{"id":6559,"date":"2013-01-09T15:19:53","date_gmt":"2013-01-09T20:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=6559"},"modified":"2014-07-01T11:41:21","modified_gmt":"2014-07-01T15:41:21","slug":"but-arent-saints-dreadfully-dull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2013\/01\/but-arent-saints-dreadfully-dull.html","title":{"rendered":"But Aren’t Saints Dreadfully Dull?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tonight I\u2019m seeing\u00a0Les Miserables<\/em> for the third time (there have been various outings as people have straggled back into DC after the holidays) and, a day or so after my second viewing, I ran across David Denby\u2019s pan of the movie for\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0Some of the criticisms are fair (the camerawork draws attention to itself in a bad way, Jackman\u2019s voice isn\u2019t as well suited to Valjean as it was to Curly<\/a>, etc), but there was one plot-related criticism that I disagreed with big time. \u00a0Denby writes:<\/p>\n

Is it sacrilege to point out that the Victor Hugo novel, stripped of its social detail and reduced to its melodramatic elements, no longer makes much sense? That the story doesn\u2019t connect to our world (which may well be the reason for the show\u2019s popularity)? Jean Valjean becomes a convict slave for nineteen years after stealing some bread for his sister\u2019s child. He has done nothing wrong, yet he spends the rest of his life redeeming himself by committing one noble act after another, while Javert pursues him all over France\u2026<\/p>\n

[T]he implications of Jean Valjean\u2019s complete innocence are dismaying. Suppose he had actually committed some sort of crime as a young man. Are we to infer that he wouldn\u2019t be worth our tears if\u2014like the rest of us\u2014he were even slightly culpable? Saints do not make interesting heroes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think Denby is thinking of a Saint as a character class<\/a>. \u00a0The distinction is baked into the character at the beginning the story, and the constraints of that choice limit and define the roles the character can play in the story. \u00a0And Denby thinks Fantine and Valjean are boring ol\u2019 paladins<\/a>. \u00a0Totally committed to the Good, incapable of making a selfish choice, they\u2019re what Javert only thinks he is<\/a>. \u00a0And no one really wants a paladin for a protagonist; since the fun of stories is getting to watch characters choose, maybe err, and rechoose. \u00a0 Paladins are more like wind-up creatures than people; they just keep tick-stepping in the right direction.<\/p>\n

But if that\u2019s how Denby feels, I think he must be reading a different book and watching a different movie than I am. \u00a0In the part of the book that corresponds to \u201cWho Am I?<\/a>\u201d Valjean does<\/em> struggle to make the correct choice. \u00a0When Valjean has the opportunity, for the first time, to live without fear of discovery, provided he lets\u00a0another\u00a0man go to jail in his place, Hugo writes:<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly it would have been splendid if, after the holy words of the bishop, after so many years of repentence and self-denial, in the midst of a penitance so admirably begun, even in the presence of so terrible a conflict, he had not faltered an instant\u2026 but it was not the case\u2026<\/p>\n

For the first time in eight years, the unhappy man had just tasted the bitter flavor of a wicked thought and wicked action.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In that line, we can see the fruit of making the right choice day by day. \u00a0It\u2019s not winning the right to a love interest<\/a> and getting a big, dramatic kiss at the climax of the story. \u00a0It\u2019s the development of\u00a0phronesis<\/em> or practical wisdom<\/a>. \u00a0By choosing the right thing day after day, Valjean is strengthening his conscience so that the wrong choice feels\u00a0awkward<\/em> and alien to him.<\/p>\n

And even that isn\u2019t enough to see him through this trial. \u00a0Valjean doesn\u2019t decide to give himself up until he travels to the trial and is in the presence both of the suffering man he has the power to spare (the prisoner in the dock) and the suffering God who spared him (a crucifix on the wall of the courtroom). \u00a0He needed these visceral reminders to help him stand by what he already believed (before he arrived, he had already come to understand, \u201cAnd, whatever he did, he always fell back onto this paradox at the core of his thought. \u00a0To remain in paradise and become a demon! \u00a0To re-enter hell and become an angel!\u201d).<\/p>\n

