Moving On...: Reflections on a Year Spent Hurdling Hugo

"Il dort. Quoique le sort fût pour lui bien étrange,/Il vivait. Il mourut quand il n'eut plus son ange./La chose simplement d'elle-même arriva,/Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s'en va.

[He is asleep. Though his mettle was sorely tried,/He lived, and when he lost his angel, died./It happened calmly, on its own,/The way night comes when day is done.]"

- Victor Hugo (Les Misérables, V.9.vi [last lines])

 

Hugo Final Day Count: 366

Hugo Final Page Count: 2158

At the beginning of this year, I started a journey through the works of Victor Hugo. While my eyes were bigger then than my attention span is now, it has certainly been a fun ride, encompassing the scope of human emotions from unspeakable joy to inconsolable sadness and everything in-between.

The year started with the goal to read the largest novel I'd ever attempted - Victor Hugo's Les Misérables - and, in that respect, I was successful. And, while my accountability on the blog was certainly lacking in the last twelve months, my contact with my Twitter followers was at an all-time high and, I am quite certain, through my tireless efforts to tweet quotes and passages from the classic books I read, managed to convince a few of my friends and followers to take up this magnificent tome for themselves.

Les Misérables was, to be sure, one of the great literary experiences of my life. While I did not feel quite as enriched while reading it as I did upon completing War & Peace in 2011, upon further reflection, I find that it was a book that I will certainly carry with me as a favorite for the rest of my days.

I was discussing with a friend (a doctoral student in the theatre department at Tufts University) just yesterday the necessary changes in Aristotle's "elements of a well-made play" (or 'story'). He suggested that it is specious to apply what amounts to ancient and philosophical thoughts to modern story and playwriting techniques. When I prompted him as to what changes he would make to Aristotle's structure, he responded that, more than 'plot' (which Aristotle ranks highest of all other elements - which also include theme, character, music, and spectacle, among others), character is what drives most modern audiences in their pursuit of film, literature, and theatre. I had to admit, he had a point.

How often do truly compelling characters stick with us as an audience, as readers, as those ardent masses who desire to experience art for what it is? There is something about them that draws us in. More than the most fascinating plot or story, it is the characters that draw us in and help us to identify our place within the human puzzle. Given my experiences over the last two years, I would have to agree that the Romantic writers had a great handle on this idea.

One of the great things about the Romantics - particularly the Europeans - was their aptitude for taking a story that was, for all intents and purposes, epic and focusing, in the midst of this epic sprawl, on characters, on the people who drive the story forward. Of those great, grand stories, few balance the grandeur of subject with intimacy of character like Victor Hugo.

In the two novels of his that I read this year - Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris - Hugo demonstrates a grasp of character that is unparalleled by many an author, a feat that may even eclipse that of Tolstoy, who's writing so influenced and enlightened me last year.

In Les Misérables, Hugo introduces us to two characters who are fundamental opposites (and yet, paradoxically, based on the same man) - Jean Valjean, the criminal who is shown mercy when he most needs it and, as a result, shows it to everyone he comes across; and Javert, the wolfish police inspector hell-bent by his fanatical devotion to the law of the land to see that Valjean answers for his various crimes. Their dichotomy has fueled innumerable conversations about the nature of justice and mercy - which certainly had to be Hugo's intent. Himself an activist and advocate for the poorest of people, Hugo clearly favors Valjean's ascent of grace to Javert's dive of justice - while both men ultimately die, it is Javert who kills himself due to his inability to justify the act of mercy shown him by Valjean, the man who he had sworn to bring to justice. Valjean, on the other hand, dies surrounded by his beloved adopted daughter and her husband, loved and beloved. As he tells his daughter with his final breaths: "Love each other dearly. There is scarcely anything else in the world but that: to love one another" (V.9.v). Or, to put it like it was said in the musical: "And remember the truth that once was spoken,/To love another person is to see the face of God."

Peppered among these captivating players are secondary characters who do not fail to ignite inspirational fires of their own: Marius, the schoolboy who scorns his beloved grandfather in order to pursue his love and his ideals; the Bishop of Digne, whose simple act of mercy acts as the catalyst for Valjean's complete turnaround; the tragic Fantine, whose story is perhaps one of the saddest I've ever encountered; the noble Enjolras and the nihilistic Grantaire, two polar opposites whose death is one of the most noble and heartbreaking in all of literature; the mischievous Little Gavroche, who refuses to take guff from any man, especially those bigger than him. All of these - and so many others - enliven this epic tale. Hugo's attention to forming them into fully-fledged people enhances a good story, transforming into a timeless classic.

