Nędznicy. Tom III/IV

by Victor Hugo

C'est un tel classique qu'on a toujours l'impression de l'avoir déjà lu... ou vu : avec Michel Bouquet dans le rôle de Javert, ou bien Depardieu. Relire donc Les Misérables, publié par Victor Hugo en 1862, offre le plaisir de la reconnaissance et du recommencement. Toujours on sera emporté par la tension romanesque du livre, ses figures inoubliables, ses langues multiples - n'oublions pas que Hugo est le premier à introduire l'argot et la langue populaire dans le français écrit -, ses histoires et son temps. De la récidive malheureuse de Jean Valjean, frais libéré du bagne, à sa progressive rédemption, de l'enfance désastreuse de Cosette à son idylle avec Marius, de la figure sacrificielle de Fantine aux personnages sinistres de Thénardier et de Javert, le roman propose une belle leçon d'humanité vivante. "Je viens détruire la fatalité humaine, écrit Hugo, je condamne l'esclavage, je chasse la misère, j'enseigne l'ignorance, je traite la maladie, j'éclaire la nuit, je hais la haine. Voilà ce que je suis et voilà pourquoi j'ai fait Les Misérables." Un plaisir de lecture qui fait suite au volume 1. --Céline Darner

Genres: Classics

451 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1999

About the author

After Napoleon III seized power in 1851, French writer Victor Marie Hugo went into exile and in 1870 returned to France; his novels include The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862).

This poet, playwright, novelist, dramatist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, and perhaps the most influential, important exponent of the Romantic movement in France, campaigned for human rights. People in France regard him as one of greatest poets of that country and know him better abroad.

Reviews

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quotes from Vol. III - Marius
p. 117-118 "The burning blushes of poverty - It is an admirable and a terrible trial, from which the weak come forth infamous and the strong sublime. It is the crucible into which destiny throws a man whenever it requires a scoundrel or a demi-god. Many great deeds are performed in minor struggles. There are obstinate and unknown heroes who defend themselves inch by inch in the shadows against the fatal invasion of want and turpitude. Theirs are noble and mysterious triumphs which no eye sees, no renown rewards, and no flourish of trumpets salutes. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment, and poverty are battle-fields which have their heroes, obscure heroes who are sometimes greater than illustrious heroes."

p. 121 "Debt is the beginning of slavery. A creditor is worse than a master; for a master only holds your person, while a creditor holds your dignity and may insult it."

Volume IV - St. Denis
p. 1 "At intervals, truth, - that daylight of the human soul, - is seen shining there."

p. 6 "Right triumphant needs no violence. Right is justice and truth. It is the property of right to remain eternally beautiful and pure."

p. 18 "Any man deemed good by history, in which goodness is a rare pearl, is almost superior to one who was great."

p. 205 "One of the magnanimities of woman is to yield. Love, at that elevation where is is absolute, is complicated by a certain celestial blindness of modesty. But what dangers you incur, ye noble souls! You often give the heart, and we take the body. Your heart is left you, and you look at it in the darkness with a shudder. Love has no middle term; it either saves or destroys. This dilemma is the whole of human destiny. No fatality offers this dilemma of ruin or salvation more inexorably than does love. Love is life, if it be not death. It is a cradle, but also a coffin. Of all the things which God has made, the human heart is the one which gives out the most light, and , alas! the most darkness.