I don't take Victor Hugo seriously, and here's why.....

Here you go, Lola.

And I'm not picking on or teasing just Lola. Anyone with further criticism is welcome to elaborate here. I believe it was Medellia over in the quotinghouse thread who said something to the effect that the realists arriving on the scene in the late 1800s took issue with Hugo's characterizations, finding them generic, perhaps, and not artful.

And you Hugo defenders out there, defend the man here too! May this debate rage!

Another interesting tidbit I pulled from Isabel Roche's Character and Meaning in the Novels of Victor Hugo (in the two or three minutes I have thus far devoted to Roche's work): ". . . Flaubert's harsh assessment of Les Misérables scolds Hugo for creating theatrical types in a novel ("types tout d'une pièce comme dans les tragédies"), thus implying that the novel should require different types altogether . . ."

This strikes me as an interesting example of how some (not all) criticism of Hugo's characters lies in ideas of what literature & literary forms "should be." I can't say I'm entirely sure what Flaubert means by "theatrical types," as I'm unfamiliar with French drama, but the criticism seems strange and arbitrary. Why not have theatrical types in a novel? It strikes me as being like some 17th century criticisms of Shakespeare, complaining that the action of his plays didn't take place over a single day (a classical stricture that was coming back into fashion). The modern reader, of course, says... what?

Edit: read up on classical unities, changed my post accordingly...

Edit again: ...The Wikipedia article on classical unities is interesting to read also because apparently one of the controversial aspects of Hugo's play Hernani (1830) was that it violated these rules of classicism.

1 - Flaubert and the others may have felt they needed to kill the king to become the king. It may even have been true at the time. We have the luxury of being able to enjoy them both.

2 - I don't think the realists are any less susceptible to deploying types.

3 - I enjoy a penetrating psychological character study, realistic dialogue and stream of consciousness when they are well done, but I think the ability of Hugo or Dickens to get so much across without resort to the inner lives of the characters may be the superior achievment. Its certainly not inferior. Gillenormand, for instance, was a recent secondary character I ran across that I thought was portrayed brilliantly by Hugo.

"types tout d'une pièce comme dans les tragédies"

I don't know whether the phrase "theatrical types" occur in Flaubert (I'm just looking at the direct quote here)--"tout d'une pièce" means (well, hard to think of exact single word equivalent)--simple, uncomplicated, monolithic, blunt, one-tone, "what you see is what you get"... plus other stuff depending on context. (It would be interesting to know which tragedies exactly he had in mind, btw--I'd say Racine and Corneille sooner than Shakespeare.)

Les Mis: shamelessly tear-jerking melodramatic extravaganza. If it were a dress, you'd cringe to see mom wear it, and sooner die than don it yourself. Lovers, arm your tomatoes!

I suppose people here already know Hugo was a highly accomplished graphic artist (years ago I had the great pleasure of going to an exhibition of his artwork in Pierpont Morgan library in NYC).

Even if you didn't know that already, I think one can guess it from his writing--his characters are described like pictures, sketches, croquis, in visual terms. Plastic features convey abstractions; it's as if his people were allegories, like the great Baroque paintings. This can be marvellous--one of the things to love in Hugo is his "colour"--but it is also misleading. It misleads into believing that people are a way they are not: monsters, supermen, witches, saintly virgins, cherubs, satyrs etc.

It also misleads into believing life is the way it is not: like a comic strip.

In another universe, Hugo would have been PERFECT for Marvel Comics.

5: Yes but an extravaganza all the same!

6: I did NOT know Hugo was a graphic artist!
http://www.artseensoho.com/Art/DRAWINGCENTER/hugo98/hugo1.html

LW: I share your thoughts to some extent (but a much lesser extent). I said something along those lines on another thread (but not as well, of course.) Two reasons for that lesser extent: (a) although the extreme monsters/witches/saints etc. are extremes we all have times when we rise and sink to these extremes so they are realistic under extreme circumstances and the extremes appear all the time in a reduced fashion and (b) I like reading about monsters/witches/saints etc.!

Also, as you have noted, allegory can be serious business.

Les Mis: shamelessly tear-jerking melodramatic extravaganza. If it were a dress, you'd cringe to see mom wear it, and sooner die than don it yourself. Lovers, arm your tomatoes!

> 5 True, the extravaganza fits better in the "Toilers of the sea" and even more in the baroque " l'homme qui rit" which are according to me better books.

