Why you should read Les Misérables

You’re watching it on PBS, and maybe you can hum all the tunes from the musical – but there’s nothing quite like reading the book itself.

But it’s so looong!

True. Compared to the miniseries adaptation‘s six-hour running time, the unabridged audiobook – read by master narrator George Guidall – runs for over sixty hours, and the Modern Library edition is 1,330 pages long, with 365 chapters. One reason that many 19th Century novels are so long is that they were originally read serially, in weekly installments, rather than straight-through. Read this way, the novel’s length becomes an asset, stretching out the narrative across time. Prolong the pleasure! Set out to read one chapter a day, for a year – and enjoy binging ahead when you just can’t stand the suspense.

What suspense? I already know the story!

Reading Notre Dame

Vision of Notre Dame: a sketch by Victor Hugo

It has to be the worst possible reason to have a bestseller. In the wake of last week’s devastating fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel Notre Dame de Paris – perhaps better known to English speakers as The Hunchback of Notre Dame – has climbed to the top of the charts.

One unforgettable passage in particular has grown more even more poignant.

Crime: The I’s Have It.

As I set out to read my way through my alphabet of crime, I was a little worried about the letter ‘I,’ but it turned out to be quite a little Anglo-French treasure trove. Here are three great authors in our mystery “I’s,” each with their own distinct voice.

Graham Ison is one of the many British authors represented in our collection through those nice little Severn House hardcover editions, and we have several titles in each of his two mystery series. His contemporary police procedurals feature stolid – okay, stodgy – veteran Detective Chief Inspector Harry Brock and his mouthy working class partner Detective Sergeant Dave Poole, who banter and grouse their way through the sordid array of casework, somewhat in the vein of Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe or Bill James’ Harpur and Iles series. A good early title, Light Fantastic finds the duo drawn into the posh lives of the rich and fabulous, but it isn’t long before they’re back on the seamy side again.

Ison’s other series are historical mysteries set on the British home front during the Great War, where crime rages on despite the epic struggles overseas, and featuring the investigations of Detective Inspector Ernest Hardcastle, a man as respected for his dogged determination as he is avoided for his (very entertaining) mean temper. Hardcastle is a man who doesn’t suffer fools, and of which there is an inexhaustible supply. (Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse comes to mind, as does John Mortimer’s Rumpole). Hardcastle’s Armistice, in which the murder of a prostitute turns out to have unexpected political ties, is a fine early entry in this non-chronological series.

Just down the shelf is Claude Izner (a pseudonym for a pair of sister bookstore owners from Paris – sounds heavenly, no?) whose series featuring Victor Legris – also a Parisian bookseller – is drenched with the sights, sounds and personalities of the City of Light, circa 1890. Legris’ first case involves a Murder on the Eiffel Tower, seemingly achieved via a most unorthodox weapon – a bee sting. Historical mystery fans get all the intriguing period detail they came for, and what a great time and place to visit. I can just imagine all the historical personages waiting in the wings as we approach the fin de siècle. A good choice for fans of Boris Akunin’s Erast Fandorin series.

The France burned into the pages of Jean-Claude Izzo’s books could not be further from Izner’s belle époque. Izzo is one of the best noir writers, and (like the more celebrated Stieg Larsson) died far too young, leaving a small but indelibly affecting body of work – ruthless kick-in-the-teeth depictions of a world gone mad. (Readers of this column will know I have a soft spot for this kind of hard writing). Izzo’s Marseilles trilogy begins with the aptly named Total Chaos, in which loose cannon Fabio Montale, who in his youth used to run with a bad crowd and now runs with a worse (he’s a cop), hunts for justice in the seething, squalid, racially charged ghettos of Marseilles. No justice to be found, he’ll settle for revenge. Fabio eventually gives up the police force as too corrupt, but cannot stop wrestling with the evil that surrounds him and ravages those he loves; his further descent into the underbelly of Europe continues in Chourmo and Solea. It doesn’t end well, but then you knew it wouldn’t, didn’t you?

Who is Fantômas?

“Fantômas.”
                “What did you say?”
“I said: Fantômas.”
                “And what does that mean?”
“Nothing…Everything!”
                 “But what is it?”
“Nobody….and yet, yes, it is somebody!”
                 “And what does the somebody do?”
“Spreads terror!”

A century ago, these words unleashed reign of terror upon the literary world which continues to this day. It was in February of 1911 that Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre published the first of several novels featuring a mysterious criminal mastermind whose exploits swiftly became an international sensation. If you’ve never heard of Fantômas, you’re not alone. A few years back, London’s Daily Telegraph featured a list of the 50 greatest villains in literature, and yet the greatest villain of all is nowhere to be seen. Coincidence? Hardly: Fantômas is a known master of disguise, and would never be caught in the open so easily. Combining the anarchic savagery of Edward Hyde, the criminal genius of Professor Moriarty, the irrestistable hypnotic power of Svengali, the audacity of Richard III, and the bloodthirsty panache of Dracula, Fantômas stands unrivalled among supervillains for sheer dastardliness.

Fantômas was beloved of Dadaists and surrealists, who were inspired by his motiveless nihilistic glee, and by his ingenious inventive variations on perfidy. The definitive anti-hero and ultimate mischief maker, he’s the sort of devil who will derail a train full of people to cover his tracks (or just for the fun of it), and loves nothing more than to frame innocent bystanders, sending them to gallows and guillotine for his crimes while he looks on. The dogged Inspector Juve and his journalist friend Fandor are ever in hot pursuit and often seem to have the Lord of Terror right within their grasp, only to be outfoxed by their mercurial prey, who doffs personae like hats. Meanwhile, the rich Lady Beltham remains in his thrall, despite the fact that he kills her husband in the first book. Once you get into the maniacal spirit of the thing, his exploits can be addictive: last week I chain-watched the recently released collection of Louis Feuillade’s Fantômas films of 1913 and 1914, beautifully restored with a perfectly ominous soundtrack; now am reading the first novel. Only seven of the 32 original Fantômas novels were ever translated from their original French into English, but five of these are available for free download from Project Gutenberg.

So, who is Fantômas? As his laughter trails away down the gaslit alleyways of Paris, we realize that we can never know, for the essence of Fantômas is mystery.

Stretching his immense shadow
Across the world and across Paris,
What is this gray-eyed specter
Rising out of the silence?
Fantômas might it be you
Lurking on the rooftoops?

                               ~ Robert Desnos, “Complaint of Fantômas.”

Parlez-vous French Fiction?

I’m not sure why – I’ve never been much of a Francophile – but I’ve been reading a lot of French authors lately. In English, of course – my high school French is pretty rusty. Fortunately, all the titles below are in translation, so you can enjoy them even if you don’t speak a word of French. Though I bet you’ll be surprised by how many words of French you already speak, n’est-ce pas? To prove my point, here’s a little glossary:

“Joie de vivre”: Voilà!: its Zazie, that petite foul-mouthed embodiment of élan vital, her portmanteau in hand as she arrives in Paris to stay with her flaneur uncle Gabriel. Tired of their piquant persiflage, the parrot Laverdure says “Talk, Talk, that’s all that you can do!” Au contraire! Raymond Queneau’s playful pastiche Zazie in the Metro is a madcap tour the city of light through the eyes of an eleven-year-old agent provocateur. And for another delightful Parisian soufflé, try Daniel Pennac’s mysteries featuring the offbeat Malaussène family (try The Fairy Gunmother). Pennac may be already known to you as the creator of the Readers’ Bill of Rights, first featured in his delightfully irreverent Better Than Life.

“Noir”: Georges Gerfault thinks he’s been in a