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A review by cthedan
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
5.0
I couldn't gives this less than five if only because reading this book did the impossible: it made me like Gavroche, who in all adaptations is insufferable. But Marius still sucks in all adaptations *and* this source material.
If you've only seen adaptations and you have a lot of patience, read this, even if you're going to read an abridged version and be a sucka. I have to believe even the abridged version would include Hugo's wild, metaphorical haymakers, which justify any difficulty in reading. Some digressions and footnotes are tough, but some are amazing and you learn all about human manure or Paris street slang! Classics like these are sledgehammers where we're more accustomed to chisels these days. Sledgehammers are more fun though sometimes inaccurate. But they know that about themselves. I described reading Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid as being transcendentally shanked, but this was more like being very slowly crushed into ecstasy by a bolder.
Put this book on your bucket list and carry it in the pitch black forest like little Cossette until a saint rescues you from the non-Les Mis books that have been terrorizing you. Non Les-Mis books are only after money and sell off their male children.
I thought about Interview with a Vampire while reading this because when I reread Interview, I was surprised at how many of my ideals can be traced back to a vampire book I read in the 90s as a teen. Somehow, although I didn't read Les Mis as a teen, I feel a similar identification here, placing me squarely within the realm of the Francophile.
If you've only seen adaptations and you have a lot of patience, read this, even if you're going to read an abridged version and be a sucka. I have to believe even the abridged version would include Hugo's wild, metaphorical haymakers, which justify any difficulty in reading. Some digressions and footnotes are tough, but some are amazing and you learn all about human manure or Paris street slang! Classics like these are sledgehammers where we're more accustomed to chisels these days. Sledgehammers are more fun though sometimes inaccurate. But they know that about themselves. I described reading Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid as being transcendentally shanked, but this was more like being very slowly crushed into ecstasy by a bolder.
Put this book on your bucket list and carry it in the pitch black forest like little Cossette until a saint rescues you from the non-Les Mis books that have been terrorizing you. Non Les-Mis books are only after money and sell off their male children.
I thought about Interview with a Vampire while reading this because when I reread Interview, I was surprised at how many of my ideals can be traced back to a vampire book I read in the 90s as a teen. Somehow, although I didn't read Les Mis as a teen, I feel a similar identification here, placing me squarely within the realm of the Francophile.