Les Mis adaptation #48: 'A Wish in the Dark' by Christina Soontornvat - review
Many spoilers for A Wish in the Dark in this review!
According to the spreadsheet I maintain to track all the adaptations (broadly defined) of Les Misérables that I watch, read, and listen to, Christina Soontornvat’s A Wish in the Dark (2020) was number 48, and possibly my new favourite.
I found out about this middle-grade fantasy (definitely not my usual genre) from a talk the author gave as guest of honour at an online Les Mis fan convention.
I therefore came to the book as an adaptation,1 which certainly gave me a different reading experience than the average 8-12-year-old, especially as the book’s marketing tends more towards selling it as an adventurous fantasy (which it definitely is in its own right). My instinct when approaching such a transformative adaptation was to figure out which of Soontornvat’s characters corresponded to which of Hugo’s characters. This might appear fairly straightforward: Pong is Jean Valjean, bearing an incriminating prison mark and trying to hide from Nok, who is Javert. Father Cham, the monk who nurtures and protects Pong, is Monseigneur Bienvenu; and Somkit corresponds roughly with Fauchelevent, whilst Ampai corresponds roughly with Enjolras.
But Soontornvat also takes identifying characteristics of some of Hugo’s characters—the kind of traits a Les Mis fan is looking for in order to map the adaptation onto the source material—and gives them to the ‘wrong’ characters.
The blurb opens with a brief description of the Governor: “All light in Chattana is created by one man—the Governor, who appeared after the Great Fire to bring peace and order to the city.”2 This benevolent view of the Governor continues as he is introduced through Pong’s perspective:
Most people in Chattana looked up to the Governor. After what he’d done for the city, how could they not? The man was a hero. But to Pong, he was even more.
Pong had only ever seen a portrait of him in a textbook, but even from the picture, he could tell that the Governor was someone who would understand him. He would care about the unfairness at Namwon [the prison Pong grew up and lived in]. If he knew how things were, he’d change them. That’s just the kind of person he was: someone who made things right. (p. 10)
Even with the knowledge that Pong is our primary Valjean character, the Governor initially appears to also be modelled on Valjean, a character who also appeared in a new place, saved people from the consequences of a fire, brought innovation and prosperity, and became held in high regard as a caring leader. Hugo explains how Valjean entered Montreuil:
Apparently on the very day he made his obscure entry into the small town of Montreuil-sur-Mer, at nightfall one December evening, with his knapsack on his back and a hawthorn staff in his hand, a serious fire had just broken out in the town hall. This man had rushed into the blaze and at the risk of his own life saved two children, who turned out to belong to the captain of the gendarmerie. (p. 148)3
The Les Mis fan introduced to the Governor has all the alarms going off that this must be a Valjean-esque character. Consquently, the Les Mis fan then goes through the realisation alongside Pong that they are desperately wrong, and that the Governor is the most well-written, condescending antagonist possible. But even this new categorisation as an intensely dislikable villain is challenged when the reader later learns of some important similarities between the Governor, Pong, and Ampai.
Additionally, Pong (our actual Valjean character) is born in prison. This is enough of a key Javert detail to make into ‘Confrontation’ in the musical adaptation:
I was born inside a jail,
I was born with scum like you,
I am from the gutter too.
Although the musical (which I do deeply love) values this connection between the two characters enough to include it as a lyric, A Wish in the Dark far more thoroughly explores (in ways that I’m not going to detail too much here because they are some of the best spoilers) what it means for characters to have similar origins and turn out totally different, and the extent to which one’s background is a determiner of their character.
Soontornvat builds more and more connections between Pong and Nok as the novel progresses. Like Valjean, Pong has a prison mark on his skin that puts him at risk of discovery and arrest. In chapter 18, we learn that Nok’s skin also carries a mark of her past and of her family breaking the law. Fire was made illegal in Chattana following the Great Fire and the Governor’s introduction of light orbs, but Nok has scars on her wrist from being burned by fire as a toddler (p. 128). Despite her best efforts towards perfection, she, like Pong, is stigmatised for parts of her background beyond her control. Although Javert’s background only gets a brief mention in the musical, his feelings about it are super important to his character and to his (like Nok’s) desire for perfection:
Javert was born in prison of a fortune-teller whose husband was a convicted felon. As he grew up, he believed he was on the outside of society and had no hope of ever being let in. He observed that society unforgivingly kept out two classes of men, those who attack it and those who guard it. He had the choice between these two classes only. (p. 157)
Switching between Nok’s and Pong’s perspectives throughout the book, Soontornvat allows extensive reflection on Nok’s evolving attitudes towards her background and goals.
As an engagement with Les Misérables, another aspect of the book I loved was how Soontornvat adopts and adapts some of Hugo’s techniques and imagery.
Realising he’s been recognised by Nok, “Pong’s thoughts swished like the wind through palm leaves, filling his head with noise.” (p. 106) This reminded me of one of my favourite musings in Les Misérables from when Valjean (living as Monsieur Madeleine) is ruminating over whether to declare his true identity or let Champmathieu go to prison in his place:
The mind is no more prevented from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to the shore. For the sailor, this is called the tide. For the guilty man, it is called remorse. God stirs the soul as he causes the ocean to swell. (p. 207)
Soontornvat translates Hugo’s captivating psychological exploration of Valjean into the middle-grade genre, and we repeatedly see how Pong has internalised others’ perception of him as dangerous, and how this self-perception evolves as he grows.
Similarly, when she is trying to capture Pong from the temple, Nok’s (at this point in the story) rigid views of morality and law are adopted by the narrator through the free indirect style, and Pong is described as “a dangerous runaway” (p. 114), “A fugitive” (p. 115) and “a dangerous criminal” (p. 116). When Valjean comes to Digne, recently released from prison, the narrator similarly absorbs the locals’ views of him, describing even mundane actions as violent:
At that moment someone rapped on the door quite violently.
[…]
He entered, took one step forward, and halted, leaving the door open behind him. He had his knapsack on his shoulder, his staff in his hand, a boorish, insolent, weary and violent expression in his eyes. The fire in the hearth lighted him. He looked dreadful. This was a sinister apparition. (p. 70)
The major difference here is that, in A Wish in the Dark, the reader is far more acquainted with the “dangerous” character, making the inaccuracy of Nok’s beliefs obvious. There are certainly clues to the similar inaccuracy in Les Misérables (a “weary” man is unlikely to pose a major physical threat), but at this point the reader has only heard Valjean’s name once. Even then, it was used as evidence of his violence and justification to refuse him food and shelter (p. 60).
I absolutely adored this book and think it’s just as wonderful for adults as for children. In addition to being a super compelling fantasy, I found its engagement with Les Misérables to be deeply innovative and thoughtful, especially in its mixing and matching of Hugo’s characters to highlight their similarities.
Reading stats
Date read: 20th-23rd August 2024
5/5 stars
Favourite quote: “The rest of the temple complex was silent, but Pong’s thoughts swished like the wind through palm leaves, filling his head with noise.” (p. 106)
See A Wish in the Dark on Christina Soontornvat's author page
“as adaptation” sort of in Linda Hutcheon’s sense, A Theory of Adaptation (Routledge: 2016), p. 6.
Quotations from Christina Soontornvat, A Wish in the Dark (Candlewick Press: 2020).
Quotations from Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, trans. by Christine Donougher (Penguin: 2016).
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