|
Everyone’s on about Les Misérables right now or so it seems. The plot, the cast, the songs, the off-screen gossip, etc. is the talk of the town. But what about the man who wrote the original novel way back in 1862. Victor Hugo must’ve been an angry and passionate man to write about such things as exploited orphans and schoolboy revolutionaries who seem to lay down their lives for nothing, no? Or was he merely recording the times? Well we’ll leave the debate about the Paris Uprising of 1832 and whether it was all for nothing or not to the historians and politicians in France. But what kind of life did Hugo lead himself and what experiences did he have that may have influenced him and moulded his character? For one thing he found himself accidentally caught up in the cross-fire whilst in Paris writing another play. He literally had to shelter from the flying bullets. But although Hugo wasn’t politically involved in the protester’s movement he did managed to quite separately alienate the king of France on another occasion. After a period of exile in the British Channel Islands he returned to France in 1870 – just in time to get caught up in the horrors of the Franco-Prussian War. At that time he ended up eating animals given to him by the zoo in order to meet his nutritional needs. A life less ordinary indeed is the one that Victor Hugo led. So when you’re enjoying his work, either in its literary or re-invented musical form, spare a thought for the difficulties experienced by the very man who penned Les Misérables all those years ago. More on Les Mis 2012
Related Articles -
Les Mis, Victor Hugo, author, musical, Paris,
| 
