Les Miserables (Movie Tie-In)

This is a beautiful edition of a classic book! I purchased as a Christmas gift for my husband who loves reading classics. We are also big fans of the musical so it was a hit! The only complaint I have is with all of the cloth bound classics, the beautiful design on the cover wears off to easy from just the heat of your hands if you are actually reading this edition.

Thank God I got the Kindle version for my Kindle Keyboard 3G. I read through 12% of the book before wondering 'how long will it take me to finish!!?". So I measured my reading speed pages-per-minute and estimated the total reading time for the entire book to be 64 hours. Seriously. So I took a different approach: I would read for an hour or two, then when fatigue started setting in, I pressed the "shift-sym" keyboard shortcut to activate text-to-speech, and just sat back or laid in bed while the kindle AI voice read it to me. This book famously takes place in France, and a lot of the names of people / places / streets are in French, so it's nice having the AI effortlessly pronounce them. My favorite was hearing it pronounce "Champs-Élysées" over and over again. It was pleasant, almost hypnotizing. Text-to-Speech allowed me to focus on the incredible story and not hassle through the pronunciations. Victor Hugo goes off on many tangents, such as 30+ page histories of the battle of waterloo, and the construction of the sewer system in Paris. It's quite fascinating and adds much to the story. There are many nuanced scenes that I continually go back to in my head, like the back passages behind the court room for transporting lawyers, and the one for transporting the criminals. And the ideas of whether a person can ever redeem themselves in society, contrasted with the situation that society is often times a poor judge of how to redeem oneself, and whether they should be deserving of redemption. It is an honest critique of criminal justice that is probably as relevant today as it was then.

My understanding is that this "penguin classics" version has a better translation than the "free" version going around on the internet. It you're going to devote ~64 hours to an experience of life and death in old France, best put in a few bucks to get the best translation possible. For today's generation, the length of the story can be a bit jarring and leaves you wondering "will this story ever end?" I say this book is not at all to be treated as a story. It's not a television show. It's not a movie. It's not a musical. Les Miserables is an EXPERIENCE. So get the good version on Kindle, and have the AI voice continue the reading when fatigue starts to set in.

I'm 400 pages through so far, and love this book. I have never seen the musical, or any of the movies, heard any of the music, or really know anything about the story. To be honest, I didn't even know it was a book until a friend mentioned that it was in his top 10 of favorite books of all time! Coming from him, who is quite a manly dude, warranted an investigation by my part.

I'll continue to update this review as I read the book, but keep in mind it is a THICK read, covering around 1200 pages or so. Much of it is ancillary information that didn't really add too much to the story (yet?), as in there was about 100 pages or so talking in great detail about the battle of Waterloo; information I could have gotten from a history book. However the story is compelling, well written, and you become almost instantly attached to the main characters, pulling for them, hoping for them, really yearning for them to do the right things and to overcome.

One of my favorite characters in the book was the Bishop of Digne, who apparently is barely mentioned in the musical or movie. The book provides a wealth of background on his character, which, in talking to diehard fans of this story, greatly entertained them. So even if you're seen the musical, the movie, or know the basic story, I'd recommend reading it due to all of the extra stuff in the story that didn't make the musical.

I'm glad to see so many young people drawn to the book via the musical or the movie versions. If there were one writer I would want to know on a personal basis via his work it would have been Victor Hugo. He must have had an enormously generous heart and spirit as evidenced by his writing. This is probably the most sympathetic, almost God-like perspective of humanity that I have ever come across in literature. And what a sweeping cyclorama Hugo portrays. From the fields of Waterloo to the sewers of Paris, Hugo's eye of god sees everything. The Waterloo passages are often discarded in the abridgements, but to me they play an important part in allowing the reader to pull back and look at things from this god-like point-of-view. The great panoramic macrocosm of history is seen in conjunction with the vivid details of Jean Valjean's microcosmic struggle. Of course the characters, which I thought were rather cleverly encapsulated in the musical, are here given their true range and scope. That Hugo loved these characters is abundantly clear. This love is absorbed by the reader. Every time Jabert comes close to capturing Jean, it is as if we were in Jean's shoes. Hugo far outshines Dickens in his depiction of lower class existence in a 19th century European city. His Paris is inhabited by much more convincing urchins. All his characters in fact, are much more believable. Dickens is much more overtly sentimental. Hugo lets the story affect the reader. There is no sense of straining to convey an effect. With Dickens, I am always aware of the puppetmaster straining to get a point across. He is a polemical writer compared to Hugo. He relies on heavy-handed bathos. Hugo remains much more in the background and we are left essentially unaware of his machinations. That's why, for me, I respond more viscerally to Hugo as I respond more depply to great art in general. My primary appeal to readers is that they don't do Hugo the disservice of reading an abridged version of this novel. You may not be all that interested in the causes behind the rebellion that led to Marius's mounting of the barricade, but I assure you you will not be bored by the lengthier version. Great writers don't waste their time on superfluous details. Every word is there for a reason. Let the Master of the House display his wares in full.

