Les Miserables is one of the longest books I've ever read (and I've read a lot of long books) and as someone with very little knowledge of French history, it was also one of the most challenging.

Jean Valjean has just been released from prison after nineteen years (he had been sentenced to five years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family, and then a further fourteen years for his attempts to escape). As an ex-convict, Valjean finds himself rejected by everybody he approaches until the kindly Bishop Myriel takes him in and gives him shelter for the night. However, Valjean repays him by stealing his silverware. When the police catch him and take him back to the bishop's home, the bishop tells them they've made a mistake - he had given the silverware to Valjean as a gift. The bishop's simple gesture of kindness has a profound effect on Valjean, filling him with the determination to be a better person.

After establishing himself as a successful factory owner and becoming mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer, Valjean promises a dying woman that he will take care of her daughter, Cosette. The rest of the book follows Valjean's attempts to escape the investigations of Inspector Javert and to build a new life for himself and Cosette. Along the way we meet a gang of criminals, a group of revolutionary students, and a greedy innkeeper called Thenardier.

Most of the characters are very well developed and Hugo spends a considerable amount of time introducing us to them. However, I didn't find the characters of Marius and Cosette very interesting, despite their central roles in the book - I thought some of the secondary characters were much stronger, such as the street urchin Gavroche and the Thenardiers' eldest daughter Eponine.

I almost gave this book four stars rather than five, because of all the lengthy digressions on the Battle of Waterloo, life in a convent, the July Revolution of 1830, the Paris sewer system etc. Although these pages are often interesting and informative and contain some beautiful writing, they have very little direct relevance to the plot and interrupt the flow of the story. However, this is really the only negative thing I can say about the book. It's worth perservering through all the social commentary, politics and history to get to the actual story itself - and the wonderful, moving, thought-provoking, suspenseful story is why I finally decided to give the book a five star rating. ( )

Silly, facile, predictable. Flaubert calls it "infantile", Baudelaire, "tasteless and inept"; even Hugo himself seems (I.1.13) to realize its puerility. ( )

So I started this book in Provo and then read most of it throughout Europe, finishing it on our third floor bedroom in Geneva, Switzerland. It was strange to be reading the unabridged English translation of Hugo's novel in a part of the world where everyone spoke French, but I tried a bit of the French and was completely blown out of the water, my language being wildly insufficient. It's a sprawling, moving opus epic devoted to the divine in man and the possibility of love, redemption, and revolutionary goodness. I would say it is an example of committed art, and while at times it is tedious and laborious, it is on the whole magnificent. ( )

Jean Valjean is released after 19 years in a quarry for stealing bread. Valjean changed and became the mayor.Fantine a factory worker is fired because she has a bastard child. As a result, Fantine became a prostitue and became sick. Valjean realised what happened to her and takes care of her.Fantine dies and give Valjean the authority to take care of her child, Cosette. Valjean escapes and finds the child and lived in a church for 10 years. Cosette grown up goes to Paris with Valjean during a revolution. Cosette met a man, Marius and falls in love.
Aysha Abdulla Al-Matrooshi

It was a really interesting story because it discuss the story of some people who was fighting to feed their hunger and to live without troubles.
Amal ( )

This is not the correct edition I could not find one closer.