"Valjean, At Last, We See Each Other Plain" or "Les Miserables Is Wonderful"

[Seil]

So about a year and a half ago, after someone in my family made a reference I didn't get (which is not uncommon, as most of their references tend toward famous literature that I've never read, or music that I've never heard) I decided to hear some music and read some books. Not to say that I'm not an avid reader; it's just that before I made the decision, I was primarily reading trashy stuff and the sort, listening to the newer bands. I mean, I haven't even seen "Natural Born Killers" or "The Usual Suspects" yet.

So I curled up with copies of "Moby Dick" and "Ana Karenina" and "Les Miserables." And don't bother reading anything else up there (which, I suppose I should have mentioned previously) because Les Miserables is pretty rad. Yeah, it's like over a thousand pages, and yeah, that there new movie has just done come out (but I'm a firm believer in reading the book before watching the movie anyhow) but this is a great read and I highly recommend it.

Valjean is one of the cooler characters in books these days... or those days... or whenever this book was written... He's a bad ass ex-con trying to get someone else's kid back. It's pretty great. I'm only, like, 300 pages in right now, just after Valjean has come back from Arras. Now, I've got a passing familiarity with the musical of the same name, and to read the book and know the music and to understand everything just a little bit better is, suffice to say, pretty neat. I'm at the point where my favorite song should be playing; Confrontation.

But Les Miserables (or Les Mis as it's known on the street) is pretty great and we should all discuss the greatness of eighteenth century French literature.