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Vargas Llosa, Mario. The Temptation of the Impossible: Victor Hugo and Les Miserables.(Book review)

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From: Nineteenth-Century French Studies
Date: 20080322
Author:Nash, Suzanne

Vargas Llosa, Mario. The Temptation of the Impossible: Victor Hugo and Les Miserables. Trans. John King. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. 196. ISBN 978-0-691-13111-5

This discerning study of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables by a distinguished novelist who understands first-hand the complexities of the craft of fiction is not only critically acute, it also makes an eloquent case for the power of fiction to create a world that allows the reader to live "the impossible." Novels, Vargas Llosa writes, exist for this reason, "[...] because we have only one life, and our ...

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