Do you recognize this number: 24601? Come on, it’s a literary number, maybe even an important literary number. Give up? Okay, here’s the answer. In Victor Hugo’s classic novel ‘Les Miserables’, 24601 is Jean Valjean’s prisoner number. Hugo gave us that number as a symbol for dehumanization. To Valjean’s arch-nemesis, Inspector Javert, Valjean was not a person in any flesh-and-blood sense of the word. He was simply prisoner 24601, and nothing more. But that was Javert. To untold numbers of ‘Les Miserables’ fans over the years, that number became significant enough for them to plunk down some cold cash for the ability to publicly display their affection for it. Today, it’s found on posters, t-shirts, coffee mugs, probably mouse pads, and who knows what else. 24601 is a hit!
But what was the significance of that number to Victor Hugo? According to one source, it’s been posited that the number corresponded to the date on which Hugo calculated he was conceived: 24 June 1801. Unless his mom and dad couldn’t stop grinning whenever anyone mentioned a festival or some such thing that happened around that early summer date, when they could have gotten hammered and celebrated well into the night, I think that’s probably stretching things a bit. After all, he was born on 26 February 1802, EIGHT months after that “conceived on” date. But what do I know? Maybe he arrived a little early. Maybe they did things faster back then. Or maybe we’re wasting time with the wrong question. What if 24601 had no special significance at all for Victor Hugo, but was merely a number he pulled out of thin air when he needed one? What if the question we should be asking is, Why do WE remember that number?
Details, fellow writers, especially what we might suppose to be the small details, matter. When we write, we think we know what’s important in our stories, and what isn’t. After all, we control what gets hinted at, emphasized, repeated, what animates or crushes our characters. We get to pluck the strings that determine what harmonies our readers take away with them, don’t we? Did Victor Hugo believe that when he chose 24601 for Valjean’s prisoner number?
In the first novel I completed--as yet homeless in the publishing world--are a series of scenes in a children’s hospital ward in the 1950’s. The four children in the room are all very ill, but one of them, Marvin, has convinced himself he only has a bad case of food poisoning. The night before the main character of the novel, Brendan, is to be discharged, a nurse lets slip something that makes him believe Marvin will never be going home. When pressed about Marvin’s condition, the nurse confirms Brendan’s fears by saying only that, “Marvin doesn’t have food poisoning.”
To help me in the editing process on this novel, three people were kind enough to read the whole thing through, and their feedback was of immeasurable help. Many months afterward, out of the blue, one of them asked me, “What did Marvin have?” The question was a pleasant surprise. This reader added, “I keep thinking about those kids in the hospital, and wondering what was wrong with him.” I couldn’t have asked for much more of a compliment. For this reader, Marvin wasn’t just a character in some story, but had become a real boy. His health was a matter of concern, and his fate important. From what was he suffering?
Arriving at the point that Marvin’s illness had to be directly addressed, I originally thought to merely pick some random fatal disease (as if I were Diphtheria Doug), but realized disclosing that might involve the nurse violating patient confidentiality (the plot line required that it be her who divulged the severity of Marvin’s condition). While struggling with this, it suddenly occurred to me that the disease didn’t really matter. I had put Marvin there to bring something out in Brendan that would strengthen him as he went forward in life. After Brendan’s discharge from the hospital, Marvin’s only appearances in the novel were when Brendan would recall the boy’s effect, not what was going to be the cause of his death.
To me, the specific disease was a small detail. But that wasn’t the case for my helpful reader. Something in my depiction of Marvin made him and his condition matter. Certainly not in the same league as 24601, but it mattered none the less. My point is, we writers cannot determine everything the reader takes from our stories. What are small details to us may strike a harmonic chord that reverberates long after the reader finishes the last page.
We need to be mindful of those little things--the day-to-day minutia that envelopes us here in the real world like white noise--and not be afraid to sprinkle them throughout our works. Sure, we can put in too much, crowd the page with insignificant details. But we must not be too cautious. Even in a vague sense like my unnamed disease, they might serve to make our fiction more true. Sometimes it’s like tiptoeing on a razor’s edge, but I’d rather accept a critic’s cut from time to time than never shed any literary blood at all.
Hugo needed a prisoner number. I didn’t need to name a specific disease. As a result, I was quite pleased to hear, “What did Marvin have?”, my very, very humble version of, “What does 24601 mean?”
QOTD (Question Of The Day)--
Do you hold back for fear of putting too many details, especially small details, into your writing?
P.S. -- A confession: Being a retired postal worker, at first glance, I couldn’t help but look at 24601 and see a zip code: Amonate, Virginia, population 172.
Until next time...
