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Jan. 27th, 2013 06:35 pmI have come to the conclusion that Victor Hugo just decided that he was going to write All The Genres while writing Les Miserables. Seriously, all of them - there's the over-arcing story of redemption, of course, as well as prison drama, hagiography, many different social commentary stories, romance, romantic tragedy, romantic farce, gothic-heading-towards-horror, wacky gothic shenanigans, war stories, political history, crime drama, coming of age, doomed revolutions...there are probably some I'm missing. (Also rambling Thoughts On Many Topics. Today, I have been reading Victor Hugo's Thoughts on Gardens. It is surprisingly engrossing.)
To be honest, if I wasn't so very familiar with adaptations of this story, I would not be at all surprised to find that it eventually contains early science fiction. Considering the amount of stuff that I've never seen in adaptations*, who knows? It may still happen.
*I can't decide which of those bits is my favorite. I am torn between a) Valjean's escape from his second jail term, which involves daring rescues of sailors and faking his own death by diving into the sea, b) the wacky coffin shenanigans, which are hilarious, c) Marius' calling cards, oh you goober, or d) the sequence where, like, 20 different criminals end up in the Thenardier's terrible apartment, waiting there to blackmail and rob Valjean who then proceeds to kick all of their asses until they think the cops are coming, after which they start arguing about who gets to leave the apartment first, almost decide to draw lots for the privilege, whereupon Javert saunters in and offers them his hat for drawing lots out of.
Okay, it is probably that last one.
To be honest, if I wasn't so very familiar with adaptations of this story, I would not be at all surprised to find that it eventually contains early science fiction. Considering the amount of stuff that I've never seen in adaptations*, who knows? It may still happen.
*I can't decide which of those bits is my favorite. I am torn between a) Valjean's escape from his second jail term, which involves daring rescues of sailors and faking his own death by diving into the sea, b) the wacky coffin shenanigans, which are hilarious, c) Marius' calling cards, oh you goober, or d) the sequence where, like, 20 different criminals end up in the Thenardier's terrible apartment, waiting there to blackmail and rob Valjean who then proceeds to kick all of their asses until they think the cops are coming, after which they start arguing about who gets to leave the apartment first, almost decide to draw lots for the privilege, whereupon Javert saunters in and offers them his hat for drawing lots out of.
Okay, it is probably that last one.
