Les Miserables reread (skygiants)

[cahn]

Just so you know, skygiants is hosting a reread of Les Misérables! First post, on the first book "Fantine," is here, second post sometime soon! skygiants is reading and hitting all the high parts so you don't have to. (Although I have wanted to reread for years, and am taking this as an opportunity to do so, at least if I can keep up, which looks promising if I keep doing as many clean-up chores as I was doing today... anyone want to join? Or just read skygiants' posts so you don't have to?)

After this, someone needs to host an Aeneid read, because I have had it unfinished for an embarrassingly long time now. Maybe if I get through listening to Les Troyens (why so many ballets, Berlioz?) that will be the kick in the pants I need.

(Anyway, the highlights of the Fantine book for me: a) There are a lot of words about the Bishop of Digne, way more than I remember! b) being a woman in France in the early 1800's and/or in a Hugo novel really sucked a lot, c) Jean Valjean is so awesome, and d) the musical is actually all kinds of awesome in abridging the book while keeping the spirit of it. But way more at the post above.)

Comments

[zopyrus]

I am so tempted to re-read Les Mis but I think I'm going to try to finally get through Hunchback of Notre Dame--although at the moment I'm distracted by Berlioz's memoirs, which are surprisingly hilarious and well-written!

[cahn]

I must confess my teenage self (when I read these books) did not love Hunchback to nearly the same degree as Les Mis. But I dunno, I'm kind of loving Les Mis this time through, so maybe I should give it another shot :)

...with a recommendation like that, I think I possibly need to put Berlioz's memoirs very high up on my reading list. I don't know anything about Berlioz at all (to the extent that I was hugely surprised to find out he was nineteenth century, I'd always pegged him as early 20th), but seekingferret got me to listen to Les Troyens, which I'm really enjoying! (Though it is so long!)

[zopyrus]

I just saw Francesca Zambello's production of Les Troyens at the Met! It was really wonderful theater--although I suspect that much of what I was responding to was the amazing direction, not the script. (And even in person those ballets were a little long...)

My only warning re: Berlioz's memoirs is that he is a real whiner! I'm okay with loving to hate him, though, and his music is really beautiful.

[cahn]

Ah! And it looks like I've just missed the HD showing (which honestly, I wouldn't have had that block of time to see anyway). Perhaps it'll come out on DVD, I've had good luck with catching things a couple of years out...

I've been listening/watching-ish (but mostly listening) to the John Eliot Gardiner video; I am kind of suspicious that Gardiner is able to make me fall in love with anything. He does have the knack for casting, too (at least, I assume he does the casting). I really like the look of the sets and costumes in this DVD -- very clean lines, bold colors. But I was pretty psyched about Dido and her sister getting an aria -- yay for passing Bechdel, Berlioz!

Hmm, whining isn't my favorite -- but hilarious whining, maybe? I should definitely get to know his music better.

[metaphortunate]

Y'know how rachelmanija feels about Mockingjay?

My usual example separating inherently depressing from gratuitously depressing is a Holocaust novel in which everyone dies in a concentration camp, and a Holocaust novel in which everyone dies in a concentration camp except for the protagonist's true love, who is liberated, runs joyously across the street to meet her, and is squashed by a cement truck. Not only was the cement truck not a logical consequence of genocide, but by adding implausible elements to make genocide even more depressing, the

That's Hunchback.

[cahn]

ahahahahahaha.

So you mean it's like Fantine in Les Mis (WHY SO MEAN VICTOR HUGO?) only alllll the time? :)

[carmarthen]

Yes yes read with me (after I finish Les Miz)!

I mean, NDDP is a depressing novel about awful people, but it's also hilarious? And has Gringoire, and Victor Hugo's feels about architecture and the Renaissance. Also it is way shorter than Les Miz.

[cahn]

Oh! It didn't occur to me that it could be hilarious -- of course! Hmm, maybe I'll have to get in on this. But oh gosh, so depressing! And at least Les Mis has an ending that is, hmm, I guess "happy" is not the right word, but at least not unrelentingly unhappy...

[carmarthen]

I find NDDP less depressing in a weird way, I guess, because most of the people who die are kind of awful. And for once my favorite lives! So there's that.

[zopyrus]

Depressing and hilarious go hand-in-hand in many 19th-century novels, haha! I haven't picked it up yet but it's definitely going to happen.

[antisoppist]

Thank you for mentioning it. I tried reading Les Miserables a decade or so ago but got terribly bogged down in the Battle of Waterloo and gave up. I keep wondering whether I should try again and either slog through it or just skip that bit and this might be the incentive.

[cahn]

*cheers*

There is no shame in skipping (or skimming) the digressions, because there really does not need to be 60 pages on Waterloo, or on the Bishop of Digne, or on convents in general. (For some reason, I'm getting bogged down on the convents right now...)

I actually read a Reader's Digest super-abridged version of Les Mis, the first time around -- and I'd never actually read the entire Waterloo section before this readthrough. (And I can't say I paid the most attention in the world to it this time either :) Although it's a lot more fun on the Nth time through, where N >> 1, because one is in less of a hurry to get to the story!)

[antisoppist]

At the time I felt skipping was bad and wrong and despite knowing the musical backwards I wasn't sure whether Waterloo might turn out to be terribly significant later. It should come with "this bit is completely irrelevant" markers really.

The Bishop of Digne is really unfair because he's at the beginning.

[cahn]

Heh, yeah. I was shocked to find the Bishop of Digne part, because my abridged version cut pretty much the entire thing, so I was under the impression that the book, like the musical, started with Valjean. The musical really does make a lot of good abridgment choices...

The last two pages or so of Waterloo are important -- plot point that doesn't appear in the musical. I don't think any of the Bishop is important (he has candlesticks, he's very nice -- but you knew that already). The convent bits I just slogged through are also not important to the plot, except to ascertain that a) the convent has a school for girls, and b) they live under a fairly harsh rule. (M. Fauchlevent, though, is definitely worth reading about!)

I've always had this idea that abridging books is wrong, and I still think that in a lot of cases, but I have realized that Les Miserables is an exception to the rule, because come on, this is ridiculous! :)

[metaphortunate]

I will be following that discussion, THANK you...

[cahn]

You're quite welcome! I'm very glad that you are interested in this too :) :)