let’s begin, but this time it’s gonna burn
I’m sidetracking myself for a second to mention that today I had myself professionally impaled for the third and last time. I can now laugh in the face of hepatitis B. Somehow that gives me world domination powers, I just know it.
Also Tech pulled through, much unlike this year’s football team, and correctly forwarded my lost Amazon package home. Now I am flashed.
Additionally, I spent some time at Given’s last night. I got #1, #2, #3, plus a mini-mocha latté (mini on the mocha, not on the latté).
Ok, finally; what I want to mention:
I finished Les Mis. Yes, finished. Completed. Actually read the whole thing. Actually loved it. But let me say no more. I have (as you will soon read on further) decided to analyze/journal my thoughts every day this week. For example, the following was written yesterday after the last line pranced about my head; I’m leaving myself one day of delay for proofing and slight editting.
Thus I give you Ryan’s Commentary and Reflection Upon a Classic, Les Mis:
Part #1
After contemplating several ways of approaching a personal analysis to Les Mis, I decided it best to spread out my thoughts over the course of a week, letting the novel settle in my mind and not just spurting out my first instinctive impression.
As with many of the books I complete, the immediate effect I received post-finishing Les Mis was one of regret. “It’s over…now what?” Well, this time I hope to gather my thoughts before pouring myself over another good book. This time I hope I discover an internal grasping of the work rather than a hazy glance from classic literature.
Simply put: Les Mis was profound. Instantly, I could understand the universal praise it has gleaned from ages past. Victor Hugo conjures up a magnificent storyline and reiterates all detail to leave a reader only with the most consummate version of the story. I can’t imagine the many abridged versions of this book are nearly as amazing; Hugo’s distinctive style deserves to be appreciated in its fullest. I was enthralled by his elaborate flashes across setting and era; a book-long discourse on Waterloo gave superb background for much of the book, even though it initially seemed out-of-place and long-winded. Other examples of such jumps occur all throughout the text, but never does a reader experience so long of a hiatus that they entirely forget the present events (a careless reader may, however, lose focus if he doesn’t also spend the time to taste each element of Hugo’s work).
Indeed, the novel is long, is lengthy, and, at times, is exhausting; yet no honor is enough for a work that standardizes immaculate literature. Les Mis studies social depravity, social stimulae, social wealth, and social self-destruction in ways far superior than any other work of literature I am aware of. Not quite a textbook, but certainly no storybook, Les Mis defines, characterizes, and fantasizes the best and worst in all of us.