You asked for it Lola.

Pictured are what happened to some previous Hugo Haters, pulverized just outside the Arc d'Triomphe (sp?), circa 2007.

When life gives me tomatoes, I make gazpacho!!

It is time for my richly deserved vacation--I shall be back to poke at VH with a chopstick in some number of weeks.

lola have a great vacation, light of my loins.

I agree with you about VH. He works in archetypes, not real people, and as slick says, the fact that Hugo's archetypes are almost like the real thing, is an achievement of the highest order. Good Dickens analogy, there slick. Good old inimitable.

you know, looking at those graphics by Hugo, I would say he put more psychological realism into those than into his character portrayals. They are simply brilliant.

4: slickdpdx - point 3 - great point, nicely stated. Authors can do different things with different styles. The styles can each be effective in their own way.

regarding - I don't take Victor Hugo seriously, and here's why...

First, I don't take myself all that seriously, and this is just an inexpert, generally clueless and premature impression - premature because I'm just past half way through. So far for me the experience has only been OK. I'm enjoying it enough keep reading. Hugo has some fun, he can be clever, I think I can see some of the underlying themes and some of their significance. Certainly he seems to be saying something important. I see value in reading it and I think a lot of this will stick. But I haven't had a wow. It's just some book with a quirky antiquated style for me, so far.

It is tempting to compare Hugo and Dickens, but I see them as very different in the end; crazy plots, sentimentality and conscious tear-jerking aside: Hugo playing with rigid stock characters (fairy tale archetypes, see comments and quotes by Medellia et al. in other thread), Dickens developing fabulous, never-before-seen caricatures. Pickwick, Pecksniff, Mrs. Jellyby, Fagin and so on all became archetypes in their own right.

It's always somewhat silly to compare writers, but to me Dickens is the infinitely more original, and more interesting, because he remains interesting longer (I've already mentioned the difference there is for me in reading Hugo early vs. later in life).

Hugo was by all accounts the better, nicer man, but Dickens was the better entertainer. Dickens had more imagination. There is nothing in Hugo to compare to Jenny the dollmaker in Our mutual friend, or the two down-and-out street characters (names escape me) in (uh, Old Curiosity Shop? Little Dorrit?) playing cards, with the scamp addressing the poor lady as "the Marquise"--that humorous and despairing weaving of a fantasy world within the fantasy of the novel. Dickens' caricatures breathe with a humanity Hugo's terribly earnest characters totally lack.

oh bloody bravo!!!!!!!

Dickens' caricatures breathe with a humanity Hugo's terribly earnest characters totally lack.

Spot on.

This may be a matter of taste.

As a follower of Hoffmann, who said: Irony and buffoonery are expressions of the deepest contemplation of life in all its conditionality I naturally look for the ludic in literature, coz I think that's more profound. dickens is definitely more ludicrous (in the literal meaning of the word) than Hugo, who I feel disdains the ludic in his search for moral.. sonority?

This is not a value judgement based on the merits or demerits of either writer, but a preference on my part. Totally selfish.

I admire Hugo greatly, but Dickens I revere. And maybe it's simply because in the end he always makes me giggle.

moral.. sonority?

Which, alas, technically turns into literary bombast.

I love Hugo's structures: the structure of sentences, paragraphs, chapters, novels. He had a great sense of rhythm, the story lines dance, scenes open up like figures in a gigantic quadrille. But, but, but... if only the content were worthy of the form.

I adore Victor Hugo, what I've read, limited mostly to Les Mis.

Les Mis is essentially, a "genre novel" employing some literary stylistic devices, but mostly sticking to tropes and types. And I don't necessarily fault it for that. It's easily the most readable and fast paced and exciting long-winded piece of 19th century literature I've ever encountered.

I agree Dickens is superior. No question. Here's an analogy: If Dickens is stylistically and literary-wise the equivalent of, say, Tolstoy's War and Peace, then Hugo, in Les Mis, is akin to Herman Wouk's War and Remembrance. Both novels are sprawling and complexly structured, but one is the highest of art - War and Peace - while the other - War and Remembrance - while excellent in its aims and a book I believe worth reading and found quite enjoyable, is genre, middle-brow, and in no way, no how in the same artistic league as Tolstoy. Framed like that, Hugo can't compete with Dickens.

But, I love Hugo nonetheless, I love Les Miserables regardless, but I do recognize it's middle-brow at best as a work of art, and can't compare to the true giants of literature like Dickens and Dostoy, etc. et al.

