A review by ed_moore
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Les Miserables was beautiful. I knew I’d love it as the musical is my favourite one and the French Revolution (though Les Mis is set slightly afterward) is my favourite period of history. The revolutionary spirit and political turmoil conveyed within the book is what I search for in my reading. Hugo has received criticism for Les Mis being drawn out and wordy, though I didn’t notice any such problem, for the most part every word felt like it had its place. Even the infamous sewers scene, though a little drawn out, didn’t have me itching for it to be over. Another highlight was the amount of intertextual references crammed into Hugo’s prose, many of which I understood and therefore could appreciate. A handful of his scenes were very Shakespearian in setting and style, and nor is Hugo afraid to admit so, often highlighting such events with a metaphor association to one of Shakespeare’s plays. The secret meetings of Marius and Cosette completely echoed that of Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene. I don’t know if associate to the musical enhanced or hindered my experience with Les Mis, for I often found myself associating scenes to particular songs which I very much enjoyed, but the entity of the book existed before it did on the stage, so I didn’t get the authentic experience with the plot heartbreakingly unravelling before me. Though I already knew the story and what was coming, and it’s even prefaced in the title “the Miserables”, the book didn’t break me any less. I had a beautiful, emotionally raw, and poetic time with the book, and it’s length was no negative, but only allowed me to grow more immersed in the revolutionary world of Jean Valjean.