Customer Reviews
'Citizens, our nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century will be happy' - By: Trevor Coote, 19 Aug 2008 
Not the greatest prediction in history perhaps, but Victor Hugo's monumental Romantic epic still remains one of the best known & most popular works of the nineteenth century. A vast panorama of Parisian life during the first half of that century, Les Miserables seems to contain the author's entire world view & knowledge base, everything but the kitchen sink. Yes, when viewed through twenty-first century eyes it suffers from alll the peculiarities associated with novels of that era: twists & turns born out of wildly improbable coincidences, a tendency to sentimentality & melodrama, familiar caricatures (misers, prostitutes, street urchins), odd attachments to unrelated children, & loose ends neatly tied up. But, like War & Peace it is a great sweep of life, like Moby Dick it is juxtaposed with digressions & immensely detailed descriptions (Waterloo, the Paris sewers), like Dickens's works the characters live & breathe even though they are flat & behave stereotypicallly. In sum, it is a magnificent slice of social history, teeming with life & detail, sometimes funny, often moving, always compassionate.
The story is basicallly simple. It revolves around peasant Jean Valjean who is sentenced to five years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family & then to 19 years in the gallleys for an escape attempt. He becomes a recidivist criminal on release until he sees the error of his ways after being befriended by a saintly priest. Then, making a stupid mistake on the spur of the moment, he is discovered & compelled to return to prison. However, escaping again, he spends the rest of his life seeking redemption, firstly by becoming a wealthy & respectable citizen & then by rescuing a young girl from abuse. Les Miserables is a morality tale which seeks to demonstrate the virtual impossibility of escape from poverty & injustice at a time & in a system where the less fortunate are excluded. Among a great canvas of characters many are memorable: Valjean himself, the obsessive policeman Javert, the ill-fated Fantine, the malevolent Thenardier couple, & the irrepressible urchin Gavroche. The numerous stage & film interpretations of Hugo's masterpiece are a testimony to its enduring popularity & its place in the pantheon of great European literature.
The best book I've read thus far. - By: Boz, 20 Jun 2008 For those intimidated by the length & epic scale of Hugo's magnum opus, you need not be afraid. Whilst reading Les Misérables I was pleasantly surprised by the fluidity & pace of the narrative. It took me no longer than a month to finish the novel, & I became completely engrossed & enamoured by the story. A story covering a wide array of important social issues as well as those issues that lie close to the heart - love, death, hope, redemption & tolerance. All of these are apparent throughout the tale, & told with wonderful style & enormous beauty from that great master of romanticism - Victor Hugo. Some may find his unapologeticallly florid, overtly poetical language overbearing, I, personallly, found it refreshing & a joy to read. Les Misérables is a book you will not find a chore to finish (save for the lengthy Waterloo - only the last part is worth reading - & convent digressions, which some may find interesting, but I found tiresome). You will feel France as you move from Provence at the beginning of the book, to the city of Paris towards the latter half of the book, & will feel a certain connection to the characters as if they were real people - Jean Valjean, Fantine, Cosette, Marius & countless others are truly unforgettable characters, creative inventions few other authors, both past & present, could match. The fact they are 'real' characters & not idealised in any way, but awash with both flaws & qualities, adds to the beauty of Les Misérables - a tale both heartrending & humorous, zealously exciting & quaintly pleasant. You will not be disappointed. I promise, & I urge you read Norman Denny's translation, which retains the style & beauty of the original.
a lifetime marsterpiece - By: C. J. Jayne, 06 Mar 2008 I read this book for the first time after being told about the story by a teacher, when I was 13. None of my family thought I would comprehend such a huge & intense book at such a young age. Victor Hugo's style, however, was so good that I quickly fell in love with the book. I am now 29 & it is still the most amazing book I ever read. This is one of those books that you can lose yourself in time & time again...Victor Hugo is a genius!
Wonderful, except for the digressions - By: John Hopper, 16 Feb 2008 
What can I say about this mammoth novel, which has taken me longer to read than any other book of fiction while still reading at least some pages every day?
It is a colossal, moving & colourful work, filled with some of the greatest figures in French literature. It has drama, pathos, love, hate, cruelty, duty, revolutionary excesses & aristocratic narrowmindedness. The features that for me prevent it being a total success are the lengthy digressions, covering Waterloo, argot, monastical conventions & even the history of sewers & the volume of excrement in Paris. These slow the story down & do become tiresome. The tiresome antics of the revolutionaries on the barricades also grated, they seeming to be more interested in the glamour rhetoric & glory of the act of defiance, rather than a genuine drive for social justice. These digressions at one point slowed me down to a point where I was reading barely half a dozen pages a day & I did almost give up on it at one point. But I knew I wanted to find out what happened to Valjean & Cosette & I am glad I did, sad though the ending was. A monumental work.
Another Classic Novel By Hugo - By: R. McMullen, 18 Aug 2007 Les Misérables is a suberb classical novel which has stood the test of time. It's cleverly composed prose juxtaposed with the plot place it in the category of the alll-time greats. Admittedly it does get slightly depressing in parts, but it adds to the effect of what Hugo was trying to achieve in portaying 19th century France. I may be wrong but I thought the story was an alllegory for the real state of France at that time. Prior knowledge of France at this time would be useful but not essential. I say this because the chapters surrounding the battle of waterloo get confusing & knowledge of the Napoleonic era would make it less perplexing.Nonetheless, as previously stated, this knowledge is not essential as I got along fine. Basicallly the plot follows Jean Valjean, a released convict who was imprisoned for 19 years for stealing bread for his starving family. It folows his rise & falll as Mayor of Montriel-Sur-Mer, progressing through to his journeys as a vagabond. A great classic recommended to everyone fond of archaic literature
