Tuesday 12 June 2018

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Ah, mais n'est-ce pas magnifique? Sorry for the French, I know several languages and I simply like using them all. As I said before in my review of Notre-Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo is one of my favourite classic authors. His books are so incredibly written, they're fully developed and thoughtfully complicated. Even I haven't read this book at once. When I first started it I was too young and so not ready for this. I couldn't comprehend it so I stopped and continued reading it sometime later when I knew I can assimilate it. Victor Hugo's books are very hard to understand and I don't think they're suitable for too young people. You need a bit of maturity to fully comprehend his style and literature. Nevertheless, Les Misérables is a masterpiece. There's hardly any book that can be compared to this one.
  I really like that book and I'm so proud of myself for reading such a classic in world literature. At first, it was a bit boring and I couldn't understand who's that bishop called Bienvenue, aka welcomed(that sounds strange in English). I knew he helps the poor but that didn't seem intriguing enough. But with time you'll see there're many stories in the book and Hugo knew what he was doing - you really get a detailed lifetime. With time I got more and more captured and the plot became clearer to me. I understood as well Victor Hugo liked delaying and killing his characters(I hope it isn't a spoiler) a few characteristics I have in common with him. Well, we're both born in February, I think there's a lot more to it.
  Despite the many, many characters in the book, the very main one I think it's Jean Valjean. He's a noble peasant imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread, yeah, the absurdity of past. However, he's nobler than thousands of other people. And everyone who has read this book would see in the end that he's the most miserable person of them all. I liked the relationship father-daughter between Jean Valjean and Cosette, it was so purely described and it melted my heart. À la fin, I was really heartbroken. 
  Les Misérables is so skillfully developed and the story is so wide that you can't understand what exactly is about at the beginning. Well, its more than 1400 pages and trust me, there's a lot to read. That's exactly why I interrupted my reading, I was confused and didn't know what's going on so I decided to stop but I'm so glad I continued later. Hugo is such a craftsman, he tells the stories of so many people and lives... In the end, I understood the meaning of the book. After all, it's called The Miserables(in English) and there's not a single storyline but many, many others telling the stories of so many unfortunate people. In addition, I liked it so much and I fell in love with the book. It's a masterpiece and if you like reading classics you should definitely read that one. It might be difficult and you might not succeed in the first attempt like me but give it a chance; I promise you won't regret it. There're hardly any books with the same value as Les Misérables.

I'd love to share some beautiful quotes from the book.

“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.”
 - Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”
 - Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

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