Valjean still has plenty of room to grow. \u00a0He is still struggling to make his conceptual understanding of God\u2019s mercy and justice a moral reflex. \u00a0But not all progress is dramatic looking. \u00a0In\u00a0The Presence of God<\/a><\/em> by Fr. Anselm Moynihan, O.P., he describes how the growth of the soul can become more subtle as it becomes more intense:<\/p>\n

When a sculptor is making a statue, he has first to hack and hew the marble somewhat in order to get it into a general rough shape. But then, when the rough outlines are complete, he can use smaller tools and more delicate touches. Finally he will finish off the work with touches of an exquisite fineness. That is the way God deals with us. At first he shows himself only in the big events of our life; only the big blows seem to come directly from his hand. Then, when these have knocked up into some sort of shape\u2013which they will do in the measure of our submission to his will\u2013he seems to touch the soul more frequently and more delicately. Finally, if we are true to these touches, God\u2019s hand will appear in everything that happens to us; nothing, even the most trivial, but will have an essential part in the fashioning of our soul.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Valjean is blessed by the bishop, he has been living entirely outside of human society. \u00a0To become M. le Maire, a man of public virtue, he has to put aside his\u00a0despair\u00a0and doubt that other people could look on him with love and respect, that he could be an instrument of grace in the lives of others. \u00a0But, even as he saves Fantine, he is not moved by personal love for her, simply a desire for redemption and goodness.<\/p>\n

When he reveals himself, he is once again cast into infamy, but his time as mayor, his rescue of Fantine, and his growth in faith sustains him during his hermetical existence in hiding. \u00a0He does not doubt, as he did in his first exile from the world, that he is good and worth saving. \u00a0But his willingness to give up the world means that he won\u2019t face the \u201cWho am I\u201d temptation again. \u00a0He gained a civil relationship with his fellow people and learned to put it aside in the service of something higher.<\/p>\n

When he raises Cosette, he accepts new responsibilities which bring new virtues and temptations. \u00a0Hugo emphasizes in the novel that Valjean has not experienced love (caritas<\/em>) since his release, though he has served other people in fellowship (storge<\/em> and\u00a0philia<\/em>). \u00a0But Cosette\u2019s innocence and dependence awakens awe in him. \u00a0This is love through pedagogy (my favorite kind) where the responsibility of forming her character overwhelms Valjean with joy and fear. \u00a0Raising a child is an act of hope.<\/p>\n

When Cosette is grown, Valjean is called to make Hannah\u2019s choice<\/a>, and relinquish his daughter instead of reserving her for himself and allowing his love for her to eclipse all other responsibilities. \u00a0He struggles with this choice, just as he did in \u201cWho am I\u201d and once again needs to see the man he might betray by his selfishness (Marius) to make the virtue stick.<\/p>\n

Valjean\u2019s dilemmas have grown less dramatic, but the stakes are no lower. \u00a0It\u2019s a poor sort of virtue that can triumph only when the temptation feels titanic. \u00a0Valjean\u2019s nobility inspires us because it is ultimately expressed in the quotidian and the domestic. \u00a0And each daily, small\u00a0Amen<\/em> to virtue is worthy of song as the more public turning points that set him on his journey further up and further in.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tonight I\u2019m seeing\u00a0Les Miserables for the third time (there have been various outings as people have straggled back into DC after the holidays) and, a day or so after my second viewing, I ran across David Denby\u2019s pan of the movie for\u00a0The New Yorker. \u00a0Some of the criticisms are fair (the camerawork draws attention to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":6610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,27,8,177],"tags":[51,86],"class_list":["post-6559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-morality-in-practice","category-parsing-catholicism","category-reviewsrecommendations","category-spiritual-practice","tag-at-the-theatre","tag-inculcating-morality"],"yoast_head":"\nBut Aren't Saints Dreadfully Dull?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Tonight I'm seeing\u00a0Les Miserables for 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