Move Move Move

So often when I read books on writing or try a critique group or hear a speaker the pacing of the story comes up. What I hear is that I should immediately plunge the reader into the action, I should put my hero in constant danger and the end of each chapter should be a cliff hanger of some sorts. It's somewhat refreshing to read Les Miserables if only because it doesn't follow that paradigm.

Would I have read yesterday of what was going on in the mind of Jean Valjean anything like this had it been written today:

In this situation Jean Valjean meditated; and what could be the nature of his meditation? 

If the grain of millet beneath the millstone had thoughts, it would, doubtless, think that same thing which Jean Valjean thought.

Or would I have read the first twenty something chapters at all which describe the daily life of Monseigneur Bienvenue?

Or would I have read an entire chapter about drowning at sea, the whole time thinking that Victor Hugo meant that Valjean was the victim, when by the end of the chapter he flips it around and lets the reader know that Valjean is like the sailors on the boat watching the drowning man recede in the distance. That the analogy has the entire ship as the prison and the drowning man is Valjean's hope and morality.

Granted, the mantra regarding putting the hero in danger et al is more suited for the Thrillers I've been reading lately, but more than that they are supposed to make the reader feel compelled to move on. Hugo does it with Les Miserables without the constant peril and without the cliff hangers and without the silly techniques.