Les Misérables is a new project which will use the 19th century masterpiece by French humanist Victor Hugo as a magnifying glass to have a look at our 21st century society. I hereby invite you to join this journey of discovery; discovery of our modern world as well as self-discovery. I am here to share with you, but also to learn from you.
Any fan of Victor Hugo, or any fan of Les Misérables as well as any social activist should definitely join this group. I am going to invite you to read or re-read the original novel. We'll read it together, at a slow pace.
In a moment I will tell you what is the raison d'être of this new project and the format it will take. But first, I would like to give you an overview of the project members who have already shown an interest and have already joined as well as those who might join us soon. A few among us have already read the novel, probably more than once. One person confessed that the novel changed his/her life (indubitably for the better). A majority knows the story only through the musical or through one of the numerous film adaptations. Some have seen the musical several times and their heart have been so touched that they welcome this opportunity to discover the original masterpiece. Others are simply curious and hardy enough to give it a try.
I also hope that there will be those who do not know the story at all, those who have not even seen any of the movies nor the musical. If these people join us and follow us throughout this long journey, they are in for a very emotional and inspiring ride! (See note below about spoilers).
Why?
I cannot think of better preface for the project upon which we are embarking together, than the preface the author, Victor Hugo, provided for his own work:
[En.] So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century—the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;—in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables cannot fail to be of use.
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[Fr.] Tant qu’il existera, par le fait des lois et des mœurs, une damnation sociale créant artificiellement, en pleine civilisation, des enfers, et compliquant d’une fatalité humaine la destinée qui est divine ; tant que les trois problèmes du siècle, la dégradation de l’homme par le prolétariat, la déchéance de la femme par la faim, l’atrophie de l’enfant par la nuit, ne seront pas résolus ; tant que, dans de certaines régions, l’asphyxie sociale sera possible ; en d’autres termes, et à un point de vue plus étendu encore, tant qu’il y aura sur la terre ignorance et misère, des livres de la nature de celui-ci pourront ne pas être inutiles.
So long as there shall exist unjust laws that allow the rich to become richer and bind ever more tightly the lower classes into permanent poverty; so long as our international trading systems allow northern nations to plunder the natural resources of the poorest nations of the world; so long as the plight of the people living in overcrowded cities, in war-torn zones, environmentally degraded and polluted zones remain forgotten; so long we maintain our comfortable living standards at the expense of the livelihood of future generations; so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, projects of the nature of this one cannot fail to be of use.
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