"Of all the great men in the literary and art circles, he is the only one who lives in the hearts of the French people." This is romain rolland's evaluation of Hugo. The young Roland keeps a pictorial of Don Quixote, on which is a colorful picture of "Old orpheus": his gray hair is covered with a halo, he is stroking the harp and singing for the suffering people. This image left by the author of Les Miserables may be more acceptable to the public.
The most outstanding feeling of reading Les Miserables is the heavy feeling. It is also a masterpiece, and it is equally heavy. Reading "John Christophe" or "Remembering the Past" doesn't feel this way. This heavy feeling is not in your hands, but in your heart, you feel the heavy accumulation of human suffering. You don't have to write a book full of suffering, but you can afford the word "heavy". Les Miserables is affordable only because this voluminous book has been in the author's mind for 30 years.
It took more than 30 years, from the conception of 1828 to the writing of 1845, and finally to 186 1 to write a complete book, which is really a tie, unique in Hugo's novel creation. The motivation of this novel comes from 180 1 year. A poor farmer named Pierre Mo was sentenced to five years' hard labor for stealing a piece of bread because of hunger. After his release, he made a living with a yellow ID card and ran into a wall everywhere. In 1828, Hugo began to collect information about Bishop Miollis and his family, and planned to write a story about a freed convict who was influenced by a holy bishop and abandoned evil and did good. In recent years 1829 and 1830, he also collected a lot of information about the black glass manufacturing industry, which is the origin of Jean Valjean's going to Monterey by the sea, from a convict to an entrepreneur, opening a factory and making a fortune. In addition, he also visited the convict prisons in Brest and Toulon and witnessed scenes similar to Fantine's humiliation in the street.
By 1832, the conception of this novel has been quite clear. Moreover, on the basis of collecting materials, he wrote novels such as Diary of Death row (1830) and Claude Geiger (1834), exposing the social reality that led people to commit crimes and severely condemning the judicial system. In addition, he also published the masterpiece Notre Dame de Paris (183 1), as well as many poems and plays, but he did not write this work that made his heart heavy. It has been brewing for twenty years, and it was not until June18451kloc-0/Hugo that he finally began to create, and at the same time, he constantly supplemented the materials and enriched the content. He successfully finished his first book, named Suffering, and has written nearly four-fifths of the manuscript. Unexpectedly, Hugo was involved in the political whirlpool again, and on February 2668+0848. The fate of the book "Suffering" will also be exiled in the fetus with the author.
If Hugo, like other novels, starts writing as soon as his ideas are clear, then with his literary talent, there will be another companion piece after Notre Dame de Paris. Or when 1848 finished four-fifths of the manuscript, it was completed in one breath, so in Hugo's book list, there was another masterpiece of punishing evil and promoting good; Although it was written by Hugo, it is a masterpiece, but there are probably a few masterpieces in the treasure house of world literature.
Over the past 30 years, things are neither human nor non-human, and how much has changed! If Hugo was baptized by literature during his performance of Ainani in 1830, then the revolution in 1848 and the exile of 1852 by the "Little Napoleon" government were his social baptism. Exile means not only leaving the motherland, but also leaving everything, including the title of literary leader, the status of senator and so on; Exile not only means breaking with one's own class, but also means breaking with one's own values and literary concepts; Exile, give him the freedom of a lonely person: from then on, he no longer cares about society, law, authority, faith, false democracy, human rights and civil rights, and even his successful image and artistic pursuit. Exile, release him from all this, give him a great relief, cancel all the forbidden areas for him, thus giving him all-round space for activities, so that he can get in touch with all audio-visual sounds of history, reality and future.
During Hugo's exile in Ganesh Island, it was from this all-round vision and all-round thought that he re-examined everything and reflected on everything. On this basis, he not only made major revisions and adjustments to the manuscript of Suffering, but also added many new contents. Finally, he continued to write a complete book named Les Miserables. The whole work is completely new, as if the author had been baptized by a new soul. This is the soul smelted from the tragic world. It is everywhere, and it never represents any class, party or part of people. But in the name of God's nature and human conscience, we oppose everything in the world that distorts and cuts human existence, no matter how sacred and legal.
All the misfortunes in the world, Hugo collectively called suffering. Jean Valjean, a convict who stole bread because of hunger, Fang Ding, a prostitute because of poverty, Cosette, a tramp in Paris, Mabeuf and Gavroche, Javert, who finally threw himself into the river for justice, and Thenardier, who went to ruin along an evil road, are all representative figures. Their sufferings, whether material poverty or spiritual degradation, are caused by social reasons. As a thinker of human existence and destiny, Hugo can comprehensively examine these causal relationships, criticize the history and present situation of society in the name of the future, and criticize all alien forces in the name of human existence, thus showing the eternal contradiction of human historical development. It is in this sense that Les Miserables can be called an encyclopedia of human suffering.
At the beginning of July, 1862, Les Miserables was a great success as soon as it was published. People eagerly read it and were conquered by an irresistible force. People who hold a negative attitude confirm the special weight of this work from the opposite side: Ju Weiye Fleuri called Hugo "the number one French demagogue", while Lamartin praised the author himself and attacked his philosophical point of view: "This book is very dangerous ... The most deadly and terrible passion instilled in the masses is the pursuit of impossible passion ...". Others accused him of being huge, exaggerated and excessive. However, his birthday style has added "all-round" wings, struggling in the "tragic world" and shouting only for human dreams and impossible things.
Judging from the sum of time and history, Les Miserables, as a great work produced by human thoughts, has been accepted by the whole world, and as a monument to literary masterpieces, it also occupies an indisputable immortal position in the treasure house of world literature.