Les Misérabes

[This contains spoilers!]

NOTE: This post was written immediately after I had finished the book, it is a complete mess of thoughts, and yes, I am aware I'm probably the only person ever who doesn't know the story of Les Mis having never seen the film... Just to give you some warning before you read! 

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I just finished Les Miserables and I am FULL of emotions right now that I just needed somewhere to write down all of my thoughts because OH MAN I have so many. 

Firstly I am so glad to have finished that book. I have been reading it for what feels like my entire life (since late December) and I am very happy to be able to read something a bit easier and a bit more lighthearted!

But firstly, THIS BOOK.

I don't know what to think.

It breaks my heart, broke my heart, will my heart ever be the same?, that Jean Valjean was thought of so terribly by Marius simply for being an ex-convict. And it drew into question how I view people who have been to prison, what I think of them, why I think those things. I have so many different opinions of the penal system - in the UK and further afield - and this has brought all of that to the surface again. It's too much to write about right now - I hope that will be a post that will come later - but just know that this part of the book, the whole redemption and second chances and condemnation side of it, hit me hard.

Because Jean stole some bread! That is not enough to condemn a man for life! Oh Hugo was so right when he distinguishes between the law of man and the law of God. While I may not believe in God as such (that is something for a WHOLE other post) in this case especially I agree with the concept of the law of what is right and oh! Jean had done so much good, condemend for life is so terrible!

And then a crime committed from hunger, from poverty, from the act of trying to feed children - to spend 19 years in the galleys for that! And it scares me that this is still happening today. People are still having their hands forced, their lives forced, they are at a disadvantage and they are being punished by a law that holds them to a standard they aren't even capable of living at!

AND FANTINE. I can't even talk about how my heart broke when she died.

It just wasn't fair. She was doing everything she could, working so hard, sacrificing everything for her little girl and it ended with her beaten down again and again by a society that just didn't want to see
there was more than one acting force in her situation, that there was something beyond her own role in her life. It didn't want to take accountability for it's role in her descent into poverty and it turned it's back when she died and yet Thernardier, the parasitic shithead, was allowed to not only survive but to escape and continue his evilness somewhere else!

It was so sobering to see things in this book, this book set in the 1800s, that are relatable to life today. To know that as a society we still throw all the blame on the individual, we ignore our role in their life and their pain - it feels like we have learned some of the lessons printed there but ignored others.

And oh, Gavroche. When he fell, I felt the same as for Fantine. It was so unfair. So needless. It could have been prevented, it should have been prevented.

Gavroche was like a little ray of light, he was so good and innocent and oh. I am just sad.

Since NO ONE warned me of the ending (thank you and also how dare you let me go into that blind) I sat in the hostel lounge and cried. People were in here and the tears were flowing down my face, because that ending warmed my little broken heart but oh, oh, oh, that it had to happen like that!

All of this to say I have finished Les Misérables and I am so full of everything and it has been such a long time since I have like this from a book and it feels wonderful. Sad and confused and my brain is foggy with thoughts but oh, I have missed this!