Les Miserables - preread discussion

[Gem , Moderator]

I hope everyone is as excited about this selection as I am. I've had Les Mis on my tbr list for several years and this will also be my first Victor Hugo read so I'm doubling excited.

With regards to the reading schedule, I was planning on taking 20 weeks for this read (August 1 - December 20) which means we will read approximately 70 pages a week and wanted to know if that will be a comfortable pace for those who are planning on participating.

[Jill]

I am in for Les Mis! I love the musical but have never read the book. The schedule sounds perfect, very workable and not overwhelming. Yay!!

[Robin P, Moderator]

Yes, that's ok. I will be reading it in French, which will be slower for me, but now that I'm retired, I should have the time. I read it in English when I was about 12, and it confirmed my already-existing Socialist tendencies. I have seen the musical and the recent BBC series, and I think another movie version some time ago. So I don't expect any great plot surprises. I do remember that the book starts out slowly, with the main characters not introduced for some time.

[Piyangie]

I'm in for this too. It has been sitting in my bookshelf for nearly 3 years. This will be my first Victor Hugo too, Gem. Happy to have finally been able to read it with a group.

[Piyangie]

The longer period is better for me too. August and September will be a busy time for me, so the less to read for a week will be easy to cope.

[Gem , Moderator]

Robin wrote: "Yes, that's ok. I will be reading it in French, which will be slower for me, but now that I'm retired, I should have the time. I read it in English when I was about 12, and it confirmed my already-..."

I planned the schedule yesterday and the "heaviest" week (in my edition of course) is 89 pages... is that doable for you?

[Renee]

I read this in 2017; one chapter a day. :)
I’m looking forward to the discussion here! I’ll be rereading sections only. I can tell you that certain parts just fly because the story is so good. The historical bits can be a bit slow but they’re interesting.

[Xan]

I'll join. There's lots to discuss here.

[Linda]

Oh boy, between Les Miserables in this group and Don Quixote in another group, I'm finding myself really trying to resist saying that I will join in a reread of these two masterpieces!

I read Les Miserables five years ago, having not seen any production of it, nor really knowing much of the plot at all. I only read it because at the time I was on a mission to start reading all the big well-known classics so I could "be in the know". :) I had no idea what I was in for with Les Miserables, but I ended up being so taken in with it. Yes, there are slow bits, but they are interleaved with heart-stopping page-turner sections. Such a good book!

Maybe I'll go Renee's route and reread some chapters here and there. On the other hand, I might end up saying the same thing with DQ... :D

[Robin P, Moderator]

Gem wrote: "Robin wrote: "Yes, that's ok. I will be reading it in French, which will be slower for me, but now that I'm retired, I should have the time. I read it in English when I was about 12, and it confirm..."

Yes, if I get behind, I'll catch up at some point.

[Gem , Moderator]

Robin wrote: "Gem wrote: "Robin wrote: "Yes, that's ok. I will be reading it in French, which will be slower for me, but now that I'm retired, I should have the time. I read it in English when I was about 12, an..."

Thanks Robin

[Navi]

Oh I've had this book on my TBR for the longest time! I would love to join in on the reading/discussion.

[Navi]

For those of you who have read it, which translation do you recommend?

[Linda]

Navi wrote: "For those of you who have read it, which translation do you recommend?"

Navi, I read the one translated by Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee. I thought it was good, but I don't know how it compares to other translations.

Mine was the Signet Classics edition with this cover:

[Robin P, Moderator]

Good point, the translation could make a difference. The one I read back in the 1960's had belonged to my mother, or maybe even my grandfather, and had some archaic words. In the sewers of Paris, it kept referring to the "cloaca" rather than any more common word to describe the filth. It wasn't a word I had seen at 12 years old. I got the idea but it sort of made the situation more abstract.

[Navi]

I found a great resource comparing the different translations!

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Best...

Here is what it says about the Fahnestock/MacAfee translation, Linda:

The 1987 translation by Lee Fahnestock and Norman McAfee is similar to the Wilbour translation in that it tries to stay as true to the original French text as possible, and has a similarly formal sound to it. However, it differs in that this translation goes farther to also translate more of the French terms Wilbour does not, such as the argot slang Hugo explores. For those with little or no French background, but who still want to remain close to Hugo's original text, this translation may be the best suited.

[Gem , Moderator]

I can't speak to the quality of the translation I have, however, it's a Penguin Class, which are usually pretty good. Mine is translated and introduced by Norman Denny. This is all I could get in hard copy from my library.

[Linda]

I have been reading the Wilbour translation and find it very readable. I wanted a contemporaneous translation, to make sure there was no abridgment and the novel was presented as Hugo wrote it. I think anyone who enjoys reading Victorian literature would find this a good option. The only drawback is that there are no notes at all in my edition which is a hardcover Everyman.

[Jill]

I got a little ambitious and have procured both the Fahnestock/MacAfee and the Rose translations. I’m going to read F/M primarily but I’m going to refer also to Rose because I’m so curious about it and I was afraid no one else would choose it, lol.

