Product Description

This book is with an Introduction and Notes by Roger Clark, University of Kent at Canterbury. One of the great Classics of Western Literature, "Les Miserables" is a magisterial work which is rich in both character portrayal and meticulous historical description. Characters such as the absurdly criminalised Valjean, the street urchin Gavroche, the rascal Thenardier, the implacable detective Javert, and the pitiful figure of the prostitute Fantine and her daughter Cosette, have entered the pantheon of literary dramatis personae.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18404 in Books
• Published on: 1994-01-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Customer Reviews

classic
After reading so much modern garbage over the years I decided to take on a few classics to see just why they are referred to as such.
I now have no doubts.
Some may find the style old fashioned, some of the descriptive passages too long etc. Don't let that put you off.
If you decide to take this book on (both unabridged volumes - no less) then I am sure that by the end of it you will come to the same conclusion as I.
That this is possibly the best piece of work you will have ever read.

too wordy, but a fantastic plot
Lord, alot of people will probably hate me for that statement, but it's true. I bought this booka fter seeing the musical in the west end. It took me over a month to read it (that's along time for me) and I came close to throwing it in the bin a few times, but I am certainly glad I read it, and not just for the feeling of immense acheivment. However, I do feel that this book has an amazing storyline, and it is easy to see why it is a classic. Defintley a very clever man, Victor Hugo, as there was alot of politics behind this book. The love stories, the story of struggles, triumphs and no hope really touched me, and I felt as if I could almost touch France as it was through this book. Not for a light read, but if you want something with real meaning behind it, this is your book.

a story inseparable from history
It's not an easy job to try and condense the 1000+ pages of Hugo's 2 volume epic fiction into an Amazon review; nor is it any easier to "rate" it.

It would be enlightening to say that a modern reader drawn here on the back of the musical, and looking for the story, might well not even finish the novel, being fed up with its frequent digressions. Certainly, there are vast tracts of impossibly detailed historical commentary that interrupt the narrative flow with scant regard for the 21st century's time-pressed reader. Jean Valjean's flight through the sewers is a timely place for Hugo to explain the history of Paris' underground system; the time spent in the convent is preceded by a 10 page meditation on convents; the battle of Waterloo takes 30 pages of our time, albeit one of the more readable asides.

Roger Clark's useful introduction suggests that Hugo felt it was necessary to expound (albeit with his great skill and erudition) on the historical context of his characters' world; it is a story that was for him inseparable from the times that made it: Les Miserables is a critique of a city and a nation embodied in text. Still, this will be of little consolation to readers looking for the adventures of Jean Valjean, and Inspector Javert.

Yet, Hugo's storytelling skill is considerable. The opening of the novel is one I will always remember, the creation and story of the figure of Monseigneur Bienvenue is brilliantly realised. The novel's fictional characters, and the story itself, are compelling; thrilling at times, and definitely melodramatic; there's a sense of the theatrical about it all. The wronged hero Jean Valjean has his suitably cold nemesis in that pillar of the law, Javert - at one point Hugo terms them the "spectre and the statue": one made of shadow the other made of stone. Marius and Cosette bring the novel its romantic element; their blossoming, withering and revival of love is as compulsive as it is sentimental. Many other equally memorable characters are encountered along the way: the repulsive Thenardier family; the tragic and pitiful figures of Eponine and Fantine; the incorrigible street-child Gavroche. All this is played out against the Parisian streets, with the filth of the sewers, the paradise of a garden, or the subversive structures of the barricades never too far away.

From a literary perspective, Les Miserables is a magnificent work that can be read, and re-read on so many different levels, that it is hard to overestimate its significance. From a general reader perspective, Hugo is a frustrating writer whose verbose wanderings will probably be one of the most severe tests you will find in a novel.