I first “read” Les Misérables about eight years ago, as part of prep for a class where I was teaching an abridged version of the book. Frustrated by just how abridged that version was, I found a far less abridged version that allowed me to take in the plot of Victor Hugo’s sprawling tale a little more efficiently - which was kind of the name of the game as I prepped for the book. I ended up truly loving the book, but as years have gone by, I’ve always felt a little guilty about it - after all, I hadn’t really read the book, had I? Not if I hadn’t read all of it - the infamous recounting of Waterloo and sewer histories included.
And so, with my first ever visit to Paris looming in my near future, it was time to finally read all of Victor Hugo’s tale of redemption, guilt, revolution, love, class warfare, and Paris itself - to read not only the tale of Jean Valjean, a convict turned good man, and the events of his life, but to read about Napoleon’s tactics during Waterloo, and how the Parisian sewer system arose, and what Victor Hugo thought of convents and monasteries, and the evolution of French slang, and political sidetracks…
…and let me tell you: I pretty much loved it even more, and it might be among the best books I’ve ever read.
Let’s address the plot first: you probably know the gist of the story through cultural osmosis by now - the broad strokes of Valjean’s redemption, the love story between Cosette and Marius, the barricade battle, the relentless gendarme Javert…all of it is here, and even with nearly two centuries that have passed, it all hits just as hard now as it ever has. Hugo has such a way of tapping into universal human emotion even through his complex, coincidental, sprawling tale. You might not be able to identify with Marius’s specifics, but the awkward first efforts to flirt with a girl without her father noticing are every bit as (painfully) accurate - and funny! - now as they were then. The tendency of male friends to insult each other; the way that a single mistake can loom over your life and haunt you at night; the way young people overcommit to something without fully understanding it; the way poverty can shape and warp a human being; the role guilt and shame have upon a life - while the specifics of Les Mis probably don’t apply to all of us, it is such a fundamentally human story that its universal and lasting appeal is instantly understandable and reasonable. More than that, to say that it’s all relatable is, if anything, an understatement; Hugo’s observations remain painfully trenchant and pointed, even after all of these years, whether it’s understanding the horror that comes when a man lashes out at a society without care for anyone but himself, the effects prison has on human beings, the way people judge those who have been in the court system - the reality is, Les Mis has dated far less than we wish it did, and that helps make its saga all the more effective and compelling.
It’s all helped, too, by Hugo’s rich storytelling. Yes, Marius is a bit of an idiot himbo (a fact that I think Hugo is aware of and has some fun with); yes, Cosette is pretty boring (a fact I’m not as sold on being intentional)…but move beyond that and you have some of the best characters in fictional history. Javert and Thenardier rank among the great antagonists in fiction, for entirely different reasons - with Thenardier, you have one of the great amoral criminals and deceptively simple rogues of all time; with Javert, you have the complex relationship between duty and justice, and the slow realization that those are not one and the same. Beyond them, you have the good Bishop of Diane, you have Marius’s curmudgeonly grandfather, you have the pitiful (in the literal sense of the word) Eponine, you have the inimitable Gavroche…the list goes on and on. And, of course, in the middle of it, you have Jean Valjean, a simple man who makes it his goal to redeem himself, no matter what that takes - or what it costs him.
To read Les Mis is to be introduced to all of these characters as Hugo spins an incredibly complex and overlapping tale, with dramatic ironies aplenty, reversals galore, tragic romances, bittersweet ends, moral dilemmas for the ages (Marius’s choice between Thenardier and Cosette! Javert’s choice by the end of the book! Jean Valjean’s…everything!), and a suitably epic story that feels so of its moment that it’s astonishing how much resonates today. It is, quite simply, a masterpiece, and a book that I already loved a lot.
But what, you ask, of the “fat”? Of all of Hugo’s digressions and sidetracks? We don’t really need to know the entire history of Waterloo to know what happened the night after the battle. We don’t have to know the history of the sewers to know that it’s awful and dark down there. We don’t need to understand where slang comes from to delight in Gavroche’s banter or hear the disconnect between the criminals and the “honest” citizens.
No, we don’t…and yet, all of it feels like you’re in the hands of a storyteller who just wants to tell you about everything he knows, and does it in a conversational, warm style that can’t help but draw you in along the way. Moreover, it’s a reminder of the wildly tumultuous times in which Les Mis was written - of course the book would come to reflect the unease of those times, and feel shaped by them. That’s human nature. (See how Spike Lee’s brilliant 25th Hour came to be a 9/11 film when the attacks happened a few days into filming.) To not write about the tumult of the time, of the change, of the barricades - that would be an odder omission than leaving them in. Are they too long? That’s quite possible, I suppose (I will admit that there are a couple of tangents that I struggled to care as much about as we dove deeper and deeper into lists of French historical figures that I don’t know), and I will concede that you don’t need most of them, even if they’re often fascinating (I actually thought the development of the sewers was surprisingly fascinating, and as a language nerd, the slang chapter was pretty great).
But to cut them would be to cut the Hugo-ness of the story - the paternal uncle guiding you through it all - and it would be to cut the moral fiber of the story. This is, at its core, a book about wrestling with morality and decency and the role of society in those matters, and to cut some of those would also mean that we need to cut Hugo’s musings on the reality of life among the poor, or the double standards of society as we deal with convicts, or the relationship between revolutions and government. You can cut them all and keep the story, but to leave it in adds lushness, depth, and emotional texture that otherwise just isn’t there. (For example, while the recounting of Waterloo is long, if cutting that also meant cutting the melancholy trip to the contemporary site of the battle and contemplating the loss of lives and what’s left behind after the war? Absolutely not.)
I’ve loved Les Misérables pretty much since the day I finished that first version; it is a story that hits me harder than I sometimes care to admit, that touches me deeply, that reminds me of the importance of ideals and purpose and meaning in the world, and helps me see that the fight is worth fighting. But to read the entire thing - digressions, sidetracks, long derails, excessive lists, and all - is to be swept into another time period and lead along by Hugo as he walks you through Paris, tells you how he sees the world, adds his own moral explorations and questions to it all - all while telling you one of the best stories you’ve ever heard, and filling it with some of the best characters ever created. It is, quite simply, a masterpiece, and a book that I suspect I will return to more than once as years continue, simply to take in all of the beauty, meaning, wit, writing, and grace of it all.
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