Les Misérables

Author: Victor Hugo
Translator: Julie Rose
Genre: fiction, historical fiction
Publication info: Modern Library, 2008 (originally published in 1862)
Pages: 1194 (plus notes)

It has been a long time since I’ve reviewed a book, but not for lack of reading. I just recently finished reading probably one of the longest and most complex novels I’ve ever read, Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. I feel like I’ve been on a long journey, one that took up a good chunk of this year. And what a journey.

Thanks to the hugely successful musical (which, contrary to a strangely prevalent myth, was not written by Andrew Lloyd Webber), many people are familiar with this story. And since there is a new movie coming out this Christmas, many millions more will soon become familiar with it. Before reading the novel, though, I myself knew next to nothing about the story. I think I’m glad about that, because every part of it was a discovery for me.

Since this book is so massive, both physically and in scope, it would be extremely hard to give a good summary, but here goes: Released after nineteen years in prison, Jean Valjean feels like the world owes him, until a remarkable act of kindness from a bishop changes his heart forever. Now he sets out to do the most good he can, and when he adopts an orphaned girl named Cosette, it seems he has finally found happiness. But his past continues to haunt him, thanks in part to a relentless police inspector, and threatens to destroy all the joy he’s ever known.

There’s more to that, of course—a lot more. The cast of characters, for one thing, is enormous, and many of them have a lot of depth. It’s even hard to tell sometimes which one is actually the main character. But even with the epic scale (even though I usually hate the word “epic,” it applies here), Hugo manages to expose some deeply moving human conflict.

Les Misérables is famous for being really long, and many might say that it’s long for no good reason. It contains many passages that are best described as essays, only tangentially related to the overall story (Hugo himself even admits sometimes that they have no bearing on the story). It includes a lengthy retelling of the Battle of Waterloo, descriptions of an uprising that occurs years after the setting of the novel, and—my personal favorite—an opinion piece on the Paris sewer system. It’s easy to get bogged down in these parts, or skip them altogether. I don’t blame anyone that wants to skip them. But if you give them a chance and try to read the entire novel, even the seemingly pointless stuff, you’ll find that there is a lot of interesting writing in there. Hugo is a fascinating writer, especially when he gets openly opinionated about the issues of his time. I didn’t always understand the historical context, but I found it interesting to learn what kinds of things he cared about.

But, of course, it always comes back to the characters. That’s where this novel shines. Jean Valjean is a deeply troubled man who experiences a wide range of emotions. All he wants is to do good and to live in peace, but the world seems bent on destroying his peace. It’s a dark, twisted world that Hugo describes, one in which the virtuous people are convicts and prostitutes and the just people show no mercy. It’s a world, and a story, and characters, that I will be thinking about for a long time.

I can’t recommend this book enough. I you love the musical, read the book. It will make the show immensely more meaningful to you. There’s still time to read the book before the movie comes out! If you do read it, I highly recommend this recent translation by Julie Rose. There are a lot of translations out there, some in the public domain, and while I can’t compare Rose’s to the others, I can say that it is beautiful and full of energy. Give it a try.