‘Les Miserables’ is real

I have enjoyed reading Doug Clark, but his most recent rant about “Les Miserables” deserves a comment. Doug reminds me of the seventh-grader making himself belch in class to get a few laughs and attention.

His criticism of Anne Hathaway’s nose is not much above that. What he fails to realize is the meaning of the story. A story that is repeated every day with the women who walk the streets of Spokane, enslaved by addiction and ruthlessly exploited by their pimps. Their faces are the face of Fantine.

I also see Jean Valjean as he huddles in a …

I have enjoyed reading Doug Clark, but his most recent rant about “Les Miserables” deserves a comment. Doug reminds me of the seventh-grader making himself belch in class to get a few laughs and attention.

His criticism of Anne Hathaway’s nose is not much above that. What he fails to realize is the meaning of the story. A story that is repeated every day with the women who walk the streets of Spokane, enslaved by addiction and ruthlessly exploited by their pimps. Their faces are the face of Fantine.

I also see Jean Valjean as he huddles in a tent under Interstate 90 as he wonders why he defended his country in a faraway land only to be discarded as trash by the same country he fought to keep safe.

No, the suffering of this world is real and “Les Miserables” reflects it now for those of us with eyes to see and ears to hear. How comfortable must it be sitting in your warm office, pondering what sort of thing you are going to write next? The classroom is empty now. You are sitting there stuck as a perpetual adolescent. No one is laughing now Doug. No one.

Will Olson

Spokane