I finished this book a few days ago, and I miss it. It's sort of strange. I had a similar experience when I finished Lord of the Rings, but I think this is worse. I loved nearly everything about this book, even when it wasn't exciting or emotional, I was fascinated. My only serious complaint was the sewer chapter, but that was merely the timing of it (I skimmed some of that section, but went back and read it fully afterwards).

I have been a fan of the musical since I was six and have wanted to read the book for year, but just never had the reading stamina. The book adds so much detail and emotion to the musical. I'm very glad I waited until I was disciplined enough to get through this book in its entirety.

It has been nearly a month since I finished this book and I still cannot stop thinking about it. I have a feeling I may end up rereading this book within the year, because it just has not let go of me.

A word of warning for the Wilbur translation, though it says that it is not abridge, it basically is. There are several sections that are moved to an appendix at the end of the book. I marked the place where they were supposed to be so that I could read them in their intended place. The part about the convent is a bit tedious, but the bit about Argot was really interesting. Make sure you read that one because you will miss out on some interesting stuff.

There are countless problems with Victor Hugo's maudlin and melodramatic "Les Miserables." Its heroes and villains are two-dimensional, the scope and scale too ambitious, the plot forced and artificial, and the book much too long and verbose. But yet for its innumerable faults it is a book that does work because at its heart and center is a moving and epic love story.

The epic love story I refer to is not between the prodigal heir Marius and the poor orphan Cosette. Their love at first sight makes the two, and consequently love, seem shallow and lame. As well, we know much too little about Cosette to like her, and know too much about Marius to like him.

The epic love story I refer is between Jean Valjean and Cosette. The true hero of this book is Jean Valjean, who was imprisoned for nineteen years for no other cause than attempting to steal bread to feed his starving siblings. In those nineteen years he learned hate and malice, and upon his parole he would become a great villain except he ran into a saintly bishop (that idea alone would be considered an oxymoron in our modern age) who did him not one but two saintly acts that would together transform Jean Valjean's life. When the bishop died it seemed that his soul entered Valjean's, and Jean Valjean henceforth committed himself to noble actions.

Jean Valjean changed his name, became rich and successful, and mayor of a town. At the apex of his fortune, he suddenly became burdened with two moral dilemmas. First, he meets Fantine, a mother who became a prostitute in order to feed her child born out of wedlock, and he becomes determined to save her the way that the bishop once saved him. Second, he hears a man who is accused of being Jean Valjean, and is about to go to prison.

This is one of the many plot points where Hugo reveals his lack of understanding of human nature. In this situation, the very best men would think that they have already amends with their past by helping a town prosper, and being kind and considerate and generous to those all around him so that he is considered a saint by all. If a man is about to go to prison for his past misdeeds, then it is simply the fault of the law, and perhaps he could use his wealth and his connections to reduce the man's sentence or help him out his relatives. Plus, there's Fantine -- who was dying before his eyes, and in which was his true priority to save. No actual man would run to exonerate the wrongly accused, thereby damning him before the eyes of the law so that he loses his position, becomes a common criminal, and sees Fantine die before his very eyes.

Again, Victor Hugo is too fond of his plot devices. With Jean Valjean's inexplicable action, the plot thickens and the world's injustice comes bearing down on the hero. Somehow he manages to escape from his captors, and seeks out Cosette, determined to raise her as his own child, and it is our pity and admiration for Jean Valjean coupled with our appreciation and empathy for the love he has for Cosette that propels the rest of the book forward, and what makes "Les Miserables" such a powerfully compelling love story.

The love between Jean Valjean and Cosette is so compelling and endearing in fact that we find the political and sociological undercurrents of "Les Miserables" to be distracting, and Marius -- who would ultimately destroy the bond between father and daughter -- to be annoyingly ignorant at best and a self-righteous brat at worst.

The French have a particular genius for stirring and inspiring the emotions and imagination, and "Les Miserables" is no exception.

I bought this Norman Denny translation in January 2013. Originally, I'd gotten the Isabel F. Hapgood translation (the one with the silhouette of a reading girl surrounded by cat-tails) on my Kindle. However, the spaces between paragraphs were too wide, so I had to flip pages quite often. This got quite annoying after 450 pages. Also, the language in the Kindle edition was a little difficult to understand, and there were random accent marks on random words -- the editing wasn't the best.

However, the Norman Denny translation's easy to understand (the English is the English we speak in the 21st Century, and not what was spoken in the 19th Century). There might have been some spelling or grammatical errors, but far less than in the Kindle edition. While I was reading the Kindle edition, I kept on glancing at the percentage metre to see when I would hit the next percent. Because it was a Kindle e-book, I could only rely on the percentage metre to see how far I was in the book. Also, when I got to one of those useless rants about social injustice, I kept on having to hit the "Go To" button to go to the Table of Contents and see how many more chapters I had to endure of the boring stuff. With the hard-copy book, I could just flip through the book until I found the next chapter.

This translation in itself's fine, but the content isn't. First, there are the useless rants about social injustice that nobody really cares about. Victor Hugo might have been right about the social issues in the 1860's, but why would he put them in a romance novel? He ought to have taken all his rants from Les Mis and put them in separate essays. Gladly, according to what one of my friends who read this Les Mis translation said, Norman Denny gets rid of at least 50 pages of Hugo's rants.

