Les Misérables

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.