The strength and longevity and spiritual usefulness of fiction....
... set forth the purpose of Les Misérables, "one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world," in the Preface:[2]
"So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless."
Toward the end of the novel, Victor Hugo explains the work's overarching structure:[3]
"The book which the reader has before him at this moment is, from one end to the other, in its entirety and details ... a progress from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsehood to truth, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from corruption to life; from bestiality to duty, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. The starting point: matter, destination: the soul. The hydra at the beginning, the angel at the end."
The novel contains many subplots, but the main thread is the story of ex-convict Jean Valjean, who becomes a force for good in the world but cannot escape his dark past. The novel is divided into five volumes, each volume divided into several books, and subdivided into chapters, for a total of 48 books and 365 chapters. Each chapter is relatively short, usually no longer than a few pages. The novel as a whole is quite lengthy by modern standards, having approximately 1,500 pages in unabridged English-language editions,[4] and 1900 pages in French.[5][6][7] It is considered one of the longest novels ever written.[8]
Hugo explained his ambitions for the novel to his Italian publisher:[9]
"I don't know whether it will be read by everyone, but it is meant for everyone. It addresses England as well as Spain, Italy as well as France, Germany as well as Ireland, the republics that harbour slaves as well as empires that have serfs. Social problems go beyond frontiers. Humankind's wounds, those huge sores that litter the world, do not stop at the blue and red lines drawn on maps. Wherever men go in ignorance or despair, wherever women sell themselves for bread, wherever children lack a book to learn from or a warm hearth, Les Miserables knocks at the door and says: 'open up, I am here for you'."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Mis%C3%A9rables#Novel_form
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