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thegoatofboat 's review for:
Les Miserables
by Victor Hugo
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This has to be one of the most frustrating books I have read and the fact it's so long makes it even worse. I have at the top of my head three gripes with this book and it's entirety.
1) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get an abridged version if you plan on reading this. Hugo does what is refer to as some people as "digressions" where he dedicates chapters of him just speaking to the reader or describing something. I don't have any qualms with fleshing out your story and making things more engaging with use of description, however Hugo takes this to an extreme. Most of these digressions DO NOT SERVE ANY PLOT RELEVANCE, some do but a good chunk of them don't. What makes it worse also is the fact that these digressions most of the time are at least 20 pages long and I remember one of them was 50 pages only for the last 4 chapters to matter. One of these digressions is about a covenant that can be argued as a cult, but I'm not going to do that now, but these 20+ pages about how the people in the covenant are practically self-harming themselves and living such an unorthodox life where they're bleeding members DOESN'T HAVE ANY BEARING ON THE PLOT. EVEN WHEN THE MAIN CHARACTERSLIVE IN THE COVENANT NONE OF WHAT HUGO WAS TALKING ABOUT IS BROUGHT UP AGAIN. Seriously Hugo could've used these moments to flesh out the characters, but no he uses it to get his point across in some aspects in such an heavy handed way or to just talk about how a barricade in a certain time was so innovative and the prettiest thing ever
2) Characters in this book are just so...bland most of the time. There are some highlights but they are few and far between. The heroine of the story deadass DOES NOT DO ANYTHING. She only is mentioned and while I was taking notes for the book I realize that she's not even a character she is mostly just there. If I had to write an essay on the main heroine and her as a character I would struggle because she doesn't even really speak till the last few parts of the story. My gripes with the heroine does extend to all women characters of the book as Hugo is definitely one of the authors who just can't write compelling woman, or at the very least in this book. Besides with the woman characters some characters are just neglected like The Friends of the ABC. Only one of these people matter and there's like 9 of them and Hugo spends pages upon pages describing them only for when they take the center stage in the story they legit lose their personality in order to be a carbon copy of the only one that matters, Enjolras. The criminal group that is supposed to serve as an underbelly for The Friends of the ABC don't do anything and are abruptly written off.
3) However there is one character I want to talk about and it is Marius who infuriates me for days on end. The more Marius appears the more I felt like Hugo isn't exactly honest with his characters or understand them and even though that is pretty crazy for me to say it is something I believe. Hugo tries to frame Marius as this heroic figure who is practically unable to do anything wrong. He's falls into poverty but it doesn't feel authentic because he has a safety net and when you spend many pages seeing characters go through the worse thing ever, seeing a guy who is stretching meat for three days because he refuses to accept money that his uncle is giving him does absolutely nothing for me when their are characters who had removed their own teethes to stay alive. On top of him masquerading as a poor person he's also a stalker as he stalks the main heroine and writes her the most incomprehensible love letters that Hugo writes as endearing and cute when it is at the very least creepy and outright dangerous. One more thing, Marius is to down bad for the main heroine that he often only thinks of her, evenwhen his closest friends die, and he can't even be bothered to pay any homage or respects to them . Marius time on end is willing to throw himself to death at any setback with his relationship with the heroine which even includes, fighting in a revolution (that he doesn't even believe in) just so he can die because there is a setback with his marriage. There's more I can say about Marius but I should leave it at that (don't get me started about him and Thenardier) and I do believe that as soon as Marius came into the story it was a downward spiral for what was a pretty good book in the first two parts which makes me a bit sad. A book that was commenting on the societal condition of the people in Paris devolved into a romance book and stopped commenting on the condition (and I wholly believe Flaubert did such a better job at this even referring to a different revolution).
(Also did I mention Marius and the heroine's relationship is just the worse thing ever and I can't believe that they end up together it's frustrating.)
1) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get an abridged version if you plan on reading this. Hugo does what is refer to as some people as "digressions" where he dedicates chapters of him just speaking to the reader or describing something. I don't have any qualms with fleshing out your story and making things more engaging with use of description, however Hugo takes this to an extreme. Most of these digressions DO NOT SERVE ANY PLOT RELEVANCE, some do but a good chunk of them don't. What makes it worse also is the fact that these digressions most of the time are at least 20 pages long and I remember one of them was 50 pages only for the last 4 chapters to matter. One of these digressions is about a covenant that can be argued as a cult, but I'm not going to do that now, but these 20+ pages about how the people in the covenant are practically self-harming themselves and living such an unorthodox life where they're bleeding members DOESN'T HAVE ANY BEARING ON THE PLOT. EVEN WHEN THE MAIN CHARACTERS
2) Characters in this book are just so...bland most of the time. There are some highlights but they are few and far between. The heroine of the story deadass DOES NOT DO ANYTHING. She only is mentioned and while I was taking notes for the book I realize that she's not even a character she is mostly just there. If I had to write an essay on the main heroine and her as a character I would struggle because she doesn't even really speak till the last few parts of the story. My gripes with the heroine does extend to all women characters of the book as Hugo is definitely one of the authors who just can't write compelling woman, or at the very least in this book. Besides with the woman characters some characters are just neglected like The Friends of the ABC. Only one of these people matter and there's like 9 of them and Hugo spends pages upon pages describing them only for when they take the center stage in the story they legit lose their personality in order to be a carbon copy of the only one that matters, Enjolras. The criminal group that is supposed to serve as an underbelly for The Friends of the ABC don't do anything and are abruptly written off.
3) However there is one character I want to talk about and it is Marius who infuriates me for days on end. The more Marius appears the more I felt like Hugo isn't exactly honest with his characters or understand them and even though that is pretty crazy for me to say it is something I believe. Hugo tries to frame Marius as this heroic figure who is practically unable to do anything wrong. He's falls into poverty but it doesn't feel authentic because he has a safety net and when you spend many pages seeing characters go through the worse thing ever, seeing a guy who is stretching meat for three days because he refuses to accept money that his uncle is giving him does absolutely nothing for me when their are characters who had removed their own teethes to stay alive. On top of him masquerading as a poor person he's also a stalker as he stalks the main heroine and writes her the most incomprehensible love letters that Hugo writes as endearing and cute when it is at the very least creepy and outright dangerous. One more thing, Marius is to down bad for the main heroine that he often only thinks of her, even
(Also did I mention Marius and the heroine's relationship is just the worse thing ever and I can't believe that they end up together it's frustrating.)