Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Les Miserables is an enormous book. Clocking in at just over twelve hundred pages in the Penguin Classics edition, it’s a real brick of a novel, no question. But, like a kindly wife describing her portly husband, I say that this means only that there is more of it to love. And I think it’s fair to say that I love this book. I can’t remember any other book that has gripped, fascinated, and moved me as much as Monsieur Hugo’s masterpiece. Hugo finished Les Miserables late in his career, in 1862. By this time the age of romantic French literature exemplified by the likes of Hugo and Dumas was drawing to a close. Zola, the most enduring of ...  Read the complete review

Who never heard of “Les Miserables”? Since their publication, “Les Miserables” is the most famous work and most read of Victor Hugo. Jean Valjean, Cosette, Gavroche are now full part of the known characters of each high-school pupil’s library. “Les Miserables” appears as this " single book " of which the nineteenth century dreamed of and needed. That is probably why some were tempted to criticize and denounce the weakness of Hugo’s psychology and his far too gross simplification and description of the society. It is a marvellous saga telling the story of a poor fellow who, for the ...  Read the complete review

When i got this book i wasn't sure if i had the patience to actually read it, i mean come on, it's pretty daggum long. But one weekend i was sick and decided that while i was in bed i should read something so i pulled it off my shelf and began. I couldn't put it down . . . literally. I just sat there and read and read. I finished it the next day, honest. It is such a touching story. There is just so much that is going on that there really is never a dull moment. This is a classic that you shouldn't be warry of reading because of it's lenght. It is worth it. ...  Read the complete review

Easily one of the all-time greatest works of literature, Hugo's Les Miserables is the tale of a man, Jean Valjean, and his search for humanity. The story begins with the description of Hugo's perfect man: a minister in the church that lives on basically nothing and lives to promote the good life of others. An ex-convict, Valjean, presents himself at the minister's door one night (after he has been turned down by everyone else) and is given a room. Valjean, so corrupted by prison, robs the minister in the night and walks away with place settings and silver candlesticks. When the gendarmes bring Valjean to the minister the next day claiming that they have found ...  Read the complete review

Well, what can I say! I've been meaning to write this review for a while now but I've been recovering from the epic effort to finish the book!! That opening paragraph has made it sound like it was a struggle....and to be honest at times it was. There were plenty of deviations from the plot. Some up to 50 pages in length to talk about some history that was relevent to the story...although in general I didn't know what to make of the history per se as hugo wrote the history bits in such a way that it read like it was meant to be a text book and I'd probably trust a text book more. I was tempted to skp some bits as they didn't seem relevent but then he would slip ...  Read the complete review