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Les Misérables: Translated by Julie Rose
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 60 hrs and 26 mins
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One of the great classics of world literature and the inspiration for the most beloved stage musical of all time, Les Misérables is legendary author Victor Hugo’s masterpiece. This extraordinary English version by renowned translator Julie Rose captures all the majesty and brilliance of Hugo’s work. Here is the timeless story of the quintessential hunted man—Jean Valjean—and the injustices, violence, and social inequalities that torment him.
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Featured Article: J'adore—The Best French Authors to Listen to Now
Ah, France—the food. The wine. The style. From the City of Lights to the countryside, France is one of the most popular tourist destination spots in the world. But whether your French travel plans are on hold or you’re ready to take a virtual trip now, French literature is one of the best ways to get to know France’s fascinating history, people, and culture. Discover three centuries of the best French authors and their greatest works.
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Powerful and illuminating!
- By Gloria J. Petit-Clair on 12-04-17
By: Martin Puchner
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Nazi Literature in the Americas
- By: Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews - translator
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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A tour de force of black humor and imaginary erudition, Nazi Literature in the Americas presents itself as a biographical dictionary of writers who espoused extreme right-wing ideologies in the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Eerie and fascinating
- By Jikai Zenshin on 03-19-21
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Suleiman the Magnificent: A Captivating Guide to the Longest-Reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Desmond Manny
- Length: 1 hr and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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During his reign, Suleiman the Magnificent guided the Ottoman Empire through its golden age of trade and expansion. His reign changed the face of the world and the lives of millions of people, and his name echoes down to us in the present day. Suleiman the Magnificent was unlike any other sultan before or after him, and this audiobook explains why.
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Disappointed
- By Maria T. Fagnan on 10-24-19
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SPQR
- A History of Ancient Rome
- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 18 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In SPQR, world-renowned classicist Mary Beard narrates the unprecedented rise of a civilization that even 2,000 years later still shapes many of our most fundamental assumptions about power, citizenship, responsibility, political violence, empire, luxury, and beauty.
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Shallow and unsatisfying
- By Joe on 02-19-17
By: Mary Beard
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Heroes
- From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
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In this enlightening and entertaining work, Johnson presents heroism through examples in history. From Alexander to Joan of Arc and George Washington to Marilyn Monroe, here are men and women from every age and corner of the world who have inspired and transformed their cultures and the world itself.
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Interesting, but deeply flawed
- By Kennet on 12-27-07
By: Paul Johnson
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Confronting the Classics
- Traditions, Adventures and Innovations
- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Lynne Jenson
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
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One of the world's leading historians provides a revolutionary tour of the Ancient World, dusting off the classics for the twenty-first century. Mary Beard, drawing on thirty years of teaching and writing about Greek and Roman history, provides a panoramic portrait of the classical world, a book in which we encounter not only Cleopatra and Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Hannibal, but also the common people - the millions of inhabitants of the Roman Empire, the slaves, soldiers, and women.
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Annoying narrator
- By Chris E on 02-27-15
By: Mary Beard
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Incarnations
- India in Fifty Lives
- By: Sunil Khilnani
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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For all of India's myths, its sea of stories and moral epics, Indian history remains a curiously unpeopled place. In Incarnations, Sunil Khilnani fills that space, recapturing the human dimension of how the world's largest democracy came to be. His trenchant portraits of emperors, warriors, philosophers, film stars, and corporate titans - some famous, some unjustly forgotten - bring feeling, wry humor, and uncommon insight to dilemmas that extend from ancient times to our own.
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Great listen, the author is biased
- By Anonymous User on 02-15-19
By: Sunil Khilnani
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Where the Jews Aren't
- The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region
- By: Masha Gessen
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1929, the Soviet government set aside a sparsely populated area in the Soviet Far East for settlement by Jews. The place was called Birobidzhan. The idea of an autonomous Jewish region was championed by Jewish Communists, Yiddishists, and intellectuals, who envisioned a haven of post-oppression Jewish culture. By the mid-1930s tens of thousands of Soviet Jews, as well as about a thousand Jews from abroad, had moved there.
