I love this much-maligned “sequel” to Les Misérables, because I do not look at it strictly as a sequel. Yes, it contains many of the same characters in name, who in the original novel act in certain ways and have recognizable traits of personality, and in Kalpakian’s book do not act in the same way.
It also contains a rehashing of old characters metamorphosed into new ones (Gavroche becomes the Starling; Javert becomes Clerons). That’s what has formed a lot of the criticism of her novel. Well, that’s called maturation and growing up, though there are better ways to go about writing this.
In Hugo, Cosette is ten, and then fifteen to seventeen years old. In Kalpakian, she grows from eighteen through thirty-two and beyond. Of course people are going to behave differently as they age and are assaulted by the experiences of life. If you want to read Victor Hugo, then read Victor Hugo. He is most enjoyable in a chaste, reserved way, when you prefer that your passion be kept under lock and key, firmly bridled and kept quiet until the wedding night (until and unless you have read Notre Dame de Paris and the scene where Phoebus is murdered. Half-nude gypsy girl Esmeralda, anyone?).
Well, there is that scene in the Luxembourg Gardens, where Marius, never having once exchanged a word with Cosette, sees her leg, in a white stocking, revealed because an errant wind blows her black skirts up. Then, at that moment, a young officer walks by at the same moment and also gets to see Cosette’s leg, which throws the gallant Marius into a rage which he cannot express at that moment. (Cosette, of course, is oblivious to all of this in classic nineteenth-century female fashion) That counts as erotica for Victor Hugo.
If you want to read another book, then read another book. Both are enjoyable for different reasons, and there is no reason to malign either one. For similar reasons, Susan Kay’s Phantom is hailed by readers as the prequel to Leroux’s classic, yet it has never officially been published or touted as such. Yet it Phantom is stylistically far superior to Cosette.
The less said about Cosette or the Time of Illusions by Francois Ceresa, the better.
