The beauty of Les Misérables

THIS WEEK’S WINNER

MANILA, Philippines - Katrina Gaw, 19, of Quezon City, is a lover of the written word. Kat, a legal management student at Ateneo, spends much of her time reading and writing, and hopes to one day write an acclaimed novel or two. She is also a big fan of musicals, and came to discover Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables in this way.

Some books have the ability to reach beyond the era in which they were created; to send a message through the generations so poignant it remains forever relevant. Some have the power to summon a cascade of emotions at once: anger, indignation, happiness and more. Others still give people ideals — ideas so infectious they cannot be erased. These are all merits achieved by Les Misérables, Victor Hugo’s masterpiece, and one of my favorite books.

I’m sure that I am not the only reader who was amazed by the life of Jean Valjean. I first decided to try the novel because I had discovered Broadway, and I wondered how a book could inspire such an acclaimed musical. It was no longer a surprise to me after I read the story myself; it has all the elements of a story that soars and comes alive, so dramatic it can make one break into song, so bewildering and yet so relatable.

By now, the beginning of Les Misérables is familiar to most. Jean Valjean is a convict, sentenced to prison for decades for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister’s family and then for his attempted escapes. Everybody shuns him, and he develops a hatred for life. He is saved from descending even deeper into this pool of loathing by a bishop, who kindly allows him to stay in his convent for the night when no one else would take him in. Afraid of the sudden hope creeping into his heart, Valjean steals some silver, runs and is caught by guards, but is set free by the bishop. In a line that is now classic, he tells the stunned Valjean, “Never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man… You no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that, with this silver, I am buying for you.” Valjean spends the rest of his life in a constant struggle for righteousness, amidst the backdrop of 19th-century France, where poverty, prostitution, thievery and revolution abound.

Perhaps the main protagonist’s story is hard to believe. Despite the fact that Hugo based the character on an ex-convict of his era, rarely is a life filled with as much drama or action as Valjean’s. However, the painful realities of the society Hugo created are so vivid and lifelike that a hundred years later, they still feel familiar. Valjean encounters, on his journey to goodness, the beautiful but unfortunate Fantine, a single mother forced to become a prostitute to support her daughter; Javert, an investigator so obsessed with black and white that he forgets the shades of gray; and Thernardier, that cruel criminal whose desire for money outweighs even the welfare of his family.

It is painful to come to the epiphany that these people still exist amongst us; that misery persists, and even flourishes. In one part of the novel, Eponine describes living under a bridge, starving, and wanting to drown herself in the nearby river. She then thinks, “No, it’s too cold.” The idea that she could think of no better reason to live than the fact that the waters are too icy to guarantee a peaceful death is disturbing. And yet in days when storms rage throughout Metro Manila I imagine the people who live under the bridge in EDSA, sick from the fumes, clothing soaked and clinging to their skin, I imagine there are those who know the torrent of those kinds of emotions well.

On the way home one day, a sight overwhelmed me — children, chasing one another in the streets, using the immobile cars as hiding posts. They had a mischievous charm to them; they reminded me of Gavroche, the street urchin, saving other lost boys from dying of hunger in the alleys of Paris and joining the big ones as they loaded their rifles and set about with their revolutions.

One of the kids came up to my car window and rapped the glass with his paper cup. I ignored him at first, as most do in that situation. He pressed his nose to the glass, and as I turned for a quick glance I was reminded that even in Victor Hugo’s masterpiece, poverty is a disease that plagues societies. The boy was much too thin. His face was covered in grime. His clothes were tattered; he wore no shoes. I imagined little Cosette, abused and neglected in the home of the cruel Thernardiers, her small arms straining to carry a bucket of water in a dark forest; I remembered those two young brothers, wandering the streets, begging for scraps, never to be seen or heard from again. I quickly took out my wallet and let the boy have a P10 coin. “Salamat po,” he said as he walked back towards his friends. Suddenly he was just a child again. I looked on as the traffic lights turned green and we sped away.

Does Les Misérables offer a solution to the societal problems that we face? Does it point towards a light at the end of a tunnel? The novel does not have an easy fix for the state of humanity, and it is clear why — Jose Rizal once called these troubles the “cancer of society,” and every time I pass the crowded streets and see beggars tapping at car windows, I remember that diseases spread, multiply and infect, to a point where containment becomes near impossible. The book does, however, go back to the basics in a beautiful way and attempts at answers, as seen in Valjean’s life. Making a better world is about action; it is eradication of ignorance. It is welfare for the poor, and compassion for the misunderstood.

Wherever people choose to listen to the wailing in the streets, to the students who rise up and ask for justice, for liberty, for fraternity, to the words of wise old bishops and kind ex-convicts, wherever one remembers to ask why, there is hope. It grows and it is nourished; like a virus, it comes alive. As time marches on, I hope that this novel and its message is not forgotten; that it continues to inspire in the hearts of the willing the idea that misery is not the only infection that spreads; that there, too, is love, and dreams, and passion. One day, this cure may just penetrate the very core of the issues of our society. Who knows? Perhaps only hope will bring us there.