My Book Haul

It is 4am and I just finished reading Cosette, the second part of Les Miserables. I liked how this part was paced. It is about half as long as the preceding part, Fantine. There was always something going on that advanced the story and less about building up to the core of the plot.

I like how Hugo writes so effortlessly and seems to have planned out the plot meticulously enough that the there seems to be a lot of “foreshadowing”. I say “foreshadowing” because characters from the past keep coming into the plot and have giant roles in helping Jean Valjean. The commentary Hugo seems to be putting in play here is do good and only good will come to you. Jean Valjean keeps reaping from the good he planted in the first part, Fantine. 

I liked how Hugo brought back Javert and continued his annoying pursuit of justice. He seems to be always paranoid, and it becomes agitating to have Hugo making him right about his suspicions. It would be nice to have his obsession bite him in the ass. Regardless, I enjoyed the chapter that shifts the perspectives to Javert.

The last part I enjoyed in Cosette was the introduction of the convent. I liked how it provided comfort to Jean Valjean in the end. It came out of nowhere, like a miracle! Also there was a section of the book that did an extensive comparison of the convent and the galleys, which I was beginning to think of myself. How Jean Valjean has been to both places, and how in the galleys there were only men and in the convent there were only women. How one was for punishment, and the other for solace. Hugo once again does a wonderful job juxtaposing good and evil. 

This part of the novel has a substantial amount of religious undertones, unlike Fantine which focused more on social and political ideas.