The musical is a loathsome form of entertainment. To debase a great literary work like “Les Misérables” by putting Victor Hugo’s words to catchy, schmaltzy jingles, belted out by Hollywood starlets—this reflects on the miserable state of the culture.
Not that I follow the Golden Globes Hollywood awards itself, but I believe the production called “Les Misérables” was nominated in the “best musical or comedy” category.
It’s quite probable that the self-reverential (and self-referential) crowd involved in the “Les Misérables” production had not read or understood the book.
One Fox News anchor mentioned that this song-and-dance was based on a book written in the 1600s. “Les Misérables” was published in 1862. I doubt Victor Hugo was 200 plus at the time of publication.
As a child, I read “Les Misérables”; Harry Potter type literature was not around (or rather, not in-vogue) to contaminate the mind and the imagination with poorly written phantasmagorical folderol. There is nothing like an historical novel penned by a master, to both teach and excite the imagination.
I do not recognize the book I read way back, in the gush and tosh being disgorged in pixels and on paper about “Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo. I’m sticking to the version I remember.
The “Les Misérables” I read as a kid was about France’s unfathomably cruel and unjust penal system, and the prototypical obedient functionary who worked a lifetime to enforce the system’s depredations.
A similar power (Uncle Sam) and its enforcers recently hounded Aaron Swartz to death. (As a lefty, Swartz would not have defended my rights to be left alone by government, but then we libertarains are not like them. And more of us (libertarians) than them (leftists) understand that “Patents And Copyrights Undermine Private Property.”)