Les Misérables

Les Misérables is one of the great novels of the nineteenth century: enormous, sentimental, digressive, and overflowing with moral passion. Victor Hugo set out to write a book about the poor of France, and he produced an epic about justice, mercy and the possibility of redemption.

The story follows Jean Valjean, a peasant imprisoned for nineteen years for stealing bread and trying to escape. Released into a society that treats him as a permanent criminal, he is transformed by a single act of kindness from the Bishop of Digne, who forgives him for stealing his silver. Valjean remakes himself as a respected factory owner and mayor, but he is pursued for decades by Javert, a police inspector who believes the law is absolute and that people never change.

Around them Hugo builds a vast cast: Fantine, a young mother driven into poverty and prostitution; her daughter Cosette, rescued by Valjean from the cruel innkeepers the Thénardiers; the idealistic student Marius; and the street boy Gavroche. The plot climaxes in the Paris uprising of June 1832, when students build barricades in the streets, and in a famous escape through the sewers of Paris.

Hugo’s great strength is moral drama. The conflict between Valjean and Javert, grace against rigid law, is one of literature’s most compelling, and Javert’s final crisis is unforgettable. Hugo writes with enormous compassion for the poor and with fury at a society that manufactures criminals and then punishes them.

The famous problem is the digressions. Hugo pauses the story for long essays on the Battle of Waterloo, convents, Parisian slang and the sewer system, some running to dozens of pages. Many unabridged editions run well over a thousand pages. Many readers skim these sections, and a good abridgement is a reasonable choice for a first read. The coincidences of the plot can also strain belief.

Even so, few novels have such emotional power. The stage musical and films have made the story world-famous, but the book offers a depth of moral argument that adaptations inevitably compress.