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The Jewish World of Our Ancestors
- By Roberta L. Ruben on 06-16-18
By: Masha Gessen
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Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life
- By: Gerald Martin
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 22 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In his novels and short stories, Gabriel García Márquez has transformed the particulars of his own life and the lives of his fellow Colombians into wondrous fiction. While telling the story of the sloppily dressed, skinny young man who rose from obscurity as a provincial journalist to international fame as the progenitor of a new literature, Gerald Martin also considers the tensions in García Márquez's life between celebrity and the personal quest for literary quality, between politics and writing, and between the seductions of power, solitude, and love.
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Great content, somewhat disappointing narrator.
- By Paola Herrington on 01-08-13
By: Gerald Martin
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Titans of History
- The Giants Who Made Our World
- By: Simon Sebag Montefiore
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 22 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In this inspiring, horrifying, and accessible collection of short, entertaining, and vivid life stories, Simon Sebag Montefiore - one of our preeminent historians and a prizewinning writer - presents the giant characters who have changed the course of world history.
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Party line history
- By Narada on 11-24-18
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The Year of Lear
- Shakespeare in 1606
- By: James Shapiro
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In the years leading up to 1606, since the death of Queen Elizabeth and the arrival in England of her successor, King James of Scotland, Shakespeare's great productivity had ebbed, and it may have seemed to some that his prolific genius was a thing of the past. But that year, at age 42, he found his footing again, finishing a play he had begun the previous autumn - King Lear - then writing two other great tragedies, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra.
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Detailed and satisfying
- By Tad Davis on 02-24-16
By: James Shapiro
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Good reader, but no Fantine back story at all.
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As one of the greatest novels of all time, Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables takes the listeneron a journey into the turbulent Parisian underworld. With breathtaking realism, Hugo recreates the dark world of the 1832 uprising and the sad but meaningful struggle between good and evil. In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo introduces one of the most beloved fictional characters of classic literature, Jean Valjean, who is best known for his imprisonment for the minor offense of stealing a loaf of bread.
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What a great narrator!
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Jean Valjean, the central character of Hugo's sweeping novel, is one of society's victims. A poor but honest peasant, he stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving family and ended up in prison. By the time of his eventual release, he has become a hardened criminal, but his friendship with the saintly Monseigneur Bienvenu gives him another chance at life. This new, respectable life is precarious, for Valjean is still sought by the law, in the person of the implacable Inspector Javert.
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Too short
- By emeraldrose on 10-02-18
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Les Misérables (ABR)
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Considered to be French novelist Victor Hugo's masterpiece, Les Miserables, which was published in 1862, is a sprawling historical and philosophical epic that covers from 1815 through the Paris Uprising in 1832. Notable for its many subplots and digressions from the main storyline, the novel's stated aim is a progress from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsehood to truth, which can be seen most clearly in the story of the central character Jean Valjean, an ex-convict who struggles to shake the sins of his past and become a good man.
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Transcendent, magnanimous
- By CMD on 03-25-21
By: Victor Hugo, and others
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- Unabridged
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One of the greatest novels of the 19th century. Jean Valjean, who for decades has been hunted by the ruthless policeman Javert after breaking parole, agrees to care for a factory worker's daughter. The decision changes their lives forever.
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Cannot bear fake French accent
- By diesel on 03-29-18
By: Victor Hugo
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Les Misérables
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Les Misérables has long been recognized as one of the finest novels of all time, a brilliant fusion of unforgettable characters and universal themes.
Its hero is Jean Valjean, the noble peasant imprisoned. A sweeping story of love and honor in the depths of the Parisian underworld, immerses us in an epic struggle between good and evil, and carries us onto the barricades during the uprising of 1832 with a realism that is unsurpassed in modern literature.
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too short
- By Elizabeth on 12-11-12
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Les Misérables emphasizes the three major predicaments of the 19th century, each symbolized by a major character: Jean Valjean represents the degradation of man in the proletariat, Fantine represents the subjection of women through hunger, and Cosette represents the atrophy of the child by darkness.
