.
    - curun1r 10y ago
      > Meanwhile people making choices out of expedience or because of external forces they obey (Javert ... It's really interesting to me that you include Javert in the group that doesn't act according to conscience since I've always seen him as, perhaps, the most conscious driven character in the book. It's been over a decade since I read the book and I've seen the musical so many more times, so I might be misremembering the story from the book, but it seems like Javert's character arc is one where he starts from seeing the law as absolutely correct and himself as an instrument of enforcing that correctness. His actions aren't expedient or imposed on him by others, but are the result of that steadfast belief in the correctness of the law. It takes the example of Valjean to show him that the his conscience is distinct from the law and there are times that the law might not be correct. And his suicide is the result of his inability to reconcile that steadfast belief with what he begins to see might actually be right. Categorizing him along with Thenardier, a character with little-to-no moral compass seems wrong since Javert's actions, while shown to us as bad, come from an intention to do good. He always does what he feels is right. And when he arrives at a situation where either choice will lead him to doing something he feels isn't right, he'd rather die that make that choice.
pavel_lishin 10y ago
It doesn't really explain how, or why. Just that he did, in 1845. And then had to do so from exile, after 1848.
7Z7 10y ago
Show HN: I wrote a book?
jhbadger 10y ago
It's interesting that this is the second book for the general public this year to be about another book and its influence. I recently read "The Book That Changed America: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation" which is about the Origin of Species.
- tjr 10y ago
  In 150 years or so, just for kicks, somebody should write a book about that book.
mauvehaus 10y ago
A contract that paid by the word, perhaps? I got 700 pages in one year over winter break when I was in college. A (mostly, it was many years ago now) complete summary of the events that had happened that would be familiar to those who have seen the musical: 1. Jean Valjean acquired some silver from the bishop. 2. It was established that M. Thenardier looted the deceased soldiers at the battle of Waterloo. 3. The existence of Fantine and possibly Cosette had been established? 4. Perhaps Valjean had become the mayor of some town after using what was formerly the bishop's silver to become an honest man? Note that Javert, who is the other major character besides Valjean has yet to put in an appearance, despite showing up in perhaps the first 10 minutes of the musical. M. Thenardier is, at best, a minor player in the musical, and prior to his introduction, we get ~50 pages on the history of the Battle of Waterloo. The Princess Bride gently mocks the genre by advertising itself as "abridged". I can't help but feel it's justified.
- david927 10y ago
  Why would you write so many sentences to simply say that you couldn't finish a great novel? There's nothing wrong with The Princess Bride... but it's for children. Try reading it again. It's worth it, I assure you. It's vastly better than any of the film adaptations or the musical.
  - Steko 10y ago
    > Why would you write so many sentences to simply say that you couldn't finish a great novel? He used the sentences to explain why he found it not great. Not every great novel is great to all readers and I found his comments informative.
    - david927 10y ago
      > informative There was no information to be informative -- it was an admission of the lack of information. If you haven't read the book and don't remember what little you did read, saying you "found it not great" has little value.
  - 10y ago
david927 10y ago
The article would better be titled, "How Les Misérables changed the world." Its impact is sadly lost in generations since who would rather view the film or musical at the expense of reading the novel. I'm not surprised it's also the most adapted novel of all time as it is, in my opinion, the greatest novel ever written and a monument to what literature can be. But I definitely worry that its impact will be more and more limited by alternatives to simply reading the original.
- decasteve 10y ago
  > the most adapted novel of all time... I'm a little surprised by that fact. I had always assumed The Three Musketeers was the most adapted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Musketeers_in_film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Musketeers_in_film (If you count the bullet points, it's pretty close...57 vs 65?)
- pathsjs 10y ago
  I read the book and found all the characters extremely simplified and shallow. I guess the audience was not ready for sophisticated personalities - there are the evil Thenardier, the saint Myriel, the disgraced Cosette... Most books written today are better written than that
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  > The article would better be titled, "How Les Misérables changed the world." I don't think the article really answers that. It just posits that it did, and offers nothing to back that up.

79 points by ghosh 10y ago

Hugo is fantastically intelligent but also unabashedly romantic - perhaps even sentimental. I loved Les Miserables, and one of the good things about it was its exoneration of the conscience, of what the main characters unshakingly feel to be be good. He also packs a fair amount of (occasionally apocryphal) history into it. I love the many pages spent describing Waterloo from start to finish, and his judgment of the battle is sobering: http://coldewey.cc/post/19163335604/the-victor-of-waterloo-assembled-from-les http://coldewey.cc/post/19163335604/the-victor-of-waterloo-a...