Meanwhile, Hugo's first novel, Notre-Dame de Paris, also delivers on compelling characterizations, though of a completely different kind altogether. While these is something inherently emulatable in his Les Misérables creations (with the exclusion of the Thenardiers, of course), the characters in Notre-Dame de Paris (more commonly, and erroneously, referred to as The Hunchback of Notre Dame) bears characters that would appear to be more at home in a morality play than in a Romantic novel. Even more incredible is the idea that Hugo's main character is the titular Cathedral de Notre-Dame itself rather than any of the numerous characters that occupy the structure throughout the course of the novel.

Firstly, we are introduced to Claude Frollo, the archbishop of Notre-Dame driven mad by his lustful desires for the young la Esmeralda who herself becomes the object of desire of every principal male figure of the book. While nowhere near as cruel as most film adaptations of him, Frollo is nonetheless compelling - a man devoted to his studies and to his vows, until the sight of a beautiful young girl drives him to a most fatal obsession. In Frollo's care is the gentle Quasimodo, who stands out as the most compelling of all the characters of this novel, if for no other reason than the juxtaposition of his hideous outer appearance (see the following excerpt) with his inner gentle nature.

"We shall not attempt to give the reader an idea of that tetrahedral nose, that horseshoe mouth, that tiny left eye obscured by a shaggy red eyebrow, while the right eye lay completely hidden beneath an enormous wart. Those irregular teeth, with gaps here and there like the battlements of a fortress, that calloused lip, over which one of those teeth protruded like an elephant's tusk, that cleft chin, and above all the facial expression extending over the whole, a mixture of malice, amazement, and sadness. Conjure up, if you can, this overall effect." (I.v)

It is perhaps Quasimodo, of all the characters in the novel, who loves the most honestly and the most deeply. While his demeanor around so many others is anger, hatred, or brutality, it is la Esmeralda - the only soul who treats him as though he were human - whom he holds with the utmost affection, even at the expense of his relationship with his master, Frollo.

In addition to these, we are given snapshots of Captain Phoebus, whose heroics make him the apple of la Esmeralda's young eye, despite his engagement and constant womanizing; of Jehann Frollo, the younger brother of the archbishop, the mooching, drunken student whose loud and obnoxious behavior lead him to be among the first killed in the siege of the great Cathedral; of Pierre Gringoire, a real-life playwright, here given literary function as the man whom la Esmeralda marries in order to save him from death at the hands of the gypsies; of Gudule, the frightful sachette who has spent her life mourning the loss of her daughter and hating the gypsies who had stolen her. Throughout the tale it is, again, these vibrant characters who drive the narrative, giving it substance and life and meaning and depth.

Hugo's sketching of these characters is what makes his novels so classic and so compelling. More than the stories, which are still excellent, it is the characters that propel them. Even Tolstoy, who last year became one of my favorite writers, did not have such an emotional grasp of character. In two novels, he created five characters that I became completely enamored with - Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova, Anna Karenina, and Konstantin Levin. Hugo, on the other hand, has created three times as many, at least one of which - Jean Valjean - has been named among the most compelling characters in all of literature. While I can honestly say that Tolstoy composes the vast, sprawling narrative with more aplomb than Hugo, it is Hugo who creates the more relatable characters.

And perhaps it is that, above all, which I will take away from this year in my literary journey. 2012 is the year of the captivating character.

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And, with that, ladies and gentlemen, that I bring this blog to a close. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am broadening my scope in the years to come on this project. It is my hope that you will continue to follow along with my literary journey both at my new blog or my new Twitter feed (@ClassicLitTweet) and provide any feedback you so desire. My intent is to leave this site up and running (though largely untended) until such a time as I am able to get the contents copied to another site. In the meantime, remember: there is never a substitute for great literature!

Starting Anew (featuring 2013's Author-of-the-Year Announcement!)

