Victor Hugo’s tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him (Goodreads).
With a book this size, each reader's experience will vary largely, so take everything here with a grain of salt: This book was a journey, to be sure. Victor Hugo (and the translator, by extension) writes with such prowess and magnitude throughout each and every chapter, that the novel, though vast, rarely - if ever - feels like a slog. Hugo can go from the heat of battle, with fast paced prose that gets the heart racing, to an essay on literal crap, somehow without missing a beat. Certainly, not every informative aside lands, but for each dry section on the hierarchy of convents, there are three more wholly masterful ones on Waterloo, urchin vernacular, or the history of Parisian sewers. An exquisite picture of a relatively small moment of history is dictated so poignantly that it can hardly fail to resonate for anyone, regardless of time or location. Admittedly, one might be lost in the confusion of French history, and a basic understanding of the nation's past might be necessary for full comprehension, but that's as much France's fault as Hugo's. Regardless, the tale is full to the brim with memorable, excruciatingly human characters that go through individual torments and struggles in the midst of a story that is greater than the sum of its parts. The novel suffers from several of the classic 'old book' problems, there being some over-explication and below-average female representation, and there are probably too many recurring minor characters that have to be looked up to be remembered, but really, for a novel of this magnitude, one that provides a simply beautiful and profound experience, Hugo performs admirably. 8.9/10
