THE ENDURING SIGNIFICANCE OF 'LES MISERABLES'

David Bellos, The Novel of the Century: The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Miserables (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2017) ("After his conversion Valjean is a generous and charitable man, and his epic struggle is to abide by the command-ment to be kind even when tempted by anger, resentment, jealousy and revenge. Through the character of Jean Valjean Les Miserables gives stunning reality to an ideal we might otherwise dismiss as naive." That's why Hugo's novel remains meaningful today as when it came out 150 years ago. It is a work of reconciliation--between the classes, but also between the conflicting currents that turn our own lives into storms. It is not a reassuring tale of the triumph of good over evil, but a demonstration of how hard it is be good." Id. at xxi.).