It took me about six months because damn, is Victor Hugo wordy. ( A Dance to the Music of Time was longer, but while a single work, it's technically twelve books.) Weighing in at about 1400 pages, it's now the single longest book I've ever read. A compelling and compassionate view of the victims of early nineteenth-century French society, Les Misérables is a novel on an epic scale, moving inexorably from the eve of the battle of Waterloo to the July Revolution of 1830. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, when, owing to a case of mistaken identity, another man is arrested in his place and by the relentless investigations of the dogged policeman Javert.
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.
Originally published in 1862, approximately 565,500 words.
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