Friday, October 22, 2010


For those of you who know me, you know that I love words, and I love literature more. For the last 5 or 6 years, I've had a soft spot in my heart for Victor Hugo's, Les Miserables. I read it when I was a senior in high school because I liked the musical version. I fell in love with a frenchman, who is now among my favorite authors, and the story... which, believe it or not is abridged, even in the three hour musical.

I remember that the first time I read it, I loved so many of Hugo's brilliant words. Some for the picture they paint or the feeling they convey, and sometimes because I thought that they were special. Yes, when you write a 1232 page novel, you're bound to say something that almost any person will enjoy.

When Taylor got me a new copy of the book because my original was stolen by an ex misplaced... I resolved to reread it with a pen in hand to document what parts of it I liked. It is now being highlighted, underlined, folded and loved. I'm only 250 pages in, for the musical buffs, that's somewhere around "Who Am I- the Trial"... track 9, but here are some of my loves so far:



the bishop to his sister concerning his garden...
"'You are wrong,' replied the bishop, 'The beautiful is as useful as the useful.' Then, after a pause, he added: 'More so, perhaps.'"

Narrator, Hugo, talking about power and politics...
"All of this is what men call genius, just as they call a painted face beauty and a richly attired figure majesty. They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of ducks in the mud."

The bishop to Jean Valjean...
"If you leave your place of suffering with hatred in your heart, and anger against men, you will be deserving of our pity; but if you leave with goodwill, in gentleness and peace, you will have risen above any of us."

Hugo describing Valjean as he contemplates after stealing money from a little boy chimney sweep, Petit Gervais...
"Like an owl overtaken by a sudden sunrise, he was blinded by the radiance of virtue."

Hugo talking about Fantine and her friends when they were young...
"... but with the last trace of the serenity of toil in their expressions, and in their hearts that seed of purity which in a woman survives her first fall from grace."

Hugo talking about Fantine falling in love with Cosette's father...
"She worked in order to live, and presently fell in love, also in order to live, for the heart too has its hunger."

Hugo reflecting on the day that Fantine's lover left...
"Destinies may be decided by the fact that a person is seated and not standing"

Hugo talking about Cosette...
"Her name was Euphrasie, but the mother has turned it into Cosette by the use of that touching alchemy of simple people which transforms Josef into Pepita and Francoise into Silette. It is a kind of linguistics which baffles the etymologist."

Hugo speaking about the woman gets Fantine fired...
"No one is more avidly curious about other people's doings than those persons whom they do not concern."

Hugo talking about Fantine and prostitution...
"A squalid bargain: a human soul for a hunk of bread. Poverty offers and society accepts."


"Curiosity is a form of gluttony: to see is to devour."

"The extremity of grief sheds its own awful radiance to transform even the most abject. At that moment, bending forward to press the hem of the policeman's greatcoat to her lips, Fantine was beautiful again. She might have melted a heart of stone, but nothing can melt a heart of wood."

Valjean reflecting on the man in custody, who is thought to be Jean Valjean...
"Alas, what he sought to exclude and to stifle was already present in the room. It was his own conscience. His conscience: that is to say, God."

Describing Valejean's journey to the court...
"Nothing can be sadder or more profound than to see a thousand things for the first and last time. to journey is to be born and die each minute."

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