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TOO Abridged, Read Only if You Won't Read More
- By Syd Young on 02-03-14
By: Victor Hugo
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Les Misérables
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Les Misérables is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, particularly the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption.
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This edition has a major glitch!
- By Lucie on 12-20-23
By: Victor Hugo
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame
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In the grotesque bell-ringer Quasimodo, Victor Hugo created one of the most vivid characters in classic fiction. Quasimodo's doomed love for the beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda is an example of the traditional love theme of beauty and the beast. Yet, set against the massive background of Notre Dame de Paris and interwoven with the sacred and secular life of medieval France, it takes on a larger perspective.
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More than I bargained for...
- By 1DrummingAddict on 07-18-15
By: Victor Hugo
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Les Misérables
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Overall
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Performance
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Considered to be French novelist Victor Hugo's masterpiece, Les Miserables, which was published in 1862, is a sprawling historical and philosophical epic that covers from 1815 through the Paris Uprising in 1832. Notable for its many subplots and digressions from the main storyline, the novel's stated aim is a progress from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsehood to truth, which can be seen most clearly in the story of the central character Jean Valjean, an ex-convict who struggles to shake the sins of his past and become a good man.
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Incredible Book
- By A. M. Dirks on 08-04-19
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Les Misérables. L'intégrale
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Un enregistrement exceptionnel : les cinq volumes des "Misérables", un des plus grands romans de la littérature française, enfin disponibles en livre audio. Jean Valjean, Cosette, les Thénardier, Gavroche, ou encore Javert sont autant de noms qui résonnent au-delà de l'histoire qui les a fait naître. Ces misérables sont décrits à la fois comme des archétypes du genre humain, mais aussi comme les produits d'une société génératrice de pauvreté, d'ignorance et de désespoir.
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Michel Vuillermoz (the 1st) is a really bad reader
- By bo on 07-18-17
By: Victor Hugo
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- By: Victor Hugo
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- Unabridged
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Quasimodo was born disfigured, hunchbacked and lame, and years spent ringing the bells of the Cathedral of Notre Dame have left him deaf, but also spared him the taunts of the cruel mobs of Paris. Now Quasimodo has fallen in love with the lovely Gypsy girl Esmeralda, the only person who ever showed pity on him - but she faces a death sentence, and only Quasimodo's pure spirit can save her. Or can he?
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Overwhelmingly sad
- By Tad Davis on 09-02-13
By: Victor Hugo
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Don Quixote
- Translated by Edith Grossman
- By: Edith Grossman - translator, Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 39 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Sixteenth-century Spanish gentleman Don Quixote, fed by his own delusional fantasies, takes to the road in search of chivalrous adventures. But his quest leads to more trouble than triumph. At once humorous, romantic, and sad, Don Quixote is a literary landmark. This fresh edition, by award-winning translator Edith Grossman, brings the tale to life as never before.
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My Fourth Try at an Audible Quixote
- By James on 12-24-12
By: Edith Grossman - translator, and others
What listeners say about Les Misérables: Translated by Julie Rose
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jeff Diamond
- 03-29-13
A Book that Made Me a Better Person
I'm sitting here wondering what I can possibly say in regard to Les Misérables, and feeling more than a little overwhelmed. I finished listening to the audiobook last night, and am still reeling from everything the book said and means. That being said, I'll give it my best shot. But I'll give you a warning up front: this is a long, profound book. So I'll have to write a long review to express my thoughts on it. Even so, I feel like I'm just scratching the surface.
I'll start with the Audible stuff: as a translator myself, I know how difficult Julie Rose's job was, especially with a book of this magnitude. She had to get into Hugo's brain and express the story so that English speakers could understand and appreciate the tone and atmosphere of Hugo's world correctly. While doing this, she had to be invisible and let Hugo tell the story. It's a very fine line to walk, and she did a fantastic job with it. George Guidall did excellently in his narration--each character was distinct, and their voices changed depending on their point in life, while remaining individual. Wow.