"... I  am your beggar. I was the mendicant at the foot of the road from your castle. You have given me alms. But he who gives does not notice; he who receives examines and observes. When you say mendicant, you say spy. But as for me, though I am often sad, I try not to be a malicious spy. I used to hold out my hand; you only saw the hand, and you threw into it the charity I needed in the morning in order that I might not die in the evening. I have often been twenty-four hours without eating. Sometimes a penny is life. I owe you my life; I pay the debt."
- Tellmarch the Caimand (I.4.iv)

Ninety-Three Day Count: 50

Ninety-Three Page Count: 93

Hurdling Hugo Day Count: 293

Hurdling Hugo Page Count: 2296

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 You may have noticed that my posting on this site has become sporadic at best. Life has a funny way of taking up a lot of your time like that. Since my last post, I have finished Notre-Dame de Paris, begun Ninety-Three (regarded by many as Hugo’s best work), started the school year, and been cast in and performed in a community theatre production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’ve been busy.

But still… even when I do have time to post here, it often seems the last thing I want to do. Blogging seems a chore and I don’t want it to be that. I enjoy literature and discussing it with my friends and, honestly, that’s what I would like for this to be. I need to become excited again… which has told me I need to get a fresh start.

I want this not only to accurately reflect my literary journey (which I’m quickly beginning to realize will most likely take the rest of my life), but also to act as a way for others to begin their literary journeys. I have received word from several friends since I started this journey that they have become inspired by my tweeting or my blogging to begin literary journeys of their own. My grandmother has borrowed both War & Peace and Anna Karenina to read for her own enjoyment. My friend Sherri decided to devote a year to reading the works of William Shakespeare. Numerous friends have begun reading Les Miserables as a result of my commentary on it.

This has opened my eyes to the realization that people want to read good books. They want to experience these great stories in their original medium. In a world that is continually being overwrought with more and more visual media, there is something altogether timeless and enduring about the written word. Perhaps that is its power.

My desire, then, has become to broaden the scope of this blog, not simply to include my own thoughts, but those of other literary-minded people whose opinions on art and literature I greatly respect. The goal is almost to make this into a community of like-minded people with the desire to become more well-read, which, ultimately, is the goal I set out to achieve at the outset of this whole endeavor. Maybe it’s a pipe dream or a fool’s errand… I don’t know. Either way, that’s what I’m looking forward to most about this new direction – spurring others on toward literary independence and discovery.

With this change will come another new way of doing things. Gone will be the creative alliterations on the names of the authors I’m reading – Tackling Tolstoy, Hurdling Hugo, etc. – and they will be replaced by one ubiquitous title – The Classic Lit Blog. This will be the signature title of this blog as it will be associated with what I am calling The Classic Lit Project – a gradual attempt to become well-read by reading classic authors one year at a time. The mission statement, put as simply as I know how, is One Author, One Year. That’ll likely change over time, but for now, it seems a good starting point for me as I continue to figure out this new direction.

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Over the past two years, October has been my ‘announcement month’ – the month in which I put forward the author who will be the subject of the next year of reading. After much thought and deliberation, I’ve decided that I want to tackle what is largely considered one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century – Ulysses. As such, 2013 is set to become the year of James Joyce.

This will require changing a few things from the way I’ve approached literature previously. After conversations with an English teacher friend (whose comments on Joyce definitely helped to cement this decision for me), I feel like the best approach to Joyce would be to read his major works – Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses – in the order they were published. This, according to him, will accomplish two goals: (1.) It will allow me to witness firsthand the evolution of Joyce’s signature style over the course of his literary career, and (2.) it will help me to familiarize myself with characters that recur in Joyce's works in the order he established them.

My normal modus operandi, however, has typically been to start with the largest of an author’s work first and then work my way down. I did this with Tolstoy to some degree and with Hugo as well. With Joyce, however, I would be working my way up – from the smallest of his works, Dubliners, to the largest, Ulysses. My hope is that this will solve what I have come to call the “third book problem,” in which I become burned out and disinterested by the third novel. (I didn’t end up finishing the collection of short stories I’d chosen for Tolstoy last year and am currently struggling to become motivated to continue Ninety-Three.) By saving the novel I most want to read for last, my hope is that the momentum and desire to get there will carry me through to the finish.

As to Joyce’s most daunting work – Finnegan’s Wake – which is said to be the most challenging of anything he’s written… there is a part of me that does want to read it very much. A fine feather for my cap would be this seminal work of Joyce’s. However, a lot will depend on my feelings upon the completion of Ulysses, whether I feel I’m up for such a monumental read. I have heard that there is a wonderful audio edition of the book available, so I may find myself going that route (another first for me, as I typically don’t use audio books).

