Sentiments Abstractly Christian
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, and the Catholic Imagination
by Addison H. Hart
In 1985, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s musical version of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables opened to less than enthusiastic critical acclaim. The majority of critics were dismissive of the production. “There is a string of impressive sights over the three-and-a-quarter hours,” wrote John Hiley, “but little to grip the ear and still less to trouble the mind.”1 Susie Mackenzie chimed in: “[O]ur admiration is solicited not on the grounds of something truthful and profound, not on the grounds of something intelligent and stimulating, but on the grounds of melodrama, contrivance and artifice.”2 Lynn Gardner called the production a “load of sentimental old tosh,”3 and Christopher Edwards wrote it off as simply “sentimental and melodramatic.”4
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Addison H. Hart is retired from active ministry as parish priest and university chaplain. He is the author of Knowing Darkness: On Skepticism, Melancholy, Friendship, and God and The Yoke of Jesus: A School for the Soul in Solitude (both from Eerdmans). His forthcoming book is a study of the Sermon on the Mount. He lives and writes in Norheimsund, Norway.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door with Full Online Access
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
- Six print issues per year
- Full digital archive access
Subscribe (Print + Online)
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95.
Subscribe (Online Only)
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on Catholic from the online archives
31.6—November/December 2018
The Slow Vindication of Leon Podles by S. M. Hutchens
29.3—May/June 2016
A Deathbed Reflection on Catholic Social Teaching & Our Future Prospects by Karl D. Stephan
24.5—Sept/Oct 2011
A Critical Memoir of Thomas Merton at Gethsemani Abbey by Patrick Henry Reardon
more from the online archives
29.4—July/August 2016
on Noticing That Modern Science Has Rendered Atheism Irrational by Harry Biltz
20.8—October 2007
The Deep & Abiding Biblical Roots of Western Liberal Education by David Lyle Jeffrey
25.3—May/Jun 2012
Calls for Freedom, Democracy & Secularism End Up with None of the Above by Hunter Baker
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
