What is it about the musical "Les Miserables" that brings Mormons out of the woodwork?
The music?Of course.
The soaring melodies and grand choruses are tailor-made for a culture that prizes "battle hymns."
Is it the spectacle?
That, too.
"Les Miz" is the ultimate pageant piece.
But more than that, the truth is LDS lovers of "Les Miz" feel a kindred spirit in author Victor Hugo. Mormons flock to "Les Miserables" for more than the show, they go for a meeting of the minds with the man who made it. If Victor Hugo had been born in Palmyra instead of Paris, no one would be looking for "The Great Mormon Novel" today . . . We'd already have several on hand.
"Hugo invests everything with human value," says Dr. Daryl Lee, an associate professor of French at BYU. "And there is always the search for the spiritual, the transcendent. In his work, everything is invested with grandeur. I think Mormons relate to that."
Mormons, by and large, are a rather understated lot. But "religion," "romance" and "patriotism" are three things that ignite their passion. And in "Les Miserables," Hugo sounds those three themes like the notes of a grand major chord
Along with Shakespeare, Hugo believed the world was a stage where notions of courage and cowardice, love and evil are played out in the lives of us all -- from the lordly to the lowly.
And in the fray, the more fortunate among us may even catch a glimpse of God.
Says Jean Valjean in the novel: "The pupil dilates in the night, and at last finds day in it, even as the soul dilates in misfortune, and at last finds God in it."
The thought is a one-line "plot summary" of the novel.
Not long ago, I took time to trace the parallels between Mormon history and Hugo's personal history. In 1820, while 14-year-old Joseph Smith was having visions in New York, for instance, 18-year-old Victor Hugo was writing his first "visionary poetry" in France.
In 1830, when Mormonism "premiered" on the American stage, Hugo's great theatrical work, "Hernani," premiered in France, causing a riot.
And beginning in 1845, as Mormons rallied to face down oppression in Illinois, Hugo went to work on "Les Miserables," his masterwork about social strife, villains and valiant souls.
"Not many realize the first LDS convert in France, Louis Bertrand, fought at the very barricades Hugo describes in 'Les Miserables.' " says Lee. "Like Hugo, Bertrand was caught up in the fervor to find equality and social justice. I think it's why he was drawn to the Mormon Church. He met John Taylor, translated the Book of Mormon into French, then began sending correspondence to Napoleon III that read, 'Your empire will pass. A new utopia will soon be coming from the Western United States.' The letters landed him in jail."
In the end, Bertrand's letters may have landed him in jail, but idealists like him -- and Hugo -- are what land so many Mormons in ticket lines for productions of "Les Miz."
The last word on that belongs to Cosette herself: "Woe to him who believes in nothing," she says. "A faith is necessary to man . . . We bow to the man who kneels."
Amen. And pass the ammunition.