Notes

His universal compassion was due less to natural instinct, than to a profound conviction, a sum of thoughts, that in the course of living had filtered through to his heart: for in the nature of man, as in a rock, there may be channels hollowed by the dropping of water, and these can never be destroyed.

An excellent book. A wonderful story that left me sad as anything when Jean valjean died at the end and went to his unmarked grave but happy as anything that Marius and corsette were finally together. There were so many beautful extremes of emotion of character, of ideals all clashing together in a really quite unrealistic way. Jean Valjean constantly downtrodden and crsuhed by society because he stole a loaf of bread. But despite becoming the most holy of men society did not let him redeem himself. 19th century France sounds like a pretty hard place to live. Despite its upsides Paris really isnt that great.

The book went on so many detours about random shit that I didnt care at a about, completly irrelevent to the plot. Excellent prose but that was about it. The plot however was amazing and despite the rediculousness of the characters it really was a great story. I would say the BBC TV show was better though. It disnt miss out that much and was pretty comprensive. Man the book was good though. I would reccomend if you need one book to take you through 4 months or so.