Read the manga adaptation Les Misérables in one sitting. Just wow. Extremely inspiring. For meaningful stories like this I should read real books more often I suppose, but for example the one this is based on is a real brick, and I’m not sure it’s quite worth the time investment to read such in this age. But whenever I do read a “generational story” I tend to love it. Books like East of Eden, Pachinko, even Dune. I guess somehow the subtle repetition makes the themes stronger, even if it might be just an illusion, the human mind at doing pattern recognition.

For example I think I can clearly grasp the hero’s motivations in this story, and so “what the book is about”, but I would struggle to try articulate how the main villain Thénardier or the deuteragonist(?) Inspector Javert’s characters/plotlines reinforce some common theme. But I definitely do feel like they do. Neither character merely opposes Valjean, but lives by a clear personal creed that clashes with his. Is it enough that they serve as foils? I feel like there might be something deeper going on. And then there are the “next generation” characters Marius and Cosette. I think their key role is to give meaning to Valjeans struggle and allow him to succeed. Being a good mayor wasn’t enough, I think, because he also needed to succeed at close relationships in order to heal the wounds of losing the family when he went to prison. I’m not wording that right — I mean he needed to show similar level of sacrifice as the bishop who “purchased his soul” did, so when he learned of Cosette’s suffering, he had to attend to it personally, all the more because his tenure as mayor was gone. But I also think Marius and Cosette stand on their own to add to the depth of the story. Maybe simplified, they are different versions of the message that “honesty and work makes one admirable, happy and beautiful”. Cosette is literally beautiful, unlike Éponine. Marius leaves his wealthy family behind after being inspired by his gone father. Finally the villain Thénardier is opposite of honest. Javert too is blind in that he takes his work too literally — he tries to follow the law and repeatedly imprison Valjean. In the end he sees the error in his ways, letting Valjean escape and even suggesting new regulations for better treatment of caught criminals. But he is unable to reconcile his actions and ultimately chooses death.

What I wrote above sounds like it makes sense, but I think actually there’s lots and lots of ways to find meanings in a work like this. I could have worded the initial main point a bit differently, and then my next point could have been something even more different, and the final conclusion not bearing any resemblence to the one arrived above. Yet both reasoning would have been equally “correct”, for I don’t think there exist a correct reading. If the author had one in mind, it would be just one among the countless possibilities, and almost certainly something rather different from what I could even have thought of. Tolkien calls this thing “applicability”. Good stories make you think, see these patterns that teach you how to live, even if the author wasn’t seeing the same patterns.

Cover of the original book