Having not read many literature books in my lifetime, undertaking to read one of the finest piece of work ever written is a challenge.If you are like me and have read the reviews on Amazon before tackling this gigantic novel then I do not need to go on about how great this book is and what it is all about.
Also, if like me, you are a beginner in the world of fine literature, the following are a few tips I would give to those who haven't read Les Miserables. Here goes:
1. Get the book and do not be intimidated by its size. It is huge but the chapters are not very long and this version is made so that it is easier to understand. If you compare several different translation, you will see the difference.
2. Make sure to buy the Signet Classic version translated by Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee (ISBN 0-451-5256-4). One reviewer said that this was the best version available and I totally agree with that. This is the new version based on the 19th Century Charles E. Wilbour translation. I had another version of this book and this one is by far the only completely unabridged paperback and also more reader-friendly.
3. Have a dictionary handy as there are many words that need translation.
4. Knowing the French language/history is a bonus but not required. Although knowing about French history will make some of his detailed descriptions of France not so tedious. In one chapter entitled "In the Year 1817" he talks about what was going on in France in that time period and although I read every single word, I must confess I was confused because it is all based on the history of France in that year of which I know nothing. He also tends to sprinkle French words, phrases, bits of poems and songs of which I am totally clueless but I still read it without understanding. I felt I was cheating if I did not read every single word (English or French).
5. Have patience this book will require time to read and when I say read, I mean savor each word. Do not read hastily or skip over parts that you think are not important. Yes, Mr. Hugo is very meticulous and detail-oriented in his description of characters, things and places but by reading and in some cases (like me) re-reading, you will realize that they were written because they are essential to the plot of this book. Also make sure that when you are reading the book, there are no distractions, i.e., tv, radio...as this book requires total concentration in order to fully appreciate it.
6. Do not be tempted to see the movie or show instead of reading the book. Read the book first and then go see the show or watch the movie if you want to. Be prepared to be disappointed with movie/musical as they cannot convey the, emotion, wisdom, love, etc... contained in the written version. Seeing the movie/musical instead of reading the book is like watching a Yankees game on TV instead of being at the stadium in NYC cheering along with the rest of the fans. Well you get my drift....
7. Be prepared to be changed by this book. No, it is not the Bible but it does deal with all aspect of human emotions and by reading it, you will want to be a better person. I know I do!!!
These tips were added in 2013 while re reading this magnificent book and reading comments from those who reviewed my review (no pun intended).
8. Have a highlighter when reading this books as there are many lines, quotes and paragraphs that you will want to highlight because of the simple truth and wisdom that they convey about the human spirit.
9. One of the reviewers sent me this tip which I think might be useful. Go to Wikipedia to get a list of all the characters. However, if you are like me and want to be surprised, don't read the synopsis as it is very detailed and will spoil your enjoyment of the book. If you don't want to go to Wikipedia then have a little notebook and pen handy and make your own list of the major and minor characters in order to keep track of them. That is what I do for the larger novels (over 1,000 pages or a book that is part of a series, like Harry Potter).
With that being said, enjoy the book as it is a reading experience that you will not soon forget and thanks for all the comments. I love receiving them and responding back when I can as I know that I am talking to a person who will be experiencing the beauty of this classic.
If you're an average schmuck, with a job (not in academia), a life, and some curiosity, this review is for you.
If you're a literary blueblood, this review isnt for you. If your sworn enemy in life used to be your closest friend until they disagreed with you about whether Beowulf was a real person, be offended by my apathy and go away. If you had to turn off the TV newscasts on 9/11 because they were getting in the way of your arguments of whether sonnets devalue prose, just move on down to the next review.
I'm not a Literature buff. I tolerated English in high school and college because I had to, skipping what I could, skimming what I could get away with, and bluffing where needed. The thought picking up a stack of books and being dictated a marathon schedule to read them by still makes me bristle with quiet rebellion.
After school I ended up with a job with lots of down time between bursts of madness. I decided to make use of slow time going back and leisurely reading some of the 'classics' that I probably should have read before. Twain, Tolstoy, Dickens, Stowe and others pulled from the titles of Cliff's Notes (Hey, if Cliff says they're important....) Funny, but classics are much more palatable when they are read on a leisurely timeframe. Some I liked, some I couldn't care less about, but Les Miserables was, literally, a life-changing text.
I fell into Les Mis completely by accident. On day I forgot to pack whatever book I was working on that day and dug around looking for something other than Harlequins and Clancys. I picked up Hugo's Hunchback more by default than choice, liked the book, and in the closing commentary a writer mentioned that Hunchback was merely a prelude to his greatest work, Les Mis.
