There is really nothing like a good read, nothing like having that deep kind of satisfaction that bubbles from within when you've finished a good book. I can hardly believe my luck! Two days ago, I hopped down to the nearest library and I found the very book that inspired this blog.. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

Basically it centres around the Jean Valjean, a man forced into burglary by poverty, sentenced to 5 years as a galley slave but spend 19 years instead( he was caught escaping thrice). The amazing thing about this book is the way Hugo details the emotional and spiritual turmoil Valjean faces not so much as a galley slave but as a "free" man . Valjean may be liberated physically but his spirit was still being enslaved.

To add to that, Victor Hugo has an interesting way of putting two and two together to finally give you the whole picture. I likened it to the sewing of quilts. Hugo works first on certain patches of the story and stops, turning his attention to other new patches. When he's satisfied with the patches that he has so carefully threaded through, he sews them all up together with a strong, neat stitch!

In between these patches, he expertly introduces other characters such as Javert, the irritating policeman, Cossete, the love and light of Valjean's life, Marius, the threat which turned out to be the entrustee and of course, Monseigneur Bienvenu, the bearer of light, hope and love in a society struggling without.

After staying up all night to absorb Les Miserables, I can almost understand how cruel and persecuting the society can be but I understood more importantly how a man, if he prevails and endures, can finally find peace not from man but from God. It is ridiculously easy to say that one will love, live for and devote his life for God. However, doing it is ironically the hardest thing in the world and that was just what Jean Valjean did.