 | Victor Hugo: Les MisérablesEveryman's Library It has been said that Victor Hugo has a street named after him in virtually every town in France. A major reason for the singular celebrity of this most popular and versatile of the great French writers is Les Misérables (1862). In this story of the trials of the peasant Jean Valjean - a man unjustly imprisoned, baffled by destiny, and hounded by his nemesis, the magnificently realized, ambiguously malevolent police detective Javert - Hugo achieves the sort of rare imaginative resonance that allows a work of art to transcend its genre.More... It has been said that Victor Hugo has a street named after him in virtually every town in France. A major reason for the singular celebrity of this most popular and versatile of the great French writers is Les Misérables (1862). In this story of the trials of the peasant Jean Valjean - a man unjustly imprisoned, baffled by destiny, and hounded by his nemesis, the magnificently realized, ambiguously malevolent police detective Javert - Hugo achieves the sort of rare imaginative resonance that allows a work of art to transcend its genre. |
There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body may be, the soul is on its knees.
Women play with their beauty as children do with their knives. They wound themselves with it.
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The soul helps the body, and at certain moments raises it. It is the only bird that sustains its cage.
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The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves - say rather, loved in spite of ourselves.
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To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.
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