But starting Les Mis was a trial. French words scattered in the text were stumbling blocks. Hugo's text is a jealous mistressit demands your full attention while reading. Les Mis is not in the genre of modern novels...grab the reader's attention in the first pages or lose them forever. I got bored reading about a bishop's daily routine. It takes 100 pages for the story to kick in. I stopped reading it twice, only to pick it back up a few months later and start all over.
But, as anyone who was read the novel can tell you, those first chapters are essential to the power of the story that follows.
I pushed my way through, got caught up in the current of the story once it began, and floated out the other side a better human being because of it.
Les Mis is a fantastic, detailed journey through human psychology. With 1400 pages, subplots, a cyclone of characters over decades of history, it can be difficult to distill WHAT the book is about into one word, but here's my try: Redemption.
Les Mis can be trying at times. Hugo is very detailed. He takes the reader though various side trips along the way. More than once he spends 100 pages setting up two pages of storyline. But his detail produces a work that is untouched in its ability to reveal the characters.
We see the difficulty in Valjean weighing wealth and praise from the multitudes against "one voice cursing in the darkness."
We see a character in Fantine pulled from innocence with a slow cruelty found nowhere else in lit: being turned for more misery (in surprising ways)like a pig on a split...with a reader helpless to intervene.
I see the police detective Javert as an embodiment of 'the system,'not necessarily as evil as one reviewer suggests. Hugo's penchant for overly-through descriptions adds multiple dimensions to what would otherwise be a flat character somewhere between a Napoleonic Joe Friday and Robobcop. We see Javert recite all the reasons he is right...and Hugo agrees with Javert... but we see that sometimes there is a larger truth than being 'right.'
Writing this a decade later I still see in my mind one of the most powerful images in the story: a middle-aged man and a small girl, both written off by the society around them, each with little in common with the other,walking down a deserted rural road, both clinging to each other because the other is all they have in the world.
For those who are used to watching all the loose ends coming together at the end of every hour of television, Les Mis will be a rude shift. It ends in a way that can be described as happy in its own sense though everyone doesnt ride off into the sunset or end with a joke and everyone laughing.
Frankly, I think it is impossible to appreciate the nuance of the musical without reading the unabridged text.
I finished reading Les Mis for the first time over 10 years ago. I still remember reading the last page, closing the book, and spending hours reflecting on the immensity of what I had experienced.
Girlfriend read it on my recommendation with similar effect.
Friend decided to stick it in his reading lists on my suggestion. When he started, he came to me frustrated with the slow start. "Is all this about the Bishop necessary to the story?" I said yes and he kept reading. A decade and hundreds of classic novels later still names Les Mis as his favorite book.
Shortly after reading it the first time, he recommended the book to yet another colleague looking for something to read to pass the time. As he handed it over, he issued a challenge: "Give me 100 pages, and your life will change."
He did, it did, and I now offer my friend's challenge to you!
UPDATE 2/11I just realized this review is showing up on all Les Mis books on Amazon. If anyone cares, I read the one from Signet Classics.
Buy Les Misérables [Kindle Edition] Now
Despite being 900 pages long, this version of Les Miserables cuts out Hugo's magnificient chapters describing the Battle of Waterloo.The description of this "edition" should state this openly.
Read Best Reviews of Les Misérables [Kindle Edition] Here
I really hate to give this a one-star review, because it will seem that I'm a Phillistine who can't appreciate Victor Hugo or has the patience to read a book that's over 1400 pages long. But giving a one-star review will hopefully get enough attention from Kindle fans to read it before possibly wasting their money.The cover art used for this Kindle edition is the EXACT SAME used for the unabridged Penguin classic version translated by Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacFee. (If the cover looks familiar, it should---it's the same promotional poster used for the Broadway musical.) It is BASED on, but not IDENTICAL to the classic C.E. Wilbour translation. This abridged Kindle edition may very well be the original C.E. Wilbour translation , and if so, people who read through the whole thing will probably find it much better than one star---more likely closer to five. But it won't be the same text as fans of THE PARTICULAR TRANSLATION I cite, and the one-star is a warning for them. That's another thing--I don't know if C.E. Wilbour or Elmer Fudd is the translator because the translator isn't credited. For that matter, there is no table of contents so you'd better use the bookmarks utilty to save your place, or the search option to look ahead because this Kindle edition won't make it easier for you to navigate through this book.
