i havent watched the new les mis but from what i heard it sounds like someone gave andrew davies a brief description of the plot and told him to make a show about it
I realize you’re being hyperbolic (and wow does this series invite hyperbole) but I want to take a moment to be a little serious: I’ve seen a lot of people saying this, and I gotta say, I disagree. I think it’s obvious the show was made based on a reading of the book; there are too many little details for it to be anything else (Victurnien! the grisettes! some of the specific dialogue! Madeleine’s house fire rescue! etc!).
But there have been changes made, for certain–there are always were going to be changes, if only for the sake of the medium shift, though it’s definitely well beyond that. Some are trivial, some are major– and all of them rely on interpretation of the material.
I have some major , major arguments with that interpretation so far (and some minor ones!) – but I am certain it’s an interpretation of material that was actually read, just like I’m sure that really Mario Vargas Llosa read Les Miserables before bafflingly deciding that Javert represented social justice.
If reading a text guaranteed a single united understanding…well, Literature teachers would have a much easier time grading papers.:P I can argue with this series just fine while assuming that the people involved know what they’re doing. The question about any changes isn’t “did they even read this book”, it’s “having read this book, why did they do that” . Because whatever Choices are getting made in this, they’re getting made very consciously.