So, as you can see, there are some big changes coming to this concept in the next few months. For those of you still invested in Hugo, don’t bail quite yet. I’m not completely done here. There are still insights to be shared and comments to be made, so hold on. In the meantime, though, be excited about where this is all heading. I am.

First Reflections on NOTRE-DAME

"What [Quasimodo] loved above all else in the maternal building [the Cathedral of Notre-Dame], what awoke his soul to spread out the poor wings which it kept so miserably folded in its cavern, were the bells. He loved them, fondled them, talked to them, understood them. From the peal in the slender spire over the crossing to the great bell over the doorway, he was fond of them all. The spire over the crossing, the two towers were for him like three great cages in which the birds, trained by him, would sing for no one else. Yet it was these same bells which had made him deaf; but mothers often show most love for the child who has made them suffer most."

- Victor Hugo (IV.iii)

Notre-Dame Day Count: 14 

Notre-Dame Page Count: 244

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'Hurdling Hugo' Day Count: 196

'Hurdling Hugo' Page Count: 1707

 Two weeks into my reading of Notre-Dame de Paris and I am almost (but not quite) halfway through! Below are some thoughts on my reading of the text so far:

• One of the major complaints I've read online about Notre-Dame (or, the unabridged version at least) is that the first 300 pages are meandering and laid out very much like a chess game - each chapter is one particular move on the board leading up to Hugo's "endgame" or somesuch. I couldn't disagree more. Maybe it's because I've just finished reading Les Miserables, but I do not find Hugo's structure here to be nearly as meandering as it was in that text. Perhaps it's the fact that I've been reading authors like Hugo and Tolstoy for the past year and a half, but that long-winded sort of narrative doesn't really bother or frighten me anymore. To be honest, if an author goes into a large degree of detail, my immediate assumption is that he is going to be showing me something later to which these details will pertain. All that having been said, with only 56 pages remaining of those first 300, I have been enjoying the ride on Notre-Dame de Paris immensely! (In fact, it seems rather more concise than Les Mis in many ways!)
  
• Here's a quote from Hugo's archdeacon of Notre-Dame, Claude Frollo:
  
  

  "And I have studied medicine, astrology, and hermetics. Here alone [in alchemy] lies truth... here alone is light! Hippocrates, a dream, Urania, a dream, Hermes, an idea. Gold is the sun, to make gold is to be God. That is the only science. I have probed into medicine and astrology, I tell you! Nothing, nothing."

  
  I include this quote in order to say this: Claude Frollo is the Tom Cruise of 1482.
  
• Is it just me or does every adaptation of this novel seem to blatantly ignore the fact that Quasimodo is deaf? (I think the 1923 Lon Chaney version included it, but I know the 1939 Charles Laughton version and the 1996 Disney version summarily ignored this [rather important] bit of information.)

Forward Momentum, Albeit Not Without Trepidation

"A novel... is born, necessarily as it were, with all its chapters; a drama is born with all its scenes."

- Victor Hugo (in his introductory note to the Definitive Edition to Notre-Dame de Paris)

Day Count: 181

Page Count:  1463

As I prepare to begin what I will, for lack of a better term, call the second leg of my journey through the works of Victor Hugo, I find myself filled with the same sort of anxiety I felt a little over a year ago as I prepared to read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

I feel like "anxiety" is the right word, because it certainly captures the equal parts of excitement and trepidation I'm experiencing with regard to reading another great classic by another renowned author. This is especially increased due to the fact that I enjoyed Les Miserables to the extent that I did; I feel as though no matter how good Notre-Dame de Paris* is, it won't be nearly as incredible as Les Mis.

I suppose I'm not without precedent on this particular issue, seeing as how I had a similar, if not equal, situation last year. Don't get me wrong - Anna Karenina was a great book and I very much enjoyed the reading of it, but... War and Peace was (and, honestly speaking, still is) one of the best reading experiences of my life and I have yet to read something that comes close to its brilliance in my mind. Compared to a novel that wonderful, Anna K - though wonderful and compelling - fell a bit flat.

There is, of course, a very apropos response to this way of thinking, which is essentially that each novel cannot be compared to another, but must be read and appreciated on its own merits. This is a very good point, and worthy of consideration, but I can't help but feel as though it is, on some level, an exercise in futility. I feel like the nature of my exercise - reading the essential works of Victor Hugo in 2012 - renders such an objective appreciation impossible.

