Les Misérables

Victor Hugo’s masterpiece is certainly one which you must approach with a reasonable expectation. Like most of the lengthy 19th century works of fiction, whether by Dickens, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky or Eliot, it is necessary to expect digressions in the storytelling and to keep in mind that the narrators whose voices can be imagined as personally delivering the story to us are adding all of these extra details for the reason. Hugo isn’t just delivering a moving story for the purposes laid out in his endearing and brief preface to this book, he is also capturing the spirit of the ages his characters exist within. What novels like this express so well is how historic events and changes do more to influence the course of individuals’ lives than we could possibly imagine. Perhaps with even greater skill, Hugo is able to show how and why people come to think, act and live as they do, almost always with an aim of stirring compassion and empathy in his readers and showing, in a manner not wholly unlike that of Dickens, that each and every individual is a mystery in their own right, and worthy of the recognition of being human, if nothing else. This is a book which, if you can stick through it to the end, could have the potential to change your life. And even if it doesn’t end up having that effect on you, you will have learned many things that will stay with you through your life.

Being generous I’d say half the book is story and half is inane rants about historical events described in EXTREME detail over dozens and dozens of chapters that play little to no part in the overall story and outright propaganda for 19th century France with the author even stating something along the lines of France being the earths greatest creation. So if you’re a Francophile, history buff, or both you’ll probably enjoy this but I was expecting a story.