Man has a body that is both his burden and his temptation. He drags it along and gives in to it.
The door of a physician should never be closed; the door of a priest should always open.
"Do not ask the name of him who asks you for a bed. It is precisely he whose name is a burden to him who most needs sanctuary."
What more do you need? A little garden to walk in, and immensity to reflect on. At his feet something to cultivate and gather; above his head something to study and meditate on; a few flowers on earth and all the stars in heaven.
Human thought has no limit.
For prying other people's affairs, none are equal to those of whom it is no concern.
What is story of Fantine about? It is about society buying slave.
From whom? From misery.
From hunger, from cold, from loneliness, from desperation, from privation. Melancholy barter. A soul for a piece of bread. Misery makes the offer; society accepts.
There is one spectacle greater than the sea: That is the sky; there is one spectacle greater than the sky: That is the interior of the soul.
resumed his calm as a gladiator picks up his shield.
One can no more keep the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. For the sailor, this is called the tide; in the case of the guilty, it is callled remorse.
Diamonds are found only in the dark bowels of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of thought.
What ever was going on inside him, no one could describe, but everyone will understand.
Scenes like that are sometimes enough for the soul, and almost eliminate the need for thought. To see a thousand objects for the first and last time, (skip) Traveling is a constant birth and death. It may be that in the murkiest part of his mind, he was drawing a comparison between these changing horizons and human existence. All aspects of life are in perpetual flight before us. Darkness and light alternative: after a flash, an eclipse; we look, we hurry, we stretch out our hands to seize what is passing; every event is a turn in the road; and suddenly we are old. We feel a slight shock, everything is black, we can make out a dark door, the gloomy horse of life that was carrying us stops, and we see a veiled and unknown form that turns him out into the darkness.
Then he had gone to the child and silently hold of the bucket's handle.
The Unknown is an ocean. What is conscience? It is the compass of the Unknown.
This is because he has a pearl in his soul, innocence, and pearl do not dissolve in mud.
learn to produce wealth and learn to distribute it,
Poverty in youth, when it succeeds, is magnificent in that it turns th whole will toward effort and the whole soul toward aspiration. Poverty strips the material life entirely bare, and makes it hideous; from this arise inexpressible yearnings toward the ideal life. The rich young man has a hundread brilliant and coarse amusements, racing, hunting,dogs, cigars, gambling, banqueting, and teh rest; busing the liver portions of the soul at the expense of its higher, more delicate ones. The poor young man must work for his bread; (skip) The poverty of young man is never miserable. (skip) will always be envied by an old emperor.
In Marius's opinion, to accept would make his position better and worse at the same time; he would gain comfort and lose in dignity; (skip) something like a blind man gaining on eye. He refused.
Marius's life was solitary.
in the end he had come to look at hardly anything but the sky, the only thing that truth can see from the bottom of her well.
we would judge a man much more surely from what he dreams than from what he thinks.
What is reqiured to exorcise these goblins? Light. Floods of light. No bat can resist the dawn. Throw light on the society below.
For, and this is beautiful, it is always for the ideal, and for the ideal alone, that those who dedicate themselves repeatedly do so.
"It is nothing to die; it is horrible not to live."
- 빅토르 위고의 정치적, 역사적, 사회적, 인간적인 견해들이 소설로 엮여 1463 페이지의 대작을 만들어냈다. 줄거리만 요약해서 만든 소설이 아닌 원작을 집어들었을 때는 새로나온 영화를 보기전에 인물들이 영화속 주인공들로 정형화되는 것을 막고 싶다는 막연한 생각이었다. 그러나, 2주간의 시간을 바쳐 읽으면서 이토록 방대한 내용을 촛점을 잃지 않고 이끌어간 위고의 노력과 재능에 감탄을 마지 않을 수 없었다.
절망적인 상황, 비참한 가난, 인간의 욕심과 잔인함, 사회라는 조직의 야만성, 이데올로기를 위한 인간의 희생. 그러나, 죄수인 주인공, Jean Valjean의 양심의 구원을 통해, 그 행동을 통해, 인간의 양심, 사랑, 동정, 우정 등을 그려내고 있다. 또한, 한 사람의 선행이 어떻게 그 씨앗을 뿌리고 열매를 맺게 되는가를 보여주며, 인간으로서 살아가야 하는 방향을 보여준다. 어떻게 보면, 카뮈의 소설, '페스트' 와도 사뭇 닮아있다. 구조와 문체는 상당히 다르지만, 어떠한 상황에서도 인간적인 선택을 하는 인물들을 통해 혼돈스러운 세상에서 삶의 의미를 찾게 해주는 빛과 같은, (그의 표현대로, 'kindle a fire, 불을 지피는') 명저이다.
영화에서 담겨진 것의 천 배 정도가 담겨있는 원작을 한 번 읽어볼 것, 축약본을 읽기 보다는 줄이지 않은 원본 (unabridged edition)을 읽는 것이 일년을 걸려서 읽더라도 아깝지 않은 시간이 될 듯.