I will say though, because of it's accessibility and easy understandability, despite covering, my God, such a vast socio-historical and political panorama - and yes, it's obvious manipulative tugging at our emotions (I love that btw, the sentimentality of it charms me rather than chills me) - makes it as much a classic as the other greats in my subjective, idiosyncratic book.

Though understand too it is probably, along with Infinite Jest, my favorite novel ever, so I'm biased, even despite its literary limitations. I have a distinct weakness for it, definitely.

11: The Dickens bit is something I've been thinking about since reading your review of Sketches or Pickwick, don't recall which it was. The rest was something I've been thinking about since EF replied to concerns I raised that were similar to LW's and that I have rethought as I continued reading on.

13: I swear I was thinking something like the same thing re: Dickens v Hugo this morning - but, once again, not as lucidly and with a slightly different tack. Hugo is dealing in allegory, Dickens is not. Allegory is a different challenge. Often it is drawn in broad outlines. To use the big paintbrushes, like Hugo is doing so well, and to fill the picture in so thoroughly is, in my mind, a significant artistic achievment. Also Dickens' novels are not really novels of ideas while Hugo's (at least Miserables) is all about them.

16: Too hard on Hugo! Herman Wouk? For shame. Hugo's not at the top, but he's in the second tier. Unless you dismiss storytelling from ART. P.S. You are a strange combination of maximalist and experimentalist, aren't you? And, middlebrow? Isn't snobbery the ultra of middlebrow? Though I will admit I nearly balked at getting the Signet ppb because of the cover graphic from the musical...

What is middlebrow? I've heard this term all my life and the only middle brow that comes to mind is, in reality, the central component of the unibrow. I know it is quite often used as a pejorative for... what? Uneducated, ordinary, average, what? It strikes me as the kind of term one uses when pointing out the deficiencies in others. Does it have a considered set of defining characteristics, or is it just a way to lift oneself on the backs of others?

If I had to compare, I would also compare Miserables to Moby Dick. Melville's writing and outlook are more adventurous (so far as I know, as I don't read French) but there is a similar approach to telling a story and making "characters" out of things other than people. The works are ultimately apples and oranges, I suppose, but Miserables compares quite favorably to the extent you can compare them.

Middlebrow? - Offensive? Pejorative? Hugo appealed to the common man (and woman), to the proletariat, to the peasant, what's wrong with that? I'm a peasant. Isn't it true that some people do have superior intellect while others are just plain average? I'm middlebrow (often low brow), middle class, middle just about everything. I'm not offended by it.

I honestly don't know what the exact definitions are, but here's what I meant when I said them: High brow = the highest of the High Artists. In Literature, these would be your magna cum laude "students": Joyce, Marcel Proust, Leo & Fyodor. It would also include other artists who did not consistently output high art like the former but occasionally output a masterpiece, too many to name but I will, of course, if I must.

Middlebrow, as I understand it, is literature which on occasion shows flashes of brilliance but doesn't consistently shimmer with the glow of genius throughout the entire text. It can be classic; it can be great; but it's not the select magna cum laude level of excellence. And as slick asserts, there are many tiers to middlebrow, in my opinion as well. And perhaps middlebrow is the wrong catch-all word to define literature that's great, but not the greatest ever written.

Oh slick, I wasn't comparing Herman Wouk with Hugo, that would be absurd. What I was suggesting is that the divide between High brow and middle brow is great, representative of the divide obviously existing between War and Peace and War and Remembrance. Bleak House is high art; Les Miserables isn't, and what separates the two is what separates your magna cum laude student from your A-minus student. On paper the divide may not look that significant, perhaps a 4.5 G.P.A. with leadership extracurriculars compared to an excellent 3.85 G.P.A. with extracurriculars, but in reality, the work and vision and level of commitment it takes to bridge that educational (i.e. "artistic") divide between the two, is enormous. That's why I went with Wouk in contrast to Tolstoy (and because he happened to have a book with "War" as its first word) to contrast with War and Peace.

I AM NOT A BIGOT AGAINST THE MIDDLEBROW! GOD BLESS THE MIDDLEBROW! I AM MIDDLEBROW!!! Yes, I'm shouting.

Perhaps we need to vote figure out in some other threads which writers represent High Art, and then which belong in whichever tiers of Middlebrow Art, eh?

