By the end of the first part of Les Misérables, Jean Valjean had to have his identity revealed since another man had been wrongly identified as himself. He went to the courthouse on the day of the man's trial and revealed himself. He was able to withdraw some money and hide it before he was eventually caught and sent back to the galleys. During a storm while on a ship, he volunteered to rescue an endangered sailor and in the process "accidentally" fell overboard. In the second part of the book, he has made his escape and rescued Cosette from the clutches of the Thénardiers and moved to Paris. In this section of the book Victor Hugo makes an historical digression to recount the battle of Waterloo before moving the plot along. At the half-way point of this section we come to the end of our assigned reading and the story brings suspense as Jean Valjean discovers that Javert is hot on his trail.
For a more detailed summary of each section of this novel I recommend the following link: Cliff's Notes of LM. I will still make mention in this blog from time to time of passages from this novel as our group makes progress through it. Victor Hugo's writing style isn't dense and 'polyphonic' like that of Dostoevsky but I do like the poetic way that he writes, the glimpses of the sublime & beautiful, and the enjoyable historical stimulus. This novel is a great work and has something in it that will appeal to every reader.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment