At some points while reading Victor Hugo's novel, laughed. Hard. With tears dripping down the corners of my eyes. Start to think Les Misérables is one of the most whimsical tales ever written in a dramatic disguise. Either intended by the writer or not.
Nineteen century sets a good departing point from old English or Shakespearean school of writings to modern story telling. Some emphasize on social or historical aspects of the novel. While more importantly the story derives from fundamental human elements. To be able to see the wretched, feel the disconsolate, and write about the miserable, Hugo must possess the extraordinary capacity for compassion.
Words taste better and more meaningful when they are read in the entirety. It is fun to consume them out of context sometimes. Here are some interesting quotes from Les Misérables.
- Succeed: theory. Prosperity argues capacity. Win in the lottery, and behold! you are a clever man. He who triumphs is venerated. Be born with a silver spoon in your mouth! everything lies in that.
- The just man frowns, but never smiles with a malicious sneer. We understand wrath, but not malice.
- Iron is an English word. Is it possible that irony is derived from it?
- I have had enough of misery! my share and other people's share! I am not joking any longer, I don't find it comic any more, I've had enough of puns, good God! no more farces, Eternal Father! I want to eat till I am full, I want to drink my fill! to gormandize! to sleep! to do nothing! I want to have my turn, so I do, come now! before I die! I want to be a bit of a millionaire!
- Have pity on my misery. I will not ask you much for it. How much do you think it is worth?
- Just imagine, Monsieur Javert, he turned me out! all because of a pack of rascally women, who gossip in the workroom. If that is not a horror, what is?
- Sufferings bring hither their agony and ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality are about to join and constitute our death.
- Philosophy is the microscope of the thought. Everything desires to flee from it, but nothing escapes it.
- Ever since history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery has been the garment of the human race.
- Humanity is identity. All men are made of the same clay. There is no difference, here below, at least, in predestination. The same shadow in front, the same flesh in the present, the same ashes afterwards. But ignorance, mingled with the human paste, blackens it. This incurable blackness takes possession of the interior of a man and is there converted into evil.
When seen enough faces of misery, everything becomes a farce. Here present Plato Factory's Les Misérables.
* For lyrics, please see the previous article.
