les miserables (part ii)

WOW.

Alright, so for the record.. I doubt I can do this last part without saying SOME spoilers, because I'm going to complain about a few things. So.. you've been warned. :)

Jean Valjean is simply amazing. I don't think I've ever come upon a character that's so fully developed through and through than he was. He was, by far, my favorite character in the book. He's what every person should aspire to be. Yes, he had a rough start, but he had the strength to change. Yes, he needed a catalyst (the Bishop), but it was HIS choice to change, and no one elses'. And what did he do? He saved a town from destitution, he protected and raised an orphaned and mistreated child, he gave and gave and gave, he saved Marius and carried him through the depths of the sewers quite possibly to his own death, he sacrificed seeing Cosette because he thought Marius didn't want him there.. etc. etc. etc. So many things, and I'm sure I'm missing the half of it.

In the end, when Marius was so cruel to him and Cosette was seemingly indifferent to her father's disappearance it broke my heart. Seeing Valjean walk to their house every day, each stopping further and further away, and eventually not even leaving his house so he could die.. ugh. It was so unfair. I couldn't believe that Marius was so.. unforgiving. I mean, my god, yes he's an ex-convict but he raised your wife, he saved her from a life of servitude and poverty (one which she probably would not have survived). That should have been enough of a reason to forgive him of something he had done 30 some odd years before. If he had not been good, she would have not turned out "good." Marius was completely unfair. That he should passive aggressively turn away Valjean and make him feel so unwanted when he had given up so much.. so unfair.

AND THEN. After all that, when he realized it was Valjean that had carried him through the muck of the sewer on his back saving him from the battle.. only when he realized that was he all about bringing him back. I didn't like Marius much towards the end (if you couldn't tell).

Cosette turned out to be a disappointment. She was so interesting at the beginning of the novel, when she was a child. She was bright, full of life, and charms. Her innocence was very well done, but when she grew older she morphed into the typical woman figure from this time--serving her husband's every wish (even if it meant never seeing her father again) and completely oblivious to the things happening around her that really mattered. She fluttered through life without a care in the world, she only thought of being devoted to her husband. It broke my heart that after the first two nights Valjean had not visited her (when he stopped because of Marius' passive aggressive behavior to push him out) she had only noticed that he had not come ONE out of the two nights.

Javet really surprised me.. He was probably my second favorite "major" character. He was single-mindedness in his determination to take down Valjean, and when he had him in his clutches.. he just let him go. The struggle he went through, and his solution to quieting it, was very intriguing.

There were multiple times that I was surprised at the criss-cross of characters, how all of their lives weaved in and out of each other. But then you start to think how many characters you are familiar with.. how many back stories you've read.. and it starts to become understandable. The story was incredible. So much depth to it (I suppose that comes with the territory of being over 1,000 pages long). Every character I encountered in that book I felt as if I knew them, because Hugo always gave such great details into their lives. Even if it wasn't background, it was just how they lived, their morals, etc.

I think I will have to read Hunchback of Notre Dame..