clairity 10y ago
what do you mean when you say "exoneration of the conscience"? it's an interesting phrase that can be taken many ways. i also loved les miserables, and took the story to be an implication of the state: of law & order and it's imperfections and corruptibilities. of how right and wrong aren't forever attached to labels, titles, persons, or any of the other mental shortcuts we take in our daily judgements. it's really interesting to see how this dichotomy continues to play out in the current political environment. some people believe we are safer when we lock up criminals and thugs, to separate our good selves from those bad selves, to harshly punish in the hopes of instilling order in the world. yet we are each but a single mistake away from crossing that divide into a label we would never apply to ourselves. it goes against our own ego to understand that we are, in the same person, at times lawful and at other times lawless, and the application of justice against that backdrop is often neither fair nor just.
- devindotcom 10y ago
  I think that in Les Miserables, the main characters are driven by their consciences, and unfailingly make their decisions based on what they feel is right. Sometimes that has ugly or unforeseen consequences, or is even fatal. Many of the characters are plunged into poverty or despondency because they chose to act according to their conscience. Meanwhile people making choices out of expedience or because of external forces they obey (Javert, Thenardier) prosper at least temporarily. But ultimately the story and characters who do what they think is right end up on top. Now this is also in a way the case in many a moralistic book (the patient Christian triumphs over the predatory thief or what have you) but in Les Miserables I think it is deeper than that, an indication that it is the strong and principled that buoy those around them and feed the matrix of society, even at times with their own lives. Naturally it's all a bit artificial but I liked it immensely nevertheless.
  - curun1r 10y ago
    > Meanwhile people making choices out of expedience or because of external forces they obey (Javert ... It's really interesting to me that you include Javert in the group that doesn't act according to conscience since I've always seen him as, perhaps, the most conscious driven character in the book. It's been over a decade since I read the book and I've seen the musical so many more times, so I might be misremembering the story from the book, but it seems like Javert's character arc is one where he starts from seeing the law as absolutely correct and himself as an instrument of enforcing that correctness. His actions aren't expedient or imposed on him by others, but are the result of that steadfast belief in the correctness of the law. It takes the example of Valjean to show him that the his conscience is distinct from the law and there are times that the law might not be correct. And his suicide is the result of his inability to reconcile that steadfast belief with what he begins to see might actually be right. Categorizing him along with Thenardier, a character with little-to-no moral compass seems wrong since Javert's actions, while shown to us as bad, come from an intention to do good. He always does what he feels is right. And when he arrives at a situation where either choice will lead him to doing something he feels isn't right, he'd rather die that make that choice.

pavel_lishin 10y ago

It doesn't really explain how, or why. Just that he did, in 1845. And then had to do so from exile, after 1848.

7Z7 10y ago

Show HN: I wrote a book?

jhbadger 10y ago

It's interesting that this is the second book for the general public this year to be about another book and its influence. I recently read "The Book That Changed America: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation" which is about the Origin of Species.

tjr 10y ago
In 150 years or so, just for kicks, somebody should write a book about that book.

mauvehaus 10y ago

A contract that paid by the word, perhaps? I got 700 pages in one year over winter break when I was in college. A (mostly, it was many years ago now) complete summary of the events that had happened that would be familiar to those who have seen the musical: 1. Jean Valjean acquired some silver from the bishop. 2. It was established that M. Thenardier looted the deceased soldiers at the battle of Waterloo. 3. The existence of Fantine and possibly Cosette had been established? 4. Perhaps Valjean had become the mayor of some town after using what was formerly the bishop's silver to become an honest man? Note that Javert, who is the other major character besides Valjean has yet to put in an appearance, despite showing up in perhaps the first 10 minutes of the musical. M. Thenardier is, at best, a minor player in the musical, and prior to his introduction, we get ~50 pages on the history of the Battle of Waterloo. The Princess Bride gently mocks the genre by advertising itself as "abridged". I can't help but feel it's justified.

david927 10y ago
Why would you write so many sentences to simply say that you couldn't finish a great novel? There's nothing wrong with The Princess Bride... but it's for children. Try reading it again. It's worth it, I assure you. It's vastly better than any of the film adaptations or the musical.
- Steko 10y ago
  > Why would you write so many sentences to simply say that you couldn't finish a great novel? He used the sentences to explain why he found it not great. Not every great novel is great to all readers and I found his comments informative.
  - david927 10y ago
    > informative There was no information to be informative -- it was an admission of the lack of information. If you haven't read the book and don't remember what little you did read, saying you "found it not great" has little value.
- 10y ago

david927 10y ago

The article would better be titled, "How Les Misérables changed the world." Its impact is sadly lost in generations since who would rather view the film or musical at the expense of reading the novel. I'm not surprised it's also the most adapted novel of all time as it is, in my opinion, the greatest novel ever written and a monument to what literature can be. But I definitely worry that its impact will be more and more limited by alternatives to simply reading the original.

decasteve 10y ago
> the most adapted novel of all time... I'm a little surprised by that fact. I had always assumed The Three Musketeers was the most adapted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Musketeers_in_film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Musketeers_in_film (If you count the bullet points, it's pretty close...57 vs 65?)
pathsjs 10y ago
I read the book and found all the characters extremely simplified and shallow. I guess the audience was not ready for sophisticated personalities - there are the evil Thenardier, the saint Myriel, the disgraced Cosette... Most books written today are better written than that
pavel_lishin 10y ago
> The article would better be titled, "How Les Misérables changed the world." I don't think the article really answers that. It just posits that it did, and offers nothing to back that up.