Krishna
This needs no introduction but it was a huge surprise for me to read it. I have this concept that well regarded classics are have complex narration, old fashioned descriptions and serious stories. Many books have completely demolished that notion. The Count of Monte Cristo was one. (Our review earlier tells why). Tolstoy’s War and Peace is another. And this is the third. The story is simple, and, if written today, will not garner the epic fame that it has garnered with movies and plays galore being made out of it. Or, perhaps, I don’t know what a classic is or should be.
What is the story? Actually it reads like a Bollywood or a Hollywood movie plot!
Jean Valjean enters a French town (D_) as an ex convict, with a yellow passport as was the custom there. He is refused accommodation everywhere but a priest kindly takes him in and treats him decently. So you are shocked that he steals the priest’s silverware at the first opportunity and runs away.
You learn his back story. To avoid his only relatives in the world, his widowed sister and her seven children, from starving to death, he tried to steal bread and was arrested and thrown in jail but he stayed there for seventeen long years due to unsuccessfully trying to jailbreak multiple times and getting caught, thereby having his sentence extended every time.
When he runs away, the police (gendarme) catches him and brings him back to the priest and the priest chides him for ‘not taking the silver candlestick also, as he had been given that’ and sends him away with more loot. He then steals a coin from a small boy and then repents and runs away.
Confused about what this is all about already? If not, then consider this. The story now forgets all of them and zooms in on Corset, who is a child left by a poor hapless mother with an evil family of Thenardiers, who sell all its clothes, take all the money sent by mother for her upkeep and demand lots more and generally keep her as a kind of French Cindarella. (Minus the magic or the animal friends)
The story then veers to a mysterious man who founded a factory, became rich but focused on doing good. His name is “Father Madeline” but it is really not hard to guess the twist. He rises to become the Mayor of the small town, despite wanting to keep a low profile. The author introduces the silver candle holders and remove all doubt in your mind.
The only one not taken in completely is Inspector Javert who moved in from Paris recently and seems puzzled that he had seen this man somewhere, though he could not quite remember where. The style is simplistic and straightforward. We are told that even this is an abridged version as the original tends to wander off in tangents a lot. Surprised that this book has such a great reputation and a cult following (not to mention a Broadway musical).
The story gets interesting when Javers tells Monsier Madeline that the “real” Jean Valejan has been caught and is about to be tried. Jean is torn between duty and safety.
The good deeds of Madeline is to keep many factories afloat when they were in trouble. He is almost a saint. So when he admits to being Jean to save a criminal, the whole region is stunned. There is also a girl who is admitted into an asylum (hospital in the old days?) to get well whom Jean seems to be looking after.
The brutish Javert oscillates from total submission when he thought he had mistaken Madeline for Jean to roughhandling when the latter’s confession is known. Meanwhile Fantine, the mysterious ill person being looked after by Jean dies without knowing about her missing daughter. This has all the elements of a melodramatic movie in it. Indeed a Bollywood producer would be thrilled to get a script like this. Alexander Dumas, I remember, also writes in a similar light vein, purely to entertain and not to inform.
We then shift focus to Marcus, whose father, a good man, was not allowed to see him. He is taught to hate his father but realizes the truth only when his dad is dead. He meets and falls in love with young daughter, whom Jean adopts. He shows his interest and a suspicious Jean disappears.
Marcus meets him when he is blackmailed by a neighbour, but Jean escapes by the arrival of Javert. In the meanwhile we learn that Corset also loves Marcus. They meet. But a suspicious Jean takes her away and Marcus joins the revolution against the government and the king.
When Jean finds out the truth, he rushes to the help of Marcus. When the place is about to be overrun, Marcus is wounded and falls unconscious. Jean carries him through the sewers to safety.
Marcus comes to and vaguely remembers the benefactor. Even after happily being reunited with Cosette and his erstwhile estranged grandfather, he is tormented with the idea of finding and thanking his mysterious saviour.
Jean informs Marcus of who he is, in private, and slowly withdraws from their life.
He feels miserable but due to a series of coincidences, the story comes to a suitably melodramatic end.
Interesting. 5/ 10
– – Krishna (Feb 2018)