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Les Miserables (平装)
by Victor Hugo
| Category:
French literature, Classics, Fiction, Romance |
| Market price: ¥ 88.00
MSL price:
¥ 78.00
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MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Les Miserables is truly epic, one of the best novels ever written, it envelopes life, and death, heaven and earth, love and hate, good and evil, and all else under the sun. |
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AllReviews |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
I'm a high school sophomore amd we had to read this book for school last semester. Honestly I wasn't encouraged by it's seemingly impossible thickness, nor by its slow start. Having never before seen any Les Mis movie or play or the musical (which is ALMOST as awesome as the book) I didn't know anything about the plot or the great characters and the whole experience was new to me. This is the only book I've ever read that has kept me up hours as night just to finish one beautiful part after another. My sister made fun of me that I would always talk to the book but when the believable characters act in ways that so thoroughly move your heart it's hard to resist sighing or commentary. Hugo is truly a master at combining every element of everything human to create characters from all walks of life and intertwine them into a poetically romantic plot that can only be described as beautiful. But don't skip the descriptions just to move from event to event. Hugo, I feel, has the unique ability to convey idea and thoughts and descriptions in a way that touches your heart and makes you think and yet at the same time doesn't bog you down with flowery adjectives. The language in his page-long paragraph descriptions flow so naturally you find yourself nodding and flipping pages and before you know it you're on to the next event in the plot. My friends laughed at me when we recently traveled to Paris and I wanted to buy the two-volume unabridged original Les Miserables- even though I don't know a word of French! It is a tragedy for any person with a poetic mind or a romantic heart to miss this book-truly a human classic.
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Lehmann (MSL quote) , USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
Here's my story about how I came to love this book.
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 ditcated 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. I decided to make use of this 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 mistress- it 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 suggsets. Hugo's penchant for overly-through descriptions also allow us to see a human side that makes him much more complex. 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, 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!
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Justin Jewell (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
pLease ingnore the reviewer who sed to read the abridged version of Victor Hugo's masterpiece Les Miserables. As you com e to appreciate literature and all of its finest writers, you begin to realize that you are selling yourself short if you ever read the abridged version of anything. Abridged books should be banned as well as Cliff Notes. It is not what the author intended for you to read and that is what a true lover of books goes by. Now, with that out of the way, on with this marvelous book. There is no character in literature to compare to the noble and saint-like Jean Valjean. He is my hero and the man doesn't even exist. That is how powerful Hugo's prose is. Through this 1,400 plus page book, the reader is entranced with his story and with all of the other characters that his life touches: The street urchin Gavroche, the crafty Thenardiers, the Bishop who gives Valjean the silver candlesticks he stole, and the greatest tragic hero of literature ever, the amazing Police Inspector Javert. The plot, the story, and the amazing way the reader is given an inside view to not only these characters lives and the Student Rebellion that is the climax of the novel, but to the 100 page detail on the life of the Bishop, the history of the battle of Waterloo, and the Inside View of a nunnery of the strictist order in Paris, all of these make this book like no other that has ever been published. It is up ther with the dictionary, the Bible, the Koran, and Darwin's Origin of the species, as the most important books ever made. Read it and be moved to tears. It is simply the best
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Barry Chow (MSL quote) , USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
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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Azezel (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
Finished reading this book about two weeks ago - but the effect that this book had on me, was so profound that I could not bring myself to write anything on the book, lest I might say something to demean the masterpiece! For, when was the last time you saw a critical review of the Mona Lisa, or where have you ever heard someone describing the faults of the Taj Mahal!?!
The story chronicles the life and times of Jean Valjean, a homeless, faithless, escaped convict, as he runs across the landscape of France of the 19th-century, at the time of the French Revolution. The two central themes that dominate the novel are the moral redemption of Jean Valjean, and the moral redemption of a Nation through Revolution. Victor Hugo is quoted to have said: "I condemn slavery, I banish poverty, I teach ignorance, I treat disease, I lighten the night, and I hate hatred. That is what I am, and that is why I have written Les Miserables."
Overall, the novel is a critical statement against human suffering, poverty, and ignorance, its purpose being as much political as it is artistic!
