Les Misérables
Ratings357
Average rating4.2
Les Miserables is a fascinating story. Each character is very unique, and all of their experiences are delights to follow. With many historical flashbacks to Napoleon, in addition to the evident influences of French politics at the time, this book is a quintessential historical novel that history fans and novel lovers will love.
Like War and Peace, Hugo incorporates personal stories in a wider conflict. Nonetheless, these personal stories are much better written and received than Tolstoy's, in my opinion.
Seria un cinco si Víctor Hugo no interrumpiese cada cinco minutos la acción para lucirse lucirse sus disertaciones históricas.
Jamás te olvidaré, convento de Petit Picpus.
After 5 months I have finally finished reading Les Misérables!! And I now understand why this is called a masterpiece. There is so much detail and so much background info included in this book to make the readers understand the characters and their motives. And that does not only include the main characters of the plot but all those that have a hand in it, even if it was just one small scene in which they interacted with the main characters. And if someone told be that before I have read this book, I'd be like, why would I care about all this? Just give me the main characters, the story and the plot. But I have to say that I really love the structure of this book!! It made me care about these side characters and their stories and it was so quite exciting to me finding out why we are focusing on them later. I am still processing this book, the last part had a lot going on, so I managed to read it all in one sitting.
This book is so... long. I find it hard to explain. The plot is excellent and the tangents and digressive parts are also great but they are hard to experience together and that's what makes this book so darn long.
In terms of the plot I do not love ending, but the journey is so emotional and well written.
The tangents were sort of a slog to read through but there are some very interesting points and I can see why they are influential.
What more can be said about Les Misérables that has not already been said?
I began “reading” this book as an audiobook in December 2019, after falling into the musical. While not the longest book or audiobook I've ever read/listened to, the density of Les Mis was, at times, a pleasant challenge. I read several books alongside Les Mis, often taking breaks or taking time to reflect, instead of plowing through. I probably managed about half of the book in a year, with long gaps in between, until for some reason a few weeks ago I was engrossed again in it. I finished the latter half of the book in just a few weeks.
The story is beautiful. The asides examining Waterloo, social conventions, even slang, were fascinating. It is often clear to see Hugo's beliefs shine through the long monologues of some characters, or through their soul wrestling conundrums. I had a cold shiver at times realizing that the same sentences could have been written today.
If I were to have any critiques, it would be with this particular translation - the Julie Rose translation. While generally good and enjoyable, every once and a while a phrase strikes out that is distinctly out of modern times. I noticed this much more in the latter half of the book. The first occurrence was “on cloud nine” - I had to go to the source material to see how this was originally written, and I did that a few times (again in the Argot chapter). While I've had several years of French classes, those have decayed in memory. My new goal is to, someday, have my French at such a level where I can read this in the original text. I look forward to many more readings of this in the future. This will go on my shelf permanently.
Il m'aura fallu plus de trois semaines pour lire ce gros pavé de Victor Hugo, peut-être son oeuvre la plus connue, mais je ne regrette pas ces longues heures passées avec Jean Valjean, Fantine, Cosette, l'inspecteur Javert, Marius, sans oublier l'inoubliable Gavroche.
Victor Hugo nous a offert ici une oeuvre majeure, magistrale. Il se permet régulièrement de longues digressions, mais certaines sont presque plus passionnantes encore que le récit principal. Malgré quelques longueurs, le résultat est incroyable, saisissant. Assurément l'un des chefs d'oeuvre de la littérature française.
???To die is nothing, but it is terrible not to live.???
Was on my TBR since as long as I can remember.
Finally got my hands on the audiobook. Will have to read it someday though. Victor Hugo's writing is effortlessly beautiful.
Now that I think about it, we did have an excerpt of this in our school curriculum.
Jean Val Jean and the candlesticks with the bishop. That is why this name and the story has been stuck in my brain since forever.
Jean Val Jean's story and his life long animosity with Javert is a joy to read, or in this case, listen.