Second, in Part I, Book I ("An Upright Man"), Hugo dedicates the first 50 pages of his great masterpiece to talking about the daily life and good deeds of the extremely nice Bishop of Digne. Although the Bishop figures in only 100 pages of the 1400 page book, Hugo describes him the most. Alright, we get the point that the Bishop's the nicest bloke in the world!

Third, Hugo dedicates another 50 pages to an epic description of the June 1815 Battle of Waterloo. He finally gets to some story in the last two pages. Hugo mentions places such as Hougomont, the hollow road of Ohain, Braine-l'Alleud, Mont-Saint-Jean, Genappe, Nivelles, etc. that nobody knows about. All those locations are somewhere in southern Belgium and northern France, but only locals would know the places. As these locations figure quite prominently in Part II, Book I ("Waterloo"), it's quite difficult trying to understand the Battle of Waterloo if you don't know where any of the locations are. If locations aren't confusing enough, Hugo mentions people such as Blücher, the Prince of Orange, Chassé, Halkett, Mitchell, Somerset, etc. that nobody knows about. Personally, the only names I recognised in "Waterloo" were "the Duke of Wellington" and "Napoleon". Because the Battle of Waterloo only occurred about 50 years after Les Mis was first published, Hugo expects his audience to know who Blücher, the Prince of Orange, Chassé, etc. were. However, it's almost 200 years after the Battle of Waterloo, and people only recognise the names of the two principal generals/commanders -- the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte. Even so, some people only know who Napoleon is, and not the Duke of Wellington. I read "Waterloo" on my Kindle, so I kept on going to the Table of Contents and looking at all the chapters in "Waterloo" to see how much longer I had to endure it.

Fourth, in Part II, Book VI ("Le Petit-Picus"), Hugo uses 30 pages to explain the history of the Petit-Picus convent. Seriously? The Petit-Picus convent only figures in about 100 pages out of 1400 pages. The convent's also extinct -- it died about 150 years ago.

Fifth, in Part II, Book VII ("The Convent as an Abstract Idea"), 15 pages are dedicated to explaining as to why a convent is actually a prison. Why doesn't Victor Hugo just put all that rubbish in another essay, instead of in Les Mis?

Sixth, the name of Part IV, Book I ("A Few Pages of History") is a serious misnomer. Thirty-four pages of history isn't considered "a few pages of history".

Seventh, in Part IV, Book VII ("Argot"), 20 pages are used to talk about slang. Evidently, the slang of the 1830's is completely different from the slang of the 2010's. So why can't Victor Hugo get rid of all that rubbish?

Eighth, in Part V, Book II ("The Entrails of the Monster"), Hugo uses 20 pages to describe the Paris sewers. Although the sewers might have some prominence, overall, they're not that important.

I made the mistake of reading "An Upright Man", "Waterloo", "Le Petit-Picus", "The Convent as an Abstract Idea", "A Few Pages of History", and "The Entrails of the Monster". Fortunately, I didn't read "Argot". Whenever I was reading these seven sections, I kept on thinking, "Mr. Hugo, can we PLEASE get on with the story?". PLEASE DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF READING THESE SEVEN SECTIONS. THEY ARE A WASTE OF YOUR TIME. YOU WILL REGRET IT IF YOU DO! Otherwise, read everything else. Les Mis is actually quite good -- just not the eight sections.

The title of this review is "Monsieur Gillenormand Lives", because my favourite character in Les Mis is Monsieur Gillenormand, the 90-year-old grandfather of Marius Pontmercy, one of the main characters. I think Norman Denny's representation of Monsieur Gillenormand is marvelous. Monsieur Gillenormand was the only character who made me laugh in a serious book. My second favourite character was Grantaire, who was quite comical as well, but not as much as Monsieur Gillenormand.

The Norman Denny Translation of Les Miserables is hands down, my favorite edition of this book, hardcover or paperback. I personally find it to be a better, more enjoyable read, compared to the translations by Hapgood or Wilbur. The "movie tie in" edition (it simply has an image of the actress playing young Cosette in the film on its cover) has one important plus over the previous Norman Denny translated editions, in that it has larger print than Penguin books previous editions, making it much easier on the eyes to read.

If you choose the hardcover Norman Denny edition from Penguin books, it is also a great edition, but the text will be much smaller.

If you are considering purchasing this book (the N. Denny translation) because of the musical, I highly recommend doing so, but be aware that this is a very lengthy book (originally a multi volume work), and Victor Hugo sometimes digresses quite a bit, although some of which have been moved to the appendices at the back of the book (Denny).

The downside to getting a hold of an out of print book is that some sellers, might erroneously list used books as "new". The copy I purchased was listed as "new", but felt as if it had been read before by the way the book's pages freely opened and turned. New books do not do that. A new book's spine should be "tight" and have a 'stiffness" to the book, and they often need to be "broken in" (not unlike a college text book when you first buy it and intend to sell back later) before reading, to help prevent spine split, creases along the spine and loosened pages.