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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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| Stock:
In Stock |
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 |
  1 2 Total 2 pages 14 items |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
It took its author 30-odd years to write; it changed (as Huckleberry Finn to Mark Twain) its own author's views on many moral and political subjects; it became a worldwide sensation overnight. The American General R. E. Lee made it required reading among his soldiers. What more can one say?
This is a heavy and (as Hugo put it in the Introduction) Religious book (indeed, compare Valjean with the mercy of the Christian New Testament, Javert with the unyielding lawfulness of the Old Testament, and the Thernardiers with the chaos of Athiesm, with so many characters caught in the middle). There is no need to summerize the plot, as it is still well-known today, 133 years after its publication.
I will add that one simply must read the unabridged edition (even if there is a whole chapter on the history of the Paris sewers before the short scene which takes place there). Great novels such as this were never meant to be torn apart by modern publishers.
On top of this, for the Romance enthusiasts, I must say the love letter Marius writes to Cosette is the most beautiful piece of poetic prose I've ever read.
Many of the events Hugo sets in this book actually happened, and were seen by Hugo. Note: the degradation and imprisonment of Fantine (by the gentleman) and the Student Insurrections of 1832, against which the last two sections of the book are set.
This is a novel for everyone (especially those with the patience to read it). It is valuable, heartwarming, entertaining, and filled with memorable characters and Truths of Life.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
Les Miserables is one of the most stirring - if not the most stirring accounts of French life during the Romantic Period. It introduces you to characters from all walks of life... the very wealthy aristocrats to the poorest dregs of society, all thrown together and mixed up in the blender of life. The elaborate plot remains simple to follow, and although Hugo does have a tendency to go off on tangents at points (think the battle of Waterloo scene or the convent descriptions) it always comes as an interruption to a highly tense situtation such that it continues to hold our attention until we reach the final destination that Hugo is after. Such techniques and such carefully crafted characters bring the story to life and allow any person reading this novel to identify with one of the characters - bringing the reader INTO the story. For example, one of my friends identifies with Javert's one-track minded dedication to a cause, and I identify with Eponine (whom I refer to as the "tragic heroine") because of her desperate love and desire to do what's right despite her harsh conditions. All in all, Hugo's all-inclusive Romantic techniques and extensive descriptive abilities makes this one of the - if not the - most superb writings ever created by man.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
Take a character, study it to the most minute details, build an entire plot around him and send him on a journey to redefine himself. A very popular theme for 19th century french novels, and the theme for Hugo's masterpiece.
Hugo's takes Valjean to a journey toward his ultimate redemption through an amazing panorama of early 19th century frace. You can feel Valjean's character evolves and develop as the plot advance. Every character is importent, every subplot is critical. Hugo's book have no flat supporting actors. The characters are deeply detailed, and the reader is brought to tears as Eponine dies in the hands of Marius not because of cheap sentimental tricks, but because he came to know her character so well.
The historical research is top-notch, the chapter detailing the Waterloo battle (dropped in most abridged versions) brings back to life Napoleon's cavaliers as they charged across the plains. Hugo gives the reader a full report on the Paris sewege system, hence he sends his characters down there. Another chapter dropped in many abridged version is the opennig one, do yourself a favor and avoid skipping it. You will understand the importance of that chapter toward the last pages.
This novel is a must have in every library, the translation is fluent and easily read, and every single page is geting you closer to the amazing catharsis at the end. And even though the popular musical (which I had the chance to watch live on stage) is great, it is but a pale shadow of the original.
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Walker Rowe (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-09 00:00>
I have read and reread this book at least 5 times. And then I read it a couple of more times in French and façile à lire (easy-to-read) French. To add to my compulsion-my mother classified it thus-I saw the musical twice and bought both the English and French versions of the musical's music.
I read that during the war-I forget which war-French soldiers went into battle with a copy of Les Misérables under their arm. The story of the heroism of the main character, Jean Valjean, was an inspiration to the lowly foot soldier. The story of Victor Hugo, the author, must have been an inspiration as well. Like Balzac, Hugo was active in politics. When he died the whole country went into morning and he bodied laid in state.
This novel absolutely takes my breath away as it moves from one scene to the next. It's appeal to the emotions under a less skilled novelist might have seemed corny and contrived. But with Victor Hugo it comes off as genuine and heartfelt.
How many obscure characters from this novel can you name? How about Fauchelevent. Remember him? Jean Valjean saved his life when he lifted the heavy cart that had fallen on him. Later Fauchelevent is able to repay the favor by hiding Jean Valjean and Cosette in a cloister where the gendarmes and policeman Javert cannot enter.
The musical and the various movies made about this novel cannot possibly cover that incident and the host of other little events that happen in the novel and that warm the heart. The musical and all the movies I have seen-two English and one French-skip, for example, the whole battle of Waterloo. Here is where we first meet the lowly criminal Thernadier who is robbing dead soldiers of their belonging.
I have often wondered why the great critics-Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling, and Harold Wilson-have not mentioned this book as one of the greatest books of all time: part of the so-called Western Canon. They don't disparage it. They just don't mention it. Maybe it's theme is too simple or it's ironies too few. Perhaps they dismiss it as ordinary entertainment not worthy of the moniker "classic".
In my mind this novel deserves such accolades as does Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. (By the way, it peeves me that Walt Disney does not given proper, prominent credit to the authors of The Little Mermaid (Hans Christain Anderson) and other films. My kids used to think that Walt Disney wrote Snow White, Aladin, and others. It's almost as annoying as that Barney television show which uses the melody of famous tunes and adds their own words without credit to the original authors.)
Finally, I recommend the latest French film Les Misérables. It retells Victor Hugo's tale against the setting of World War II and is consequently something new. Even the latest English film with Liam Neeson was a dissapointment-it told the tale exactly per the novel. But the novel was too familiar to me so I found myself predicting each scene before it happened. Liam Neeson needs to make another great film like "Schindler's List" before the horrible latest Star Wars film ruins his career.
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1 2 Total 2 pages 14 items |
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