Allow me to explain. When I set out at the beginning of last year to read the essential works of Leo Tolstoy (a task at which I feel I was marginally successful), that goal had within it an implied amount of comparison built in. I'm not reading each of these books in a vacuum, but instead within the context of other books by the same author! It stands to reason that if I'm reading the works of Hugo for no other reason than to read the works of Hugo, there will be some comparison between the books.

I feel as though this comparison was especially apt last year in my study of Tolstoy, with both War and Peace and Anna Karenina being regarded as one of the best novels ever written. I felt like my comparison was not only encouraged, but mandated - as though it were my job as a thinking literary person to come up with an answer to the eternal question of which I preferred (a question I feel I have more than adequately answered to this point).

So, I suppose the question I'm posing to you, my conspicuously-absent-and/or-silent-of-late readership, is this: is comparison the prerogative of the reader/scholar or is it his/her own hubris that he/she asserts over the text being read? (Believe it or not, this is not a rhetorical question - I actually would like feedback. Please consider commenting on this post with your own thoughts.)

That having been said, I feel as though I'm taking some steps to keep myself mentally engaged in preparation for my next classic. Part of that was reading the Hunger Games series (as discussed in my last post), but those were read relatively quickly and provided little in the way of mental stimulation (leastways in the ways that Les Miserables did).

No, to keep my mental faculties engaged, I have turned to one of the greatest authors in the English language - William Shakespeare! There are upcoming auditions with a local community theatre group for an outdoor production of Shakespeare's immortal A Midsummer Night's Dream and I have decided that I want to go out for the show! Having never performed any Shakespeare before (outside of high school English and college-level Acting classes, that is), I figured I needed to get some advice. To that end, I dug up a copy of Barry Edelstein's Thinking Shakespeare, which I picked up on a whim at a Half Price Books a couple of years back. I've found the book extraordinarily helpful for an actor, filled with very practical, and at the same time, thought-provoking advice regarding the performance of the Bard.

Then, yesterday, on something of a whim, I read A Midsummer Night's Dream for the first time in... well, maybe ever. Certainly, I had read excerpts from the play over the years, but having never needed to study it in either high school or college, I cannot think of a time when I've needed to read it... so, I never have. (Don't worry. Sometime in the next decade, I am planning to devote a year of study to Shakespeare, at which point, I would like to read all of his plays in their entirety.) It was deceptively easy to read - especially after having read the first several chapters of Thinking Shakespeare.

Auditions are still two weeks away, but I can't help but get a bit giddy about the prospects of performing Shakespeare for the first time! Here's hoping I do well!

I'm more or less finished with this post, but I want to leave you with a story that totally happened while I was writing this post. Being without Internet access at home, I often find myself seeking Wi-Fi hotspots when the need to update my blog roll around. About half the time (maybe more), I end up at the Panera Bread down the street from my apartment as the food there is always tasty and the atmosphere is conducive to reading, study, and reflection (especially when you happen to be pumping Brandi Carlile through your earbuds). At any rate, knowing I was planning to update my blog today, I brought along my copy of Notre-Dame de Paris as well as Thinking Shakespeare and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

As I sat quietly typing away at my blog, a woman approached my table (completely innocently - I'm seated by both a trashcan and the front door, which is, admittedly, not the best of seating arrangements for a 100+-degree day, but allows for many people to walk by my location) and pointed to my stack of books.

"Are you reading it or teaching it?" she asked.

"Uh... neither," I answered. "I'm auditioning for Midsummer next month, so I have these two," I here indicated A Midsummer Night's Dream and Thinking Shakespeare, "and I'm getting ready to read this one [Notre-Dame de Paris] for my own amusement."

"Wow," she said. "That's pretty ambitious!"

"Well, I just finished Les Miserables earlier this month," I responded.

"I could not read Hugo for my own amusement," she said as she walked out the door, "but I can read Shakespeare!"

I suppose I could comment further on this story (or you could), but I feel the need to let it speak for itself. At any rate, I feel like reading great books is the ultimate conversation starter!

Until next time...!

