The Laughing Man
(Victor Hugo)
A man named "bear" and a wolf named "man" open this story, drammatic, winning, and sublime. Hugo is visceral in his descriptions which are pregnant with erudition, and lacking in neither pathos nor irony--which he pushes to the limit. With cynicism and a bitter smile, he points an accusing finger at the injustice that beats in the arid heart of eighteenth-century society, which, in truth, differs little from that which came before and that which followed. The bear-man is rude in his speech and magnanimous in his actions---while the wolf-man is docile and loyal; they both wander on the fringes of society---two survivors,whose lives collide with those of two orphans who've come through the storm in the night. One is a little girl--a bright little soul--who carries darkness in her eyes and fragility in her heart because of the cruelty of her destiny; the other is a little boy who's had his face deformed into a perennial twisted smile because of the cruelty of men.His noble soul is trapped in the paralysis of a tragical smile. The meeting of so much desperate solitude generates profound affections which ask little in return, and rise above the rottenness rooted in selfishness all around them. The boy--now become a man--will know the weight of shadow and light, will descend one-by-one the steps that lead to hell--and climb those to paradise.. The journey is dual, both historic and human, which the author who wanted to be like Chataubriand leads us on through the pages of this story. It's a journey which leaves it's mark. Along the way, the author distills hundreds of questions both for himself and for us, questions which are tragically relevant today but which are counterbalanced by the pearls of wisdom generously scattered between the lines. The living mask of the Laughing Man is the symbol of human anguish, which seems to span the centuries unchanged--petrified into a tragic smile.
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