Mac, how bout a High Art hitlist followed up by a First Tier Middlebrow hitlist, and a second, and third, and so on?

Oops. In correcting a typo I removed a word. The post 17 above with respect to EF should say "You are a strange combination of maximalist and experimentalist, aren't you?" I wasn't calling you middlebrow. Just saying, incredulously, "And, middlebrow?" Can you hear it? I should have started a new para. there.

Maybe I am too promiscuous, but I would rank Miserables (though only halfway there I would be surprised if my opinion changed) as a masterpiece. I do think it shimmers with genius throughout, dammit!

I am enjoying Hugo thus far, but not taking him too seriously. He weaves his stock characters in and out in relatively interesting ways, has some good lines, and is generally quite good at what he does, even if what he does is not the most ambitious project in the world. The melodrama thus far is a bit heavy but not yet overwhelming, but there are still hundreds of pages to get there.

But I think he's more the kind of unadorned, plain dress combined with an unadorned, plain coat, plain scarf, a plain belt, plain shoes, rather simple hat, none of which, of course, go together; I just wish sometimes that he'd go whole hog and put a truly outrageous and overbearing plume on top of that hat so it became truly comic rather than just being charmingly common.

I am also seriously enjoying this book. I am a sucker for sentimentality. But I would agree with nearly everything said so far by the "haters." Some of the best characters aren't human. The city of Paris, the battle of Waterloo, perhaps even the Argot, are better described than Marius. Cosette is a total blank for me. The comparison to Dickens is what really got me. Hugo's characters (at least in Les Mis) can't hold a candle to those of Dickens. That is at least, my personal opinion and I am biased ( I ADORE Dickens) but, I am not going to hold that against them. I see a little Lucy Manette in Cosette, and a little Martin Chuzzlewit in Marius.

> 21 I love the "Shimmering Genius." That is perfect.

Back when I was in middle school and high school and we read things for English we would discuss the various elements of a piece of fiction:
- Plot
- Characters
- Setting (both place & time)
- Narrative voice
(and possibly other elements I can't remember right now)

I think that if you evaluated Les Mis and then, say, Tale of Two Cities, in these categories, ToTC would come out ahead on character.

Plotwise, I'd posit that they are both well plotted except for that 19th Century "wow, what a coincidence" thing which I always roll my eyes at. (Dickens is actually worse in this regard than Hugo. ToTC, not to mention Nicholas Nickelby, not to mention Great Expectations, good grief, almost any one of his novels - their plots all hinge on completely unbelievable coincidences.)

In other aspects, I think the authors are of about equal merit. Maybe Hugo's narrative wanders a bit too much into digressions but like Slick, I kinda like them.

As for "middlebrow" the way I have heard it used, this usually gets slapped on any author who is actually loved by extremely large numbers of normal non-lit-major people. In other words both Dickens and Hugo would fill the bill whereas Joyce wouldn't. It's like a sorta-derogatory (I know you didn't mean it that way Brent) way of saying "popular."

I just want to clarify my position. For me the difference between H and Dickens is NOT one of degree, but one of kind, as I was trying to make clear in my post # 14. H is definitely in the first rank of writers, no question. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Hugo hater.

I'm sorry if I offended anyone with my "hater" comment. It had been tossed around in another thread, sarcastically I thought, and I meant it sarcastically in my comment.

I'd be very surprised if you offended anyone, nee-nee. People hereabouts actually have to aspire to be offended; because "being offended" doesn't come naturally to this group.

Amen, my brothers and sisters in le Salon?

noo-noo

what does offend mean ?

I'm so glad you asked, Big Mac Daddy!

Offend: (verb) 1 cause to feel hurt or resentful. 2 to be displeasing to. 3 commit an act that is illegal or that goes against an accepted priniciple.

quoted from the Compact Oxford English Dictionary.

Henri, do you ever sleep ?

OFFENSIVE, adj. Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as the advance of an army against its enemy.

"Were the enemy's tactics offensive?" the king asked. "I should say so!" replied the unsuccessful general. "The blackguard wouldn't come out of his works!"

The Devil's Dictionary
Ambrose Pierce

Wow, this thread zoomed on during my also richly deserved vacation. Lola, darling, you offend me in post #5. I am experiencing disagreeable emotions. I have worn some horrible dresses in my short life. People who have no fashion sense are still people. *sniff*

A_musing, based on your recent Hot Review of Les Mis (nice one) you may (or may not) want to elaborate some here. Although I do see as I swiftly scroll up should've done that first, that you did post in this thread already, but as of Dec. 23rd you were still enjoying Hugo. When did it go sour for you?

