I’m about halfway through this book now and I am starting to get the idea that Les Miz is a collection of unfinished stories woven together into one completed story. Not criticizing at all here… being incapable of finishing a novel (or starting one) of my own I’m always interested in how great books get written.

So far I can see at least two: a historical telling of the Battle of Waterloo and the convent at Petit-Picpus. Both of these were extremely long diversions from the main thread of the novel. In fact, both episodes stall and stall and stall until the very last pages of their stories before getting “tied in” to the main story. I think if these were intended to be integral parts of the original store of Jean Valjean, they would have been made shorter like the episode for Monsieur Gabaillard(?) Gillenormand and probably been linked to the main story by more than one tenuous fact.

I think what we see in this book is Victor Hugo’s ambition to create and entire suite of novels about France’s history and the city of Paris. His multiple references to Voltaire (who was responsible for a canon of some 2,000 books) suggests to me he was a kind of hero, or at least someone Hugo strived to equal in some ways. When these stories didn’t pan out into complete novels on their own, rather than throwing them on the fire he made use of them in his main work—maybe he got paid by the word or he really thought these plot-diversions were too good not to see the light of day.

Whatever the motivation, he made good use of this extra material. There’s is no doubt in my mind that people call this a great book in part because these many episodes drift away from the main story only to bring you back once you’d forgotten where you were. Most writers would bore you to death using this tactic (even if they used it less often) but when Hugo finishes you definitely feel like you're involved in a much richer story.

Tags: writing classics reading novels