Les Misérables: My Favorite Musical Based on a Classic Novel (Classic Remarks)

WHAT IS CLASSIC REMARKS?

Classic Remarks is a meme hosted here at Pages Unbound that poses questions each Friday about classic literature and asks participants to engage in ongoing discussions surrounding not only themes in the novels but also questions about canon formation, the “timelessness” of literature, and modes of interpretation.

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Leave your link to your post on your own blog in the comments below. And feel free to comment with your thoughts even if you are not officially participating with a full post!

You can find more information and the list of weekly prompts here.

(Readers who like past prompts but missed them have also answered them on their blog later and linked back to us at Pages Unbound, so feel free to do that, too!)

THIS WEEK’S PROMPT:

What is your favorite musical based on a classic novel?

For me, Les Misérables is pretty much the perfect musical! I love the sheer breadth of it, the way it follows a cast of characters over many years, revealing how their lives intertwine with one another even as they are swept up into the upheaval of rebellion. And so many important themes are touched upon: justice vs. mercy, the possibility of redemption, and the need for social justice, to name only a few. The scope of the production blows me away every time!

For me, Les Misérables is pretty much the perfect musical! I love the sheer breadth of it, the way it follows a cast of characters over many years, revealing how their lives intertwine with one another even as they are swept up into the upheaval of rebellion. And so many important themes are touched upon: justice vs. mercy, the possibility of redemption, and the need for social justice, to name only a few. The scope of the production blows me away every time!

And, amazingly, I love pretty much every song in Les Mis. I could admittedly do without “There Is a Castle on a Cloud,” which I find sickeningly sweet. But every other song is phenomenal and powerful. From “I Dreamed a Dream” to “On My Own,” each song reveals the inner lives of the characters, making individuals society has cast away–the poor, the orphaned, the criminal, and the “ruined”–come alive as fully realized and sympathetic people. Les Mis has a vast scope, but its heart is the characters, and the reminder to “look down” at the people and the conditions society longs to forget.

Les Mis has all the emotions, bringing audiences from sadness and despair to hope at the possibility of redemption and a happier ending, even if not in this lifetime. Its poignancy is perhaps what really draws me to the musical. It takes a hard look at the divide between the rich and the poor, emphasizing over and over again the responsibility the privileged have to treat everyone with dignity, and to see to their needs. It is a message that continues to be timely, long after Victor Hugo first sought to change hearts and minds in his 1862 novel.

Runner-Up

A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities is my favorite Charles Dickens novel. It is, in my opinion, Dickens at his best. Dickens is known for writing long, sprawling tales with verbose prose. (He did, after all, get paid by the word.) But with A Tale of Two Cities he actually manages to be somewhat concise, giving readers a sweeping saga of the French Revolution that finds its heart in telling the story of how the political chaos affects one family in particular. The narrative is tight, perpetually gesturing forward to its conclusion while also linking the present to the past. No word or thread of the tale seems out of place. It is masterful.

Because I love A Tale of Two Cities so much, I was excited to discover that a musical based on the book was released in 2007. I never saw the production on Broadway, though I did see a local production that seemed almost professional! (I expect to see the actor who played Sydney Carton on Broadway one day himself.) The songs are powerful, and they do an excellent job of filling in the gaps that readers may feel Dickens left. Lucy, for instance, gets to sing about her feelings about Darnay leaving her for France without even consulting her opinion on the matter. She feels like a well-rounded, and understandably angry, woman, not the doormat some readers have found her. And Sydney’s despair at his inability to turn his life around also comes through very poignantly. Some changes were made to the plot to work around problems like the actors for Darnay and Carton not looking like twins. But all the changes seem reasonable and work well with the plot. Altogether, this is a very beautiful and moving musical, and I would love to see it performed again!