And where is slick lately? Really annoys me when he disappears for days on end w/out a word as if he has some "real life" outside of here. Sheesh.

'Rique, you are right, I started out enjoying this book. And it was a nice counterweight to the much heavier and more difficult reading I was doing simultaneously (e.g., Clarel).

What's the best way to explain? I don't know if you have them outside of New England, but I also enjoy Friendly's Restaurants. They make a pretty good clamwich, which even people who don't like clams can enjoy, and their mac and cheese isn't bad at all. Their trademark is the Fribble, a thick gooey extra large milkshake that doesn't have much substance but is quite nice and very filling on a hot day. Now, Friendly's doesn't know what a spice is, and I believe no fresh herb has ever graced a Friendly's kitchen, and they do use a bit too much cheap oil on the grill and stick everything on white bread, but, still, there are plenty of times when I really enjoy a Friendly's meal.

The problem is that every now and then one wants a little basil leaf in a tomato sauce, or a clam that is really fresh, or something that's not greasy and bready. And now I know just how much Friendly's I can take - about 200 pages worth, maybe 300. It was a couple hundred pages in that reading became more of a chore, even if it still wasn't difficult. But, really, this could have been a pretty good book had a good editor taken a hand to it. It is, perhaps, one book that should be abridged.

But, really, would anyone disagree that if Hugo lived today, he'd be one hell of a sit-com writer?

I should add one other thing here:

Lola was right.

"But, really, would anyone disagree that if Hugo lived today, he'd be one hell of a sit-com writer?"

I would have to agree with that thought. Or he might bring back the Doris Day and Rock Hudson genre of flick.

I am loving this book and almost finished with it, but seriously, tell me: how many of you did not laugh aloud when they were having their little revolt, building up all the barricades and talking back & forth.
This book has made me weep and I have also laughed my ass off. So what is not to like about it. I love it!~!~! But I do not believe that it is serious writing like Life and Fate, War and Peace or even Anna Karenina nor works of that caliber. But it is wonderful for what it does bring to us. And it is quite different from anything I have read before. So somewhere down the road, I will be looking for a reread on this one.
belva

Well, I must admit that the laughter and glee did not last long when the citizens were building up their barricades. At first it was just so funny with the little boy and the way Hugo wrote it, but when things turned, they turned in a hurry. And it did get heart breakingly sad. Such brave men & children & women. So now we are in the sewers of Paris.
I am still loving this book and thinking that in it's own way, it is quite as comprehensive as the three I listed in the post above as it not being. So I must apologize to Mr. Hugo.
belva

Thank you Belva! I was getting really worried about you...

I finished Les Miserables yesterday morning and, (attempting to keep it spoiler free), yes, this is indeed a book that I loved and will read again over the years. Hugo has a way about writing that almost made me feel like he was attempting to lure my head from the story at times, but if so, he sadly failed. He tends to do what my mum calls "going off on a tangent". He gets caught up in a netherwind and is off and running with it for a while but then here he brings it back to the story line and yes, it usually had some little/big something to do with one or the other of the characters, including Paris.
By the way, this is the best book with Paris as the backdrop that I have ever read.
So I really liked it; I cared very much about most of the characters. I think that the only character I actually detested was Thenardier. I liked how Hugo built his characters so they were multifacted and layered and not just one dimensional. And he took the time to do it, which not all authors do; sometimes all parts of a character are described at once. But not here. Here, we actually got to see the growth (to the bad or the good) of the characters.
Thank you Le Salon, for organizing this read. For me, it was a reading experience of a lifetime.
belva

Thank You Belva for joining us!

For me, it was a reading experience of a lifetime.

I couldn't agree more.

>35 A_musing: soap opera.

It was better than Dostoy's Idiot, which is also a soap, but not as bubbly.

Hugo was a visionary:

Power From Sewage; N.Y. TIMES, 4/28/10

Thank you slick for drawing this to our attention.

All you weak Hugo Haters out there can NEVER take away from the man Victor that he did indeed know his shit.

Knew it too well.

Jaques Barzun in The New Republic, August 1943. Think about that date for a moment.

Victor Hugo, Myth Maker

On a different note - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1281334/Jamaica-11-dead-Kingst...

The slums have been barricaded. The rabble is not as high-minded as the ABCs.