Coming back, then, Jean Valjean is running across France, because he is being hunted down by a meticulous, conscientious, but unmerciful police office Inspector Javert, to whom Valjean represents all that is despicable, abominable and vile in the French society at that time. The pursuit is relentless, and forms the background of the whole of the 1400-odd pages of this unabridged version of the story (available from Signet Classics).
Though the adventures that Valjean has, the chances that he gets to go back to treachery and villainy, after being given a chance at nobility, are not so easy to identify with always, but they have that ring of authenticity, that makes a work like this withstand the test of time! The story goes from place to place, always following the exploits of Valjean, though the digressions of Victor Hugo (would you believe he has written full 100-page chapters each on the Parisian sewerage system, the crime underworld existing at that time, a witness-account of the Battle of Waterloo, an obscure convent in the heart of Paris... the list, I'm afraid is too long to mention here in full! But hey, it is much more delightful to read all those detours as Hugo intended the reader to...) at times make quite a read by themselves, having not much to contribute directly to the story, except perhaps setting the context!
The French word "miserables" means both poor wretches and scoundrels or villains. The novel offers a huge cast that includes both kinds of "miserables" ...... the brave & diligent yet pathetic Fantine, the beautiful yet sad Cosette, the contemptible rogue Thenardier, the perfectionist & cruel Javert, the mercurial yet diffident and reticent Marius, the wretchedly pitiful Eponine, the exceptionally heroic Enjolras, the ebullient & fearlessly valiant Gavroche, the ......wait a minute, I am going the way of Victor Hugo, for that is what the story is like all through, no dearth of adjectives! Even when two words would have done, Hugo strives to (and I must add, quite admirably achieves to - ) give you the full rainbow of the description!
The book makes you smile, makes you laugh out, overawes you to wonder, makes you cringe in horror, causes you to weep bitterly, yet teaches you to never lose hope! Though some of the modernist readers might find the novel too romantic for their taste, even they cannot refute the strength of the convictions that the characters are shown to successfully carry! All in all, it is one of those books that reach out to you, and teach you life, as it once was, as it now is, and as it should (or is it could?) be in the future... it comes as close to life as any other book I have ever read. Probably irreproachable, in terms of sheer effect that the book has on the reader, it is a must read, independent of age! Anyone who has not read it, do yourself a favor, get a life - read this book!
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
Victor Hugo takes the suffering of the masses and gives it a name and a face. He delves deep into troubled souls and brings them to light. All this is wrapped in a magnificent tale of redeption, justice, and mercy in the setting of France just as the dust of the revolution is settling. If it doesn't bring tears to your eyes, you have a heart of stone.
He takes his time developing characters, but they become so real, so human, that you would swear they're the guys next door. Seriously, there's a guy at my church who when I first met him, my first thought was "OMG... it's Enjolras!"
You may have seen movie versions, the play (which I'm dying to see), or read paraphrases. These simply don't do the whole work justice. It's impossible to fit such a convoluted story with its complex characters into a two-hour time frame.
For example, in the '98 film version, Marius was made the leader of the Friends of the ABC. He went to the barricade despite his love for Cosette because he believed in the revolution so strongly. However, that's really an oversimplification. He did have connections with the Friends of the ABC, but had no intention of going to the barricade (a sure death warrant). He loved Cosette too much for that. However, when a series of events made their marriage impossible and then the revolutionaries said they needed his help, he went with them out of sheer despair, basically committing suicide. There's a whole level of depth that you just can't experience any other way. (Even if someone were to make a 15-hour 'epic' film version, it couldn't capture the thoughts and emotions of the characters or all the backstory, so it still wouldn't be nearly as rich.)
Good versions capture the spirit of the story, but there is just no substitute for the real thing.
In short, if you haven't read it yet... do!