Having watched the musical, the only Fantine I could imagine was Anne Hathaway's brilliant performance. Will have to definitely rewatch.
This particular dramatization is exactly how a story should be. Full of imagination.
Not only is the prose narrated, but the background noises add to the whole experience where you feel you are fighting in the rebellion alongside Marius.
I wish more audiobooks were produced this way. Creating your own personal movie in your mind's eye.
It touches on so many complex themes. The fact that this was written in 1862 and is still relevant to this day, blows my mind.
A classic tale of love, revenge and forgiveness. A must read.
An emotionally turbulent story, and a force of moral philosophical ideas. Hugo's writing in this book shows why he is not just among the 19th century's greatest writers but one of its greatest minds over all.
I may not agree with all of his philosophies, but I commend him for how eloquently he addresses the big questions. What does it mean to be a good person? What is it to be miserable, and how can we find joy in a world so full of misery? All this is addressed completely all while telling a heart-wrenching tale.
And if you think you know the story because you watched the musical or the movie, no. You don't. Some of the most central characters in the book get maybe a line or two if that in the movie, and the way all the characters intermingle is genius.
All that said, I would highly recommend reading a quality abridgement. You can cut out massive chunks of this book without any loss of quality to the story or even the philosophies within this book. For example, there are about 8 chapters about the history of Paris' sewage system, and 5 chapters about why it's ok to write in slang. If you skip over those entirely, you would lose nothing.
I highly recommend this to anyone with an interest in the history of France or an interest in moral philosophy. For just the touching story though, abridge.
I suppose, the only thing I can say in so few words would be this: if you appreciate fine literature, via exquisite characters, history, philosophy, battle between ethics and morals, love and hate, expansive national politics juxtaposed and at war with the lives of mere children ... if you value just such an experience, worthy of the title “epic,” in this case you will not be disappointed.
I may never be able to concisely articulate my feelings on this book. A just review would require many conversations, over specific parts of the book, at different times.
Lastly, a word of caution. This book, more than perhaps any other story I have read, is worthy of its title.
HALLELUJAH I FINISHED.
I can see why it was abridged, and I very probably would have given the abridged version an extra star, because while I really liked the main stories of Jean Valjean, Javert, Fantine, the Thenardiers, Gavroche, etc., there was so much filler — random battles and the sewer systems of Paris and Napoleon and other stuff — that was dull enough that I did a fair bit of skimming.
(And yes, I intentionally left Marius and Cosette off that list. Once they fell in love with each other, they were insufferable. I liked Cosette better as a child, before she went all gooey-eyed and ridiculous, and I liked Marius better before he became a baron, when he actually had a backbone and an adventurous streak, but before he became a creepy stalker.)
This book disappointed me. It meandered away from the plot too frequently and for too long to keep me interested a story that I otherwise might have enjoyed. Every time I found the plot pulling me in, Hugo delved off into 100 pages of 18th century French arcana and lost me completely.
Victor Hugo's classic Les Misérables is a good story bogged down by many digressions. It's probably what anyone should expect from the era. Authors of the time did frequently step away from the narrative and give their opinions about this matter or that, then tell you about the historical context (Hugo departed from his opinions occasionally to tell the story). More than once, Hugo wrote, “The following is an authentic incident which, although it has no bearing on our story...” “Although it has no bearing on our story”–this is a problem. Half the book could be eliminated and you'd still have the same story. Fortunately, the tale that is the backbone of Les Misérables is memorable enough than the reader still recalls the story by the time Hugo finishes his thirty or forty page rant.
So I will say flat out that Hugo was not a great novelist as we think of it today. Not only did he try to lure the reader into a book of philosophy, political theory, and whatever other train of thought Hugo wanted to follow, but he tried (unsuccessfully, I believe) to trick the reader with moments of suspense. He played this game where he tried to suspend the revelation for several chapters. Maybe it's effective the first couple times, but it becomes clear too early that it is a gimmick. This man, the man you've been reading about for the past thirty pages, is really...