[Robin P, Moderator]

I'd be interested to hear any comments you have on the different translations. It's possible the one I read in 1965 or so was the Everyman addition. I know my parents owned a number of those.

[Gem , Moderator]

I have a question for everyone who is going to be reading this selection. I've started already, I figured I needed to be a little bit ahead in order to post intelligent discussion questions. I am woefully uneducated about French history, I've had to look many terms and dig into the history in order to understand what was being discussed. Would it help to have a timeline of French history and the inclusion of some information as a reference?

[Robin P, Moderator]

If anyone is interested, chirp books.com is offering an audio version for the next 5 days at a sale price of 1.99. It seems to be unabridged, as it is 63 hours long. There was only a short sample so I couldn't tell how good the narrator was but his French accent on the relevant words was good. (His name is Pete Cross and he is an actor and voice coach, so he can't be too bad.) I think you have to sign up with Chirp and after purchasing the book, you would listen on your phone or smart speaker from their app.

I get emails with their specials regularly, as I enjoy audiobooks, but I haven't actually bought anything from them myself.

[Robin P, Moderator]

Gem wrote: "I have a question for everyone who is going to be reading this selection. I've started already, I figured I needed to be a little bit ahead in order to post intelligent discussion questions. I am w..."

A timeline could be helpful. The very first chapter talks about how the revolution forced some people to flee and then brings in Napoleon briefly.

[Linda]

Wikipedia has a timeline of the Revolution (1788-99) with the ability to click on a specific event and find out more about it. There is separate timeline for the Napoleonic Era which begins in 1799. There is a third timeline for post-Napoleon when Louis XVIII becomes king during the Bourbon Restoration followed by Charles X who was king during the Parisian July 1830 revolution portrayed in Les Miserables. These are the links in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timelin...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timelin...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbon...

I've read the first two books of Fantine so far. What I needed more background on was the Convention which began in 1792 (Myriel goes to see a dying conventionalist) and the Reign of Terror, which took place after the 1789 beginning of the Revolution, in 1793. Myriel references this when he talks about '93.

Hope this is useful and not overload! The more of the history I read, the more complicated it seems to get.

[Robin P, Moderator]

Thank you so much for your research and links, Linda and Gem!

Victor Hugo wrote a book calledNinety-Three about rural counter-revolutionaries. There are many fiction and non-fiction books about the French Revolution. I liked Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution because it talks a lot about the cultural aspects rather than just political. An amazing fiction book by Hilary Mantel is A Place of Greater Safety. However, reading either of those is as much of an undertaking as reading Les Mis!

Mantel is the one who wrote Wolf Hall and her French revolution book is similar in throwing you into history without much explanation. It traces Danton, Robespierre & Desmoulins, 3 young hotheads. If the musical Hamilton had been about the French revolution, this would be it - they are young, scrappy & hungry - for power, glory, women, and even sometimes each other! I loved it but it took a loooong time to read. And I have some knowledge of French history from being a French lit major a long time ago.

While Hugo uses real historical events, my impression is that his main interest is in personal and societal relationships and issues, with the history just providing a backdrop. So don't feel you have to bone up in order to appreciate the book. Of course, in his time more people remembered the incidents or knew about them, similar to a book on WWII or Vietnam today.

[Jill]

Thank you all for your work in getting this information! I’m so excited to delve into this book and am gearing up to start sometime this weekend.

[MaureenAnn]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this group and excited to start on Les Mis - I've started a few times before on my own, but haven't got very far into it. It's great to have a schedule prepared for us and I'm hoping that will keep me on track this time.

Like Robin, I'm intending to read/listen in French, but I will dip in to the English translations when needed.

[Gem , Moderator]

Maureen wrote: "Hi everyone, I'm new to this group and excited to start on Les Mis - I've started a few times before on my own, but haven't got very far into it. It's great to have a schedule prepared for us and I..."

Hi Maureen, good to have you!

[Robin P, Moderator]

Maureen wrote: "Hi everyone, I'm new to this group and excited to start on Les Mis - I've started a few times before on my own, but haven't got very far into it. It's great to have a schedule prepared for us and I..."

Great to know you are reading in French, Maureen. There are a few puns in the first section and examples of regional speech that I am curious about. Maybe I'll refer to an English text to see how they translated them. I have my text through the app Megareader, which accesses Gutenberg and several other databases and supplies them in pretty good formats. It often includes illustrations, for instance for some of the Dickens and Trollope novels. And it has books in multiple languages. It used to be a huge problem to get French books back when I was a French major. You had to go to a big city or order by mail and pay very high prices. The "worldwide" part of the web has been a godsend in that way.

[MaureenAnn]

Robin wrote: "I have my text through the app Megareader, which accesses Gutenberg and several other databases

I've not heard of that app, Robin. I will look into it. At the moment my French text is in a very cheap Kindle book Classic French Literature: 14 books by Victor Hugo, published by B&R Samizdat Express. I have an English translation of Les Mis, also on Kindle - it's the Isabel F. Hapgood translation (1887).

As this is a multi-month project, I think I'm going to invest in a better (paper?) version of both the French and English texts once I've done some research on what is available.