Accessible Classics

One of the best things about having a Kindle (Fire) is that you can download all the great classic literature for free! Well, those in the public domain, anyway, but that includes just about all the best novels from early 20th Century and older. That includes just about all of Dickens, as well as the greats of French literature of the 19th century, which is an interest of mine. Two nights ago I decided to make a go at what many critics regard as the greatest novel ever written (but read by virtually nobody), A la Recherche du Temps Perdu by Proust. I started Swann's Way, the first volume, and I loved the the imagery, the reveries, and I lasted only about 10 pages, because NOTHING happened. I read the synopsis on Wikipedia, and basically, very little happens throughout volume one. Most of it is the narrator reliving old memories, each one branching out to the next. I'm sorry -- I consider myself very literary, a connoisseur of the classics, but at my age I'm no longer able to enjoy literature for art's sake like I used to. I need something to "happen." Sorry, Marcel,  but I doubt I'll try again.

So last night I turned my attention to Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky. I read the Wikipedia synopsis too; action enough to satisfy me. It's not as wordy and as full of digressions as most 19th century fiction -- at least not yet -- but the focus of the novel is more on characterization than anything else, or so it seems to me at the outset. This is Raskolnikov; this is what he does, this is how he lives with himself after he does it, and this is how what he does affects his family and friends. I hope I can stay with it, and look forward to the thrill of appreciating one of the most important literary artworks for the first time -- much as I did earlier this when, bowled over by the cinematic treatment of Les Miserables inspired me to read the original Victor Hugo novel, again on Kindle (not for free this time -- but for only about $2). 

The novel was abundantly overwritten in many places, and packed with typical 19th digressions -- one whole section on the battle of Waterloo, with the only reference to the story coming at the end of the battle with the accidental meeting of Thenardier and Marius' father -- but in other places, filled with more heart and soul than any other novel I've ever read. I'll never forget the scene in which Jean ValJean has tracked down the dead Fantine's young daughter Cosette at the Thenardier's inn. Jean Valjean eats supper in the dining room and anonymously observes how the innkeeper and his monstrous wife treats the little girl they've transformed into little more than a slave. For most of the scene Cosette, her work done for the time being, crouches hidden underneath a table, hoping for just a few minutes out of the clutches of the evil couple. The Thenardiers' own two young daughters, including Eponine, treat Cosette just as poorly as do their parents, and won't let her play with a makeshift doll they've made out of rags. Then, when the sisters get bored with their doll and toss it out onto the floor near Cosette, the poor girl quickly scoops it up and plays with it back in her hiding place under the table. Jean Valjean watches her play with it as if she'd never been allowed to play at all in her short life. This comes to a violent end when Eponine looks for the doll again, sees that Cosette has it, and screams to her mother for justice. Madame Thenardier, filled with disproportionate self-righteous rage, rushes to Cosette, and yanks the doll out of her arms. Cosette, who had learned the hard way that the best way to survive is never to call attention to herself, loses control and cries like a baby. At that moment, Jean Valjean pushes back his chair and stomps out of the inn. He returns moments later, holding a beautiful, expensive doll coveted by every little girl in town. He approaches the sobbing girl, still crouched under the table, leans down and says "This is for you." Words that the girl had never heard before in her whole life. My eyes welled when I first read this scene, and they welled up equally so in subsequent readings. It was all the more powerful for me because I was not at all prepared for it; as no such scene exists in the musical.

I would love to re-read Les Miz the novel, but the damn thing was almost 1,000 pages. The smart thing to do is to bookmark my favorite scenes.