* For the record, I am refusing to call this novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, which is, admittedly, its more popular name. I am doing this for two reasons: (1.) Notre-Dame de Paris is the intended name for the novel, the one that Victor Hugo gave it when it was first published in 1831. In French, this translates to, literally, Notre Dame of Paris and, roughly, Our Lady of Notre Dame. The Hunchback is, of course, a reference to the book's 'protagonist,' Quasimodo. Still to call the novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is, I feel, to do a great disservice to the cathedral itself, which I am told becomes something of the central figure of the novel. (2.) The edition of the text that I am using (the aforementioned Alban Krailsheimer translation) is not entitled The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, but is, in fact, called Notre-Dame de Paris (potentially for any number of the reasons I listed above).

Sabbatical Blues ...or... How I Started My Summer Vacation

"Oh, yes, forbid me to die. Who knows? Perhaps I will obey. I was just dying when you came. That stopped me, it seemed to me I was born again."

- Jean Valjean to Cosette (V.9.v)

Day Count: 167

Page Count: 1463

Forgive me, readership, for I have sinned. It has been fourteen days since my last blog post. In that time, I have not only finished Les Miserables (exactly when I said I would - one day after my last post), but have finished three 'popcorn' novels (which will not contribute to my overall 'page count' as I'm reserving that for Victor Hugo novels only).

As I mentioned in my last post, June will be a month of sabbatical for me, an opportunity to pause for a few moments to gather myself for what will be the second novel in my 'Year of Hugo' - The Hunchback of Notre Dame (or, as I will likely be referring to it, Notre-Dame de Paris - the novel's original title). But more on that in a moment...

Finishing Les Miserables may be the greatest literary achievement of my life so far. Weighing in at 1463 pages, it is over 250 pages longer than War and Peace, the massive novel I 'scaled' last year. I feel a massive sense of accomplishment, which has only been amplified by the number of people who have been inspired by my blogging and incessant tweeting of quotes from the novel itself to pick it up and give it a read. This, more than anything, is my favorite part about my reading of this novel this year.

As to the novel itself, what can I say that I have not already? I loved it, first of all (though this should go without saying). Second of all, I have to say I was surprised - not just by the amount of digression Hugo does (which, after Tolstoy, is something I come to expect from authors - anything less is merely 'concise'), but at just how woefully short of 'close' all the adaptations of Les Miserables I've seen come to the mark. Hugo does a masterful job of crafting these characters very carefully - all of his characters really, from the major characters like Valjean and Javert to the comparatively minor ones like M. Myriel (the Bishop of Digne) and the students at the barricades (Courfeyrac, Grantaire, et al).

As I was reading, I came to an inevitable conclusion - Les Miserables is, not unadaptable, but certainly it has not yet been sufficiently adapted in any media so far. I think the closest we have come so far is the Orson Welles-produced radio play from July through September 1937 (predating his Mercury Theater on the Air by about a year). (The entirety of Welles' production - all seven parts - can be downloaded here on MP3 or RealAudio.) However, one of the reasons this adaptations is so effective is that it doesn't attempt to distill the major action of a 1400-page novel into two or three hours. Instead, it takes its time, as the author does, and develops the story over seven 'episodes,' each half an hour long. This still doesn't quite do the story justice, but Welles' respect for literature made him probably the most ideal candidate to undertake this adaptation.

In my mind, an ideal adaptation would be a television mini-series - masterminded by the BBC, preferably - which would take no less than five hours to develop the necessary plot points and create the fully-realized characters present in Hugo's work. This is a pipe dream, I know, but it seems the best way to do it. (And, yes, I do realize that there is a movie adaptation due out later this year, but it is, in essence, an adaptation of an adaptation, as it is actually adapting the Les Mis musical, rather than the actual novel.)

That having been said, the themes of Les Miserables are universal - the merits of grace, salvation, redemption, the dangers of legalism, poverty, and the transformative power of faith. It has been strongly encouraging to read through this book and take these themes to heart over the last several months. I've found that literature is not a dead thing, nor should it be. It is alive and capable - if one is willing - to challenge one at whatever point in their lives they currently occupy. The goal is to enter into the reading, to engage the text on a very REAL level, honestly allowing it to speak to one's circumstances. I learned this last year from reading War and Peace and have found it to be true once again in my reading of Les Miserables.