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
Aside from the Bible, this is the best book ever written. Victor Hugo has given us the best novel in the history of literature via Les Miserables. I try to read this book at least once a year, and I never get tired of it. Hugo demonstrates the meaning of true grace all throughout the pages of this novel. Moreover, the book is a wonderful account of French 19th century European history (esp. the French judicial and political systems). Hugo has a very descriptive writing style that exceeds most all of the other authors of his day. While this unabridged edition looks like a tremendous amount of reading (1463 pages), you will never realize there are this many pages once you begin to get caught up in the storyline. Hugo, with wonderful style and extravagance builds several storylines that culminate into one overall story. Hugo touches the readers intellect as well as emotions as he describes the depravity of man and the guilt that is often suppressed inside each one of us. Moreover, Hugo paints a wonderful picture of grace through several of his characters (i.e. Javert) that would never be expected to show such grace. Also, Hugo digs deep into the human mind to reveal what lies hidden in the thoughts of many of his characters which adds to the romance, struggles, pains, and emotions of the characters he is developing in the story. I cannot recommend this book enough.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
For months I procrastinated in reading Les Miserables. I would pick it up only to put it right back down again, its sheer size, 1400+ pages, crushing my more literary instincts and enveloping me in a fear of "the book that never ends". I had seen the musical and the movie, so why read the book? I could use it as a doorstop. Finally, my insatiable curiosity got the better of me. I had to know the whole story, all the fine details that Hollywood and Broadway left out. Les Miserables as Hugo intended it to be. I was well rewarded for the effort. The book is ten times better than any reproduction on screen or stage. Hugo has woven so many threads into this story, so many characters of such vivid depth, they brought tears and laughter, fear and anger as I traveled back in time to 19th century Paris. It is the characters that make this story so beautiful, though the plot is gripping enough. Jean Valjean, an ex-convict and the central character in the story, is surrounded by myriad characters who, for better or worse, help shape his struggle for redemption. There is Fantine, the virtuous woman turned prostitute aided by Valjean in her final hours; Cosette, Fantine's daughter, the sole source of light in Valjean's life; Javert, the fanatical representative of the law who keeps Valjean on the run for 20 years; Marius, the idealistic youth who finds true love; and finally Thenardier, the sly innkeeper turned criminal whose grasping deviltry creates havoc for Valjean. Add to this a string of secondary characters who engage our hearts no less firmly than the others. I suppose I am a true romantic. I cried when Eponine, Thenardier's daughter and sometime accomplice, gave her life for unrequited love. I laughed as her brother, Gavroche, tripped through the streets of Paris like a miniature Gallic Robin Hood, simultaneously thieving and helping those in need and possessing an uncommon wit for an uneducated street urchin; then, cried again when he died along with the revolutionaries, Enjolras and his gang, whose fanaticism somehow did no damage to their appeal and made their inevitable demise heart-rending. I could go on and on, but there are too many extraordinary characters in this book so, in short, don't use the book as a doorstop. Read it. It is a masterpiece.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
I enjoyed reading Les Miserables a lot and was very touched by the book. I highly recommend this book for everyone to read - if after having read this book, you are not touched by the story...
On the surface, Les Miserables is the story of how Jean Valjean, the peasant convicted and imprisoned for nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread, seeks and ultimately achieves redemption. However, Les Miserables is also the story of a mother's sacrifice for her child (Fantine); a young man facing the challenges of the real world for the first time (Marius); the cruelty that can result from the self-righteous enforcement of the letter of the law (Javert); a person that uses others solely for personal gain (Thernadier); a young woman falling in love and coming to terms with her true upbringing (Cosette); another young woman who loves a man that does not love her (Eponine); a happy-go-lucky orphan that practices random acts of kindness without reward (Gavroche); idealistic student activists confronting the establishment (Enjolras); and a person's struggle with conscience and being true to oneself (Jean Valjean).
If you have ever loved another person, read this book and it will become one of your favorites!
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Erin (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
To begin, I have to say I am a very partial reader when it comes to this novel. I love the musical, I love the movie, I adore the book! This novel is not for everyone... Hugo does have a tendency to become long winded, and enjoys delving into deep discussions about politics and government. If you can get past this, or if this is the type of thing you enjoy, this novel is certainly not to be missed. Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert are two of the best characters I have ever "met" in all of my reading excursions. Both are incredibly well developed and have very real personas. Valjean is the type of character that we will all look up to and strive to become. Javert is incredible, in that he is able to evoke feelings from the reader of sheer hate, yet once the story opens up more, you find yourself actually feeling pity for him, and almost respecting him for standing behind his beliefs. There are so many stories creatively connected throughout this novel and you come to know and love so many different characters. My emotions wavered as I read the story, there are times when the wit is so clever, I actually laughed out loud, and there were other times (more often), that I found myself in tears because a piece of the work had touched me so deeply. Hugo is a genius, and this book is incredible.
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