Kelly’s Reviews > Les Misérables > Status Update

Dear Victor, it’s been a year since I touched your beautiful book, I’m so sorry. In the interim, I have thought about it, wondering if AI could be harnessed in some way to annotate and footnote it, what a feat, right? I’ll talk to Claude, or President Perplexity. Soon again. I have a stack of smaller reads to get me back into the habit.

Just had a boring lengthy descriptive section, followed by a more dramatic emotional section. He did that on purpose, right? Hugo is playing me, like a fiddle lol

Jean Valjean is meeting Cosette.

I spoke too soon. Suddenly Waterloo has transitioned from a boring descriptions of roads, fields and hedges to a Game of Thrones cinematic level, catastrophically masterful depiction of a battle plan gone horrifically off the rails. Hugo got me again.

I’m roughly 20 pages into the Battle of Waterloo description, and like Napoleon, I fear I may not survive the battle without defeat….this intricate description of generals and locations is wearing on me, but I will soldier on.

Although it does inspire me to consider putting in on a “places to visit” list at some point in the future!!

I’ve learned Hugo is a master of suspense, as well as philosophy! Will Jean Valjean go to the trial or not?!? Will Fantine live to see him bring her daughter back?! It’s all too suspenseful!!!

It’s also amazing that I’ve lived this long and don’t know these basic things about the story, although I’ve never seen it performed and only know of the one song from the musical.

“There are no bad herbs and no bad men; there are only bad cultivators.”

Beautifully stating the “perpetrator as victim” concept. Earlier similar passages are even more beautiful; I’ll have to go back to highlight them.

This book is so biblical, I need to go and search out whether there are some analyses.

Taking some time to read on a drizzly Saturday morning after a medical procedure. Luxurious :)

I borrowed this book from the Nawakwa book collection, oh, maybe some 10 years ago now? Someday, I hope to return it.

I have started and restarted it so many times, each time dutifully re-reading Hugo’s biography and the introduction. Finally, I’ve committed and gotten past the introduction of Monseigneur Bienvenu and into the introduction of Jean Valjean, woo! Wish me continued luck!