www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall RE: Victor Hugo's Les Misrables

I was wondering what people thought about Victor Hugo's novel Les Misrables.

What is the Christian perspective on the book?

Also how do those of you who are fiscally and or socially conservative look at this work?

Thank you in advance for you answers.

Funny you should ask,Subdeacon.I'm just rereading the book on line(I read an abreviated version in the original French for my highschool French class).I certainly think that the good bishop depicted in the novel represents an icon of Christ.I recommend the book along with my two favorite authors,Dostoyevsky and Dickens.

Dostoyevsky is also my favorite father. I read him in Russian, because that is my first language. Surprisingly I have also enjoyed Tolstoy. At least his War and Peace. With Tolstoy you can really split his work in half. The first 30 years where he is a communicant of the Orthodox Church and the second 30 where he starts to fall away from the Church. Maybe I am not reading the book as thoroughly as some, but I haven't found anything disturbing in War and Peace and I am 98% done. Other writers whom I can recommend is Chekhov and Bulgakov. One has to be careful to read Bulgakov correctly though. His masterpiece Master and Margaret can only be properly understood in the context that the writer does not have any positive characters in the book. That includes the caricature of Jesus who is of course not really Jesus, but rather a part of the delusion caused by Voland (Satan). Also a Dogs Heart is a wonderful work which is much easier to read.

Reason I asked about Les Misrables is because he is on my reading list. I am a collector of fine books, but I also read every single book that I buy and I just bought a beautiful leather bound copy of Les Misrables which I am very pleased with. Incidentally I am also reading it in Russian.

Dear Subdeacon,I tried to PM you to discuss Dostoyevsky and other things,but you aren't accepting PMs.Please feel free to PM me if you like.It was Dostoyevsky,"Brothers Karamazov" that led me to the Orthodox Faith of my ancestors.Asking your prayers,Archpriest Andrei

I watched a stage production of the musical a week or two after Pascha and was struck by the some of the powerful allusions to the Triduum.

For example, Marius' song "Empty Chairs"

There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone.

Here they talked of revolution.
Here it was they lit the flame.
Here they sang about `tomorrow'
And tomorrow never came.

From the table in the corner
They could see a world reborn
And they rose with voices ringing
I can hear them now!
The very words that they had sung
Became their last communion
On the lonely barricade at dawn.

Leads us from table fellowship of a last supper to a lonely barricade--a metaphor for a lonely cross.

Valjean's deathbed supplication brings echoes of "into thy hands I commit my spirit":

God on high
Hear my prayer
Take me now
To thy care
Where You are
Let me be
Take me now
Take me there
Bring me home
Bring me home.

The stage production closed with the cast entering carrying lighted candles--the allusion to the Exultet of the great Vigil of Easter was unmistakeable:

Do you hear the people sing
Lost in the valley of the night?
It is the music of a people
Who are climbing to the light.

For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies.
Even the darkest night will end
And the sun will rise.

They will live again in freedom
In the garden of the Lord.
They will walk behind the plough-share,
They will put away the sword.
The chain will be broken
And all men will have their reward.

You skipped one of the most wonderful lines from the entire musical:

"To love another person is to see the face of God."

Dear Fr Al. I think I am having a problem with private msgs. You can email me at BorislavKroner@gmail.com

My favorite work by Dostoevsky is the Idiot.

Maybe I should put the book on top of my reading list. I started and then stopped reading his Hunchback; maybe it was an uninspiring translation that bored me. I should give Hugo a second chance.

I read Dostoevky's The Demons this summer and it was quite a lesson in learning to recognize the guises of the evil one.

Pevear and Volokhonsky are, hands down, the best Russian to English translators.

I believe Pevear converted to Orthodoxy,therefore his use of proper church terminology in English.He was recommended by Prof.David Starr,a tonsured Reader,who was my parishoner,during my eight month tensure in Santa Fe,New Mexico.Prof.Starr is a professor of Russian literature at a local Santa Fe college.If I remeber correctly,he too was led to Orthodoxy by Dostoyevsky.

Does anyone have a recommendation on a movie version? It's about 20 years since I saw Le Mis on stage. I'd probably enjoy it again.