As to my current reading, I've taken to picking up some 'popcorn' literature - that is to say, novels that to literature what summer blockbusters are to film. I decided to make a go of Suzanne Collins' highly regarded Hunger Games trilogy, which I borrowed from my little sister. I must say that there was plenty in the series to like - especially for one like myself who is a HUGE fan of dystopia as a literary construct - and it was oddly deep and disturbing for a series of novels written for children. That having been said, these were quick reads (hence, 'popcorn' literature) - I began the first book (The Hunger Games) on June 2 (a scant few minutes after finishing Les Miserables) and finished the third book (Mockingjay) yesterday afternoon. (I would have been finished sooner, but I had to wait a week for my sister to get me the third book as she had let a friend borrow it. The third one ended up being the one that took me the longest to finish - five days.)

From here, I will likely continue reading Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, a novel on the history of philosophy that will be my primary text for a philosophy class I will teach next year. That should take me through to the end of the month, at which point, I will start reading the second of the Hugo novels I plan to tackle this year, Oxford World's Classics edition of Notre-Dame de Paris (more commonly known as The Hunchback of Notre Dame), translated by Alban Krailsheimer.

Just what I look for in a novel - partial nudity on the cover!

In doing research into translations of the novel, I lighted upon Krailsheimer's, which is widely regarded to be among the best modern translations of the work, which - naturally - appealed to me. When reading a work translated from the original language, one wants as much of the author's original voice as possible. So much gets lost in translation from one language to another - a lot of nuance, subtlety, and wordplay - that it is essential for a translator to retain as much of that as possible. I've been lucky so far to find great modern translations of some wonderful classic novels (I believe modern translations are also important as is tends to be more accessible to a modern audience), and Krailsheimer's looks to be just what I'm looking for!

As always, tweets and blog posts will round out my reading of the novel and help to inform you, my occasional readership (I have no delusions about my online popularity - or lack thereof), of the progress I am making with the book.

So, there it is. The long-awaited "I've-finished-Les-Miserables" post. Hope you enjoyed it! See you in July!

Coming in January: Hurdling Hugo

I've been remiss in updating this blog and, for that, I apologize. Indeed, since my life has picked up with the busy-ness of late, it's been difficult not only to find the time to update, but also to continue reading Tolstoy. While my neglect and my schedule HAVE diminished any possibility of getting through a fourth Tolstoy text before the year is over, I still hold out hope that I will be able to finish the book of his short stories that I began a couple months back. I've finished "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" and moved onto "The Kreutzer Sonata," which is a downright interesting story with echoes of Plato's Symposium and hints toward Capote's In Cold Blood. Sometime soon, I will have to review them for the blog here.

However, in the meantime, I have an announcement to make. It was a little over a year ago that I announced my intention to read Tolstoy's classic War and Peace. From that simple announcement, a journey of two novels, several short stories, and a literary awakening sprang forth. I came to a realization before I had even finished War and Peace that there were a great many fantastic works of fiction in this world and so few that I had ever actually bothered to read. I resolved myself then and there to change that for myself. I wanted to read those books, to better myself in the process, and discover why these classics are considered 'classics' in the first place.

After I had dedicated a year or my life to the work of Tolstoy, I challenged myself to dedicate each and every new year of my life (for as long as I'm able at least) to reading one classic author and their best-known and best-loved work. There came to be so many great authors that began to vie for their place on my bookshelf and in my hands: Joyce, Dumas, Dostoyevsky, Cervantes, the Brontes, Dickens, and many, many others. It was difficult to decide where to go next.

However, after giving it a goodly amount of thought, I found myself coming back to one author (and, indeed, one text) over and over again. For most of my young life (since my junior year of high school if I'm quite honest), one story has followed me. I first experienced it as a film starring Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush, and Uma Thurman, then as a musical written by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil. About the only way I have NOT experienced the story of Les Misérables was the way it was originally intended to be experienced - by reading the original novel.

So, my main story was set and, with it, my author for 2012: Victor Hugo. Reading massive novels did not really fill me with feelings of dread and apprehension like they did before I started reading War and Peace. As such, tackling a novel even bigger than that epic tome is not as daunting as it once might have been. In fact, I find the prospect rather exciting. So exciting, in fact, that I'm not ending the fun and excitement there! I've decided that, when I finish Les Mis, I'll take to reading Hugo's original masterpiece, The Hunchback of Notre Dame a.k.a. Notre Dame de Paris (provided, of course, that I can find a good translation of it).

While I am still excited about the prospect of finishing Tolstoy, I am anxiously anticipating beginning this new chapter in my literary journey! I would welcome any and all of you who have not read Les Mis (or even those of you who HAVE) to read it with me! I would love to discuss it with you as I go!