One of my favorite Broadway musicals of all time is Les Misérables. It is based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo.1 Originally published in 1862, along with an English translation, it has proved to be a tale that transcends his time and has had lasting impact over 150 years later. Its themes of redemption, sacrifice, protest, hope and love are timeless in their messages.
I remember when the musical debuted in 1987 to widespread acclaim. I was so excited that it was going to tour in 1989 and my wife and I would be seeing it at the famed Fox Theater in Atlanta. To prepare myself for this experience, I decided to read the book. Its over 1400 pages (fortunately in paperback so I could hold it!) were at times tedious but always overflowing with incisive political commentary and human emotions.
The other night I decided to pull it off my bookshelf. I blew off the dust and noticed the yellowed pages. As I thumbed through it, I detected small pieces of paper sticking out of several places. I apparently was moved to document the author’s comments at the time of my first reading that I felt were worthy of bringing to light.
I could spend an extensive essay discussing the story of Les Misérables and the subsequent Broadway musical. But today, I am compelled to discuss the sections in the book that are consistent with our lives over 160 years later. Those sections below are in quotes with my comments to follow.
- “It is only barbarous nations that experience sudden growth after a victory. It is the fleeting vanity of the streamlet swelled by the storm. Civilized nations, especially on our times, are neither exalted nor degraded by a captain’s good or bad luck. Their specific importance in the human race results from something more than a combat. Their honor, thank God, their dignity, their light, their genius are not numbers that heroes and conquerors, those gamblers, can cast in the lottery of battles.” (page 344) – Victor Hugo, reflecting on the battle of Waterloo, appropriately notes that battles and wars are never the great gains that folks hope for. Typically, they merely return some degree of stability and that can be a good thing. Their honor and dignity might be sustained. For me, the message here is that leaders need to consider their foreign engagements quite carefully. The predominant victim of armed conflict is children and quite devastatingly so. Nations will engage in conflict frequently, but how we wish that nations would seriously consider the consequences (after great deliberation) and weigh the long-term results, not the short-term gain.
- “For five years Marius had lived in poverty, deprivation, distress, but he realized that he had never known real misery. Real misery he had just seen. It was this sprite that had just passed before his eyes. In fact, to see the misery of man only is nothing, you must see the misery of woman; to see the misery of woman only is to see nothing, you must see the misery of childhood.” (page 743) – Poverty is a terrible thing.2,3 Folks living in poverty can be desperate. While all living in poverty are affected, I agree with Hugo’s prioritization of children suffering the most. They suffer the short-term consequences and life-long effects that can affect their health (physical and mental), educational outcome and financial well-being. We must realize that children are a priority, no matter of the century of their birth. Our collective neglect for those in poverty is a shame on folks in the 19th century and equally so for us in the 21st The deprivation, distress and misery of poverty are real.
- “Problems can be reduced to two principal problems…[1] to produce wealth…[2] to distribute it. The first problem contains the question of labor. The second contains the question of wages. In the first problem the question is of the employment of force. In the second, of the distribution of enjoyment. From the good use of force results public power. From the distribution of enjoyment results individual happiness. By good distribution, we must understand not equal distribution, but equitable distribution. The highest equality is equity.” (page 840) – Equity! There is that word again. It seems to be a sticking point for those that really don’t want to understand that lives of faith, faithful adherence to selflessness, require us to care for each other and care about each other.4,5 I love the quote that “the highest equality is equity.” It sets a high moral standard for us to shoot for as our work will never be done. There will always be those that are vulnerable (disability, ethnicity, life circumstances, etc.), and we are tasked with the duty to aim for equity, not just equality.
- “No man is a good historian of the open, visible, signal, and public life of the nations, if he is not, at the same time to a certain extent the historian of their deeper and hidden life; and no man is a good historian of the interior if he does not know how to be, whenever there is need, the historian of the exterior. The history of morals and ideas penetrates the history of events, and vice versa…Since true history deals with everything, the true historian deals with everything.” (page 984) – Ah, yes. To understand history and seek to improve the future, one must understand the public aspects of history and the underbelly of its actions. It is simple to say that the United States endorsed slavery and then abolished it, but one MUST understand how we accepted and endorsed the concept of slavery and allowed it to be perpetuated for so long.6,7 Only then can we truly grasp the remnants that persist today without just sweeping them under the rug with a pronouncement that racism no longer exists. How did men and women justify the horrific stance in the past, that Black people and slaves were just 3/5ths of a person? Truly, to understand the history of the exterior, an honest inquiry into the history of the interior is necessary.
Victor Hugo was a profound storyteller. Through his works of fiction, he has relayed powerful messages about the human condition and he has suggested ways to honestly address them. I could have used lessons from the Broadway musical to express his thoughts, but I wanted to go back to the source material and pay tribute to the original author.
In conclusion, I got chills at the end of musical when the main protagonist, Jean Valjean, proclaims that “to love another person is to see the face of God.” The depth of that statement should remind each of us that the work of our faith journeys is solidified by our love for others and that our personal salvation is a secondary effect of that work. Caring for others, especially our children, is that work and subsequently the glorious product of providing the safe, stable nurturing relationships for our children – safe, stable nurturing relationships that allow them to be resilient and flourish now, in the future and for generations to come.
- Hugo V. Les Misérables. Signet Classic; 1987. 1444 pp.
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/poverty-and-children-i/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/poverty-and-children-ii-action/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/woke-is-good-not-evil/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/amazing-grace/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/racial-inequity-it-cannot-be-whitewashed/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/does-racism-still-exist-in-america/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/children-are-not-3-5ths/