I was drawn to Les Misérables mainly because it is one of the omissions of my high-school reading list. I realize that it is regarded as a classic novel of the Western canon of fiction and that my literary knowledge base is incomplete without it. It is not written in a modern style, but I appreciate the benefit of seeing how modern literature has evolved, and I hope to get a sense of why modern writers and readers regard the novel so highly. That is so even though--in the age of page-turning thrillers--there is a certain mystery to the enduring appeal of more than 1,200 pages of narrative. The narrative itself is quite clear in one way--the conflict of the man unjustly condemned by the state who is the unknown hero of many people. The specific issues are somewhat obscure, since the setting is France, and there is a decorously "antique" quality to language and story--no vulgarisms, no nude scenes. Thus the reader is obliged to yield to the literary conventions of an earlier configuration of Western culture. However, it is striking how many actual issues Hugo deals with--harsh prisons, brutal bureaucrats, homelessness, vast differences between rich and poor--are every bit as current in the 21st century as they were in the 19th. It resonates in ways that neither Hugo nor his modern reader might have imagined.
Les Misérables embodies or generates creativity in part because, as a text that became a classic, it actually seems to have helped define the evolution of completely selfless heroism against enormous odds. With each new encounter--after, of course, receiving the lesson of the remarkable Bishop Digne's candlesticks--Valjean makes a project of attempting to reclaim and live out the childlike innocence that prison had destroyed. The odds against which he struggles come down to the fact that the state dehumanized him because he stole bread--heroically--for his family. The overwhelming punishment for his action conveys the cultural v...