All that thrown to the streets and left to beg, Hugo was a wonderful storyteller. The tales of Valjean, Fantine, Cosette, Marius, et al are epic. They may only be loosely connected to one another, but their bulk is comprised of one theme. Parallels can certainly be made to the Bible when viewed as a work of literature. Both are filled with tragedy, history, love, and enough digressions to reinterpret and make a religion out of. But the stories that many people remember from the Bible—Cain and Abel, Joseph and his brothers, Moses and the exodus, the birth of Jesus, the prodigal son, Paul on the road to Damascus, et cetera—these stories carry much of the same love, jealousy, anger, and hope that the stories in Les Misérables impart on the reader. And when you take a step back, look at the story in its full context, try not to let your annoyances or biases get in the way, you'll find a story of redemption. That is the Bible. And that is Les Misérables.
Much much more than a stage musical. Equal parts history, novel, and manifesto for social fairness. Don't let the size put you off and read it now.
Let me start by saying I couldn't finish this book. There were definitely great parts, when the action was pumping and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough, but mostly it was BORING. I got about halfway through, but found myself dreading any free time because it meant that I should be reading it.
So I finally finished Les Miserables. It took me five months to listen to the whole thing, a 60-hour audio book. There were several points where I nearly gave up, and one where I actually announced on Facebook that I had given up. But I went back to it and I'm ever so glad that I did.
Let me start by saying that this is a fantastic book. There were times when I was slogging through some of the digressions that I wondered just how this could possibly have been considered a classic. But now I know.
At first, I sensed a similarity with Crime & Punishment, which just happens to have been published in the same decade as Les Miserables, as indeed was War & Peace, which I have also read. The part where Jean Valjean, as Monsieur Madeleine, is fighting with his conscience about going to rescue the man who has been arrested as Jean Valjean and then his journey there, fraught with difficulty.
It's been interesting to read some of the reviews on Goodreads after finishing the book. They are almost all five stars and there are a few instances where readers have read the abridged version and then gone back to read the unabridged and enjoyed it ever so much more. As I was listening to it, there were many occasions when I wished I had downloaded the abridged version instead. I mean come on, pages and pages of description about the Paris sewers? The whole Waterloo bit? I honestly struggled through these parts. I wonder if it would have been easier to read than to listen to.
Anyway, I listened to the last 8 hours or so in a couple of days, at first because I just wanted it finished and out of the way, but then because it was just so good that I didn't want to stop. I had guessed how the novel would end, but that didn't spoil the ending at all. It was so well written that I was left with a feeling of elation that has lasted through to the following day as I write this.
Suffice it to say that I am very glad that I persevered with this and got to the end. I actually would quite like to read it again right now as I'm sure I would enjoy it a lot more second time around.
Five stars.
I must have had twenty people tell me this book is their favorite book ever. One thousand four hundred pages seemed like a lot, so I decided to go abridged. Not sure one should ever try abridged and translated. (When Marius, in the last third of the story, finds a sign saying “Remove”, for example, I was completely lost. Not “remove”, I learned later, but “go away”.)
What a story, nevertheless. The plot centers on a young man, Valjean, who steals a loaf of bread to feed his sister's family and is thrown in prison for this. Once released, Valjean is denied work, for he must present a passport tainted by his time in prison. A priest finds him in the streets and takes him in. Valjean steals the valuable objects from the church and runs away, but he is captured. When confronted by the priest, the priest denies Valjean stole the objects and even gives Valjean additional items, reminding Valjean of a (false) promise he made to the priest to turn his life around.
If this intrigues, then read the whole novel. It's a series of these sorts of reversals and twists of fortune and little acts of grace. Absolutely fascinating.
Tougher going than I remember – maybe because it's unabridged? Some of the preachy/speechy parts are hard to slog through... but even so, what a joy to reread this, and what a beautifully done translation.