The Novel of the Century

The Novel of the Century

The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Misérables

By David Bellos

Penguin, 2018

ISBN: 9780241954478

Best known as the biographer of Georges Perec and translator of his magnum opus Life a User’s Manual, in this book David Bellos writes about another great French novel, Les Misérables, and its creator Victor Hugo.

When Les Misérables came out in 1862, it was panned by the critics but became an instant (and enduring) bestseller nonetheless. Ordinary readers were captivated by the compelling drama of the lives of the poor and the downtrodden, played out against the backdrop of world historic events – and, above all, by the character of Jean Valjean. Valjean is, in the words of Skip James, ‘a poor man but a good man’ and he has a fierce will to live a noble life, whatever the cost and sacrifice.

Bellos puts it well when he says that this is a novel about how damn hard it is to lead a good life. Violence is easy, vice is all around, while virtue is discipline, something you must practice each and every day. You can never take for granted that the struggle has been won, you must always keep up your guard. Do that and maybe, just maybe, you will be OK. Rather than revenge, Valjean is motivated by reconciliation. His duty is to understand and make amends. That is what makes the novel such an unusual and such a mature, moral work; and your curiosity turns naturally towards the author, who also struggled to try to become a good man.

Hugo was undoubtedly that: a social reformer, he railed against the evils of slavery and argued for the abolition of the death penalty. He also lived through the revolutions of 1848 – raging throughout Europe, like the fires of populism in our own day – and his involvement in politics at that time meant that he had to flee France to preserve his liberty. So it transpired that he completed and arranged for the publication of Les Misérables (a book which, as was his habit, he wrote standing up, incidentally: Bellos is very good on the nuts and bolts of Hugo’s writing routine, as on much else) while he was living in exile in Guernsey.

You will find plenty about the novel to inform and entertain you. There are sections on the names given to the characters; the significance of colour (blue, for example, was used to denote what is rare and precious) ; the money used (coinage, denominations); the modes of transport available (this was a France without the railways which Flaubert railed against and the Impressionists loved to depict in paint); the rhetorical devices in evidence: Hugo had a fondness for a few; the sometimes weird and obscure vocabulary (among them, Bellos mentions ‘historical curiosities such as “miquelet”, meaning “a Catalan insurgent”…’ which may soon acquire a new topicality).

In his memoir The Orchard, the late Harry Mathews recalls:

I remember Georges Perec’s unqualified love of novels that embodied a far-reaching vision… He never questioned my reservations about them but only emphasised their scope once again, so eloquently that I wanted to reread them at once.

David Bellos’s book has the same effect on the (or at any rate, this) reader. Erudite and enjoyable, it is an ideal companion to Les Misérables. And it cannot do other than whet your appetite for making an acquaintance, or reacquaintance, with the book itself.

The publisher’s description of The Novel of the Century can be read here.

On Leave

On Leave

By Daniel Anselme

Translated by David Bellos

Penguin Classics, 2014

ISBN: 9780141393872

The novel takes an oblique look at the Algerian War, a conflict that raged from 1954 until 1962, ending only when De Gaulle finally granted the troubled colony its independence.

Anselme’s approach is to dig deep into the attitudes and motivations of three soldiers who are home on leave, let loose in Paris for a week or two.  He shows us the distance between civilians safely ensconced at home and combatants who are fighting an unpopular war – a situation we have since come to know only too well.  For sure, there is no sanctuary: these three guys may as well be ghosts, they’re on their own.  Adrift from lovers, friends and family.

To my mind, the best thing in the novel is the description of a long, chaotic night on the town, with Paris – a city which Anselme knew and loved well – acting as a salve on the soldiers’ despondency and displacement.

Sad to say, the novel – originally published in 1957, the same year that Algeria’s son Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature – was one of the few works of fiction that Daniel Anselme (1927-1984) wrote.  His efforts were mostly devoted to journalism.

The translation reads smoothly and beautifully, which is hardly a surprise; it’s by David Bellos.

The publisher’s description of the book can be read here.