According to Amazon, the Fahnestock/MacFee translation is NOT available for Kindle yet, and when (or if) it is, it will probably be slightly more expensive than the virtual freebies. That's because although Victor Hugo's novel is in the public domain, only English translations made before 1922 are free of copyright. Fans of this particular translation may want to wait. In the meantime, I hope Amazon replaces the cover and is more forthright about who the translator is.
P.S. The Penguin Classic book I am referring to has Amazon code # 0451525264 ; ISBN-10 0451525264 ; and ISBN-13 978-0451525260 ; Miserables, Les (Signet classics)
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Reading some of the criticisms of this masterpiece gives rise to a certain measure of despair. With so much to honour in this novel, what do these critics focus on? Its length. Its digressions. Its departure from modern writing conventions. It's like disparaging the teachings of Jesus Christ because He was preachy, given to parables and wanting a fashion sense.Les Miserables is not an easy read. Worthy literature rarely is. Hugo takes pains to paint complete pictures of time and place, sometimes going on for dozens of pages just to set a scene. This is because he wrote before the advent of cinema, a narrative medium that has trained us to think in terms of pictures. As modern readers, we are well versed in such visualization, but Hugo's readers were not. Most had never seen a battlefield; had no idea about the horrors of war. Contrast this to the modern reader who has already seen a hundred depictions of battle before the age of ten. Is it any wonder that Hugo felt the need for exhaustive descriptions of settings that we take for granted?
This is a novel with many stories. But the arc of one life ties them all together. Jean Valjean is the warp that binds otherwise disparate wefts. He is more than the heart of the novel; he is its soul. Hugo indulges in a writer's conceit, showing us a man's passage from barbarism to the attainment of grace: the soul of the story on a journey of the soul. What a marvellous self-referential device. This is but an instance of the intelligence that informs this work.
The many characters that populate this novel all contribute to Valjean's spiritual journey. From the Bishop, he learns virtue; from Fantine, pity; from Cossette, love; from the nuns, humility; from Marius, patience. Even his implacable nemesis Javert has something to offer. In matching wits with him, Valjean learns courage.
Another warning: this book is melodramatic. It was written in a more innocent age, before the advent of cynicism and disdain. It is foolish to judge Les Miserables by current standards, and the fact that it may look naive to our jaded eyes says more about the failings of our times than the failings of the author. But insofar as it is melodrama, it is good melodrama. The author's sincerity is never in doubt. He puts melodrama to noble purpose and doesn't yield to false sentiment.
Consider the following passage from the book. Fantine has died and her child, Cossette, has been forced into slavery as a drudge. On a dark night, in the dead of winter, this little girl is tasked to haul water from a well deep in the woods:
"She struggled with [the bucket] for a dozen paces, but it was too full and too heavy and she was forced to put it down again. After resting for another moment she resumed the struggle and this time got a little further before she again had to stop. Then she went on. She walked bent forward like an old woman, with the weight of the bucket dragging on her thin arms and the metal handle biting into her small chilled hands, pausing frequently to rest; and each time she put the bucket down a little of the water slopped down on to her bare legs. And this was happening to a child of eight in the woods at night, in winter, far from any human gaze. Only God was there to see, and perhaps her mother, alas, for there are things that rouse the dead in their graves."
"Her progress was very slow. Although she shortened her periods of rest and forced herself to go as far as possible after every pause she reckoned that it would take her over an hour to get back in this fashion to Montfermeil, and that Mme Thernardier would beat her when she arrived; and this was a further distress to be added to the terror of solitude and the night. She was nearly at the end of her strength, and still she had not got out of the wood. Coming to an old chestnut tree with which she was well acquainted, she made a last pause, longer than the previous ones, so that she might be properly rested, then bravely started again; but such was her despair that she could not prevent herself from crying aloud 'Oh, God help me! Please, dear God!'
The passage is clearly manipulative in the way all melodrama is, yet I defy anyone with a working heart to read this and remain unmoved. But this passage does not exist simply to milk our tears. Hugo is condemning the failings of his society with passion and with shame. It is unconscionable that a child of eight should be sentenced to a life of indentured servitude because bourgeois morality first destroys the mother and then throws away the child. Such melodrama is purchased with the dearest currency.
This book is so all encompassing, so finely textured, that we sometimes lose sight of its magnificence. The only phrase that does it justice is "grandeur of spirit". This book, more than any other work of literature, epitomizes the grandeur of the human spirit. When Valjean dies, it is more than the death of a good and gentle man. Les Miserables occupies a place among the most vaunted tragedies because Valjean has penetrated to our innermost being. He represents all that is numinous about the human spirit, and his passing is the passing of greatness.
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