Les Miserables

Les Miserables - The Miserables (wonder why I'd be interested in such a miserable book?)

It's not really the first time I've come in contact with this book. It'd always stayed somewhere in my brain as a vague great masterpiece--as labelled by the public-- and I know I know, I really should've sat me arse down and find out why others have labelled it as such. I mean, if I've got time for fanfiction and all those chicklits, I should--by logic--have time for these great masterpieces that has somehow waded through time, book-burnings and sharp-tongues out there.

Easier said than done.

I don't know why, but I can never finish a heavy book--by that I mean something even remotely heavier than  The Confessions of A Shopaholic--when I have tons of homework and exams looming over me.

My face when I discover LM

I envy those who can. I guess I need time for these books, to devour them from page to page without pause. Especially when it comes to classics like this. There are so many wonderful wordplays and hidden meanings between the lines and such beautiful plots I can't find it in myself to skim through them like I do Nicola and the Viscount.

It's just... hard, I guess, to get myself all teary and heavy-hearted when exams are depressing enough.

But Les Mis.

I have half a mind to go out now and buy the book, so beautifully strung the words are in songs. I have Harry Potter fanfiction to thank again for that. It's funny how fanfiction brings me to places I never really thought I'd end up. Amnesia, Autism, Les Mis, Beatles. I'm brought in front of things I'd never thought I'd love.

Beatles!

Moment Of Impact by Suite Sambo is really one of the best I've read, in fanfiction. It has all the elements I love--fatherly care, comfort, loneliness, the tragic after effects of war, coming to terms with death, families, friends. And with those, Suite has brought up Les Mis, which has elements stunningly similar to HP. Of course, it involves a war and thus all the usual after effects, but it also features a main character who's an orphan (technically she's not in the first act, but whatever).

I know I'm being boring, but I really need to get this off my chest. This meaning all those lyrics that haunts me night after night. Excuse me for being sappy, but I'm hopelessly sappy when it comes to Severus and Harry. *blush*

Sevvy!!!

There are too many songs that I love in this, and I haven't even read the thing yet. Anyway, here's one that really caught me. One dealing with survivor's guilt, that I'm here, and you're not, and I hate that. Dedicated to dear Fred Weasley, Remus and Tonks, Colin Creevey, and all those dear who are lost. Empty chairs will be left to recognise, remember and remind all who's left of your sacrifice.

The empty chairs

Empty Chairs At Empty Tables

There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone 

Here they talked of revolution
Here it was they lit the flame
Here they sang about tomorrow
And tomorrow never came. 

From the table in the corner
They could see a world reborn
And they rose with voices ringing
I can hear them now!
The very words that they had sung
Became their last communion
On the lowly barricade..
At dawn. 
Oh my friends, my friends forgive me. 

That I live and you are gone
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on 

Phantom faces at the window
Phantom shadows on the floor
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more. 

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more...