Book Vs. Musical

 

(God i'm so sick of seeing Cosette's face in everything to do with Les Mis, why dont they ever use any other character!)

Earlier in this blog I said that I thought the musical version of Les Miserables was a bad adaptation of the book, and I still think that’s true, so I wanted to do a post comparing both of them. It’s actually quite difficult now I think about it to compare the two because they’re both two completely different things, but you should always try to back up your opinions and since I have nothing else to do and since I want to keep this blog alive I thought It might be a good idea to compare them both to see if either one is better than the other. (Yes I know I said that I was done with Les Miserables but goddammit I keep getting pulled back in!)

Book

 

Good: The biggest positive thing about the book for me is the detail and the character development, I don’t mean the endless backstory either I mean the characters themselves. For instance the relationship between Valjean and Cosette is done much better in the book, in the musical it just cuts straight from Cosette being rescued from the Thenardiers to ten years later and I think that sucks because a good chunk of story is lost. Now I think about it, I barely know anything about either of them in the musical, Valjean is a little bit more fleshed out but Cosette’s development is terrible.  Even though the book does portray her as an unquestioning dumbass I still appreciated the details about her life that the musical skipped.

It’s not just Valjean and Cosette who are better portrayed in the book either the student characters are a lot more detailed too, I actually got a real sense of what they were fighting for in the book and it really made me feel a lot more sympathetic to the groups of lads than I felt in the musical. And Even though I prefer Cosette in the novel I still think Eponine is one of the better characters in the book. And Fantine too, she was much better explained in the book, the book told you about her background about how she got pregnant and about how much she suffered in her life, it made me care about her more than in the musical because I barely knew anything about her there.

Bad: If you’ve read this blog carefully you’ll already know what I think is bad about this book, there’s so much pointless backstory and there’s so many detours from the plot it actually gets hard to read at some points. But that’s really the only bad parts about it; the rest of the book is awesome. Actually I tell a lie, there are some other bad things about the book, Marius is a terrible character! There was barely anything about him that I liked; he was just such a twat! And what did happen to Mrs Thenardier? I know she wasn’t the most pleasant person in the world but jeez she deserved to have her death explained at least! And don’t even get me started on some of the ridiculous scenes that this book had, I’m looking at you coffin scene! I haven’t forgotten about you you know!!

Musical

Good: Obviously one of the best things about the musical is the songs; the songs are pretty damn awesome! I’ve got the soundtrack on my mp3 player at the moment and sometimes I absentmindedly find myself singing along to the songs when I’m out and about. (Take my advice, no matter how bored you are don’t ever start singing “Lovely Ladies” on a bus full of people, you will be stared at). They are the best thing about the whole show though; “One Day More” has got to be my favourite song in the whole thing, maybe even my favourite out of all the musicals I’ve ever seen. Also the musical cuts out all that endless backstory that slows down the book so much, it flows a lot better as a show than it does as a book. Marius is even a better character in the musical, I don’t want to say I like him more in the musical, because I don’t, I just think he comes off as less of a twat. The relationship between him and Eponine is handled a lot better in the musical than the book, it worked for me better seeing the two of them as friends than having Marius completely ignore her. I actually prefer Eponine over Cosette in the musical, mostly because she has better songs, sorry but I can’t stand all that young lovers crap! The Thenardiers are better characters in the musical too….well actually I shouldn’t say they’re better, I think I just I hate them less in the musical because their songs are so damn good.

Bad: The biggest thing wrong with the musical for me was the complete lack of character development; if the book is better for having lots of development then the musical equally suffers from lack of it, especially when it comes to Marius and Cosette. Seriously they immediately fall in love with each other and start singing about how they’ll never be apart despite the fact that in the musical they’re only known each other for a day….A DAY! A FUCKING DAY! Love doesn’t work that way guys!! It really is a little bit stupid when you think about it. It’s the same with Valjean and Marius as well, the relationship between the two is really badly done, Valjean meets Marius and he immediately loves him like a son but the two of them haven’t even had a conversation with each other. In the musical everything seems to happen so fast and I don’t like that aspect of it. Really that’s the only thing it suffers from though, it’s probably the best musical I’ve ever seen and definitely the one I like the most.

I’m kinda glad I saw the musical before I read the book, because if I read the book first and then seen how many changes the musical made to the story I don’t know if I’d have liked it as much as I do. Don’t get me wrong I think the musical is awesome, but when I originally saw the Nostalgia chicks review of the musical (which is what made me want to read the book in the first place) she said that the musical was a close adaptation of the book, and I think she’s wrong! There’s far too much that’s changed about most of the characters and the entire story is too rushed, I think it only has a minute resemblance to the book. But that doesn’t make the musical bad, it’s not bad! It’s awesome!

I was right in the beginning of this blog when I said it’s hard to compare the two things, it really is! They’re both completely different things, it’s like comparing apples to oranges, it’s impossible to say which one is better because they’re both great in their own ways.

If I had to advise people on which to view first I would say see the musical first and then read the book.

Now I think about it I haven’t really compared the two in this post have I? I’ve just said what was good and bad about the both of them, that’s not really comparing is it? Hmmmmm, never mind it’s my blog I can be stupid if I want to be!

In my opinion I know which is the better one, it’s the book. The book totally wins over the musical in terms of story, character development and style. Really I could have just saved a lot of time and had one sentence in this post to sum up the entire thing, when it comes down to Book vs. Musical…..the book wins!

HOORAY FOR BOOKS!