Now on to the book itself.
Les Miserables is known as one of the cornerstones of European literature--I don't think anybody will dispute that. However I think that many people are only exposed to the story through the stage version, and never really consider trying to takle the book. In many ways, I understand this. The book is LONG. The audiobook version is over 60 hours, and most print versions are well into the 1,100+ page range. Not for the faint-hearted. But people that limit themselves to only experiencing the musical version are not only putting a cap on their enjoyment of the story, but are also limiting their intellectual growth.
I'm not saying that reading this book will make you smarter, but I am saying that reading (or listening to) Les Miserables will make you think about things you've probably never considered before, and not all of those things are good. The book is dark. The book is sad. The things that happen to the characters will tear your heart out and make you want to strangle somebody at the same time. I finished listening on my commute home, and I started crying on the platform at Ueno Station in Tokyo.
Becky (my wife for those of you reading this who don't know) has frequently said that she feels that Victor Hugo was inspired as he wrote this. I can't disagree. Any book that can have such a profound impact on both the guy listening in Tokyo as well as the world has to have something more than literary genius going on. I can honestly say that having read this, I feel like I am a better person for having read (listened) to Les Miserables.
Now for the nitty-gritty. One of the ways that Hugo can do what he does is by putting characters in conflict with one another. Not just that, but he also pits one aspect of a character against another, which makes for some very interesting storytelling. The innate goodness of Jean Valjean against Javert's loyalty to justice. The greed of Mr. Thenardier against the generosity of ... pretty much anyone.
A couple things to know if you are about to embark on this: the book is not written like ones we are used to nowadays. It was even considered old-fashioned when it was published. There are times when Hugo devotes a significant amount of time to describing an event that--let's be honest--has little bearing on the story overall; the Battle of Waterloo and the importance of slang among them. He also goes on diatribes about how important certain ideas are, or how base certain thinking is. Dialog generally isn't dialog, but rather are extended sililoquy directed at another character, after which the speaking character will do something. It's not often that you actually have two characters interacting like normal people. Instead, one character will stand in front of the other for a good thirty or forty minutes spouting off whatever comes to their mind, never really breaking of save for breath. It can grate against our modern reader-ey sensibilities, but you can deal with it.
One thing that I felt was interesting was that the first half of the book sets up the second half, in that it provides a powerful reason for all of the characters to end up in the same place. It provides background for their actions and gives us an emotional attachment to them (good or bad) that we can build on. And those attachments are strong, let me tell you.
In a nutshell, if you are a fan of the musical version of Les Miserables but haven't read the book, you are limiting yourself. I don't have anything against the musical, but there is so much more to the story than you get from seeing it on stage (or in theaters/on DVD now.) I've only listened to the musical once before, and I saw the Albert Hall version on DVD, but I didn't really understand what was going on. That version has new life for me now, because I actually know these characters. I know their struggles, backgrounds and the grinding sadness and poverty that is keeping them enslaved. As I said before, this book has made me a better person, and has the potential to change a person's life.
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- Darwin8u
- 07-12-12
!
Les Misérables is one of those defining social/protest novels that deserves to be read (and listened to) in its entirety. It is easily on par with the great social novels of the 19th century: Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, Uncle Tom's Cabin and Hard Times.
I remember the first time I read the unabridged version in high school, I was stunned that Hugo could engage me with such force. I practically read it straight through. Listening to Rose's relatively new translation and Guidall's audio version, I was transported back to the emotions and engagement I felt 20 years ago. All those memories and I was again anchored to my pro-unabridged novel bias. If you are going to attempt this work, please go the unabridged route, you will NOT regret it. There are few books I've read twice, but Les Misérables defintely makes the cut.
When you begin this novel it DOES looks like a beast (1376 pgs or 60.5 hours), but when you finish it you realize you have sat down to a feast with a master novelist and social gospel writer. Dollar per page or dollar per minute, you can't get much better for its price, unless you steal it.
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- Tad Davis
- 11-02-12
Staggeringly good
Most audio versions of Les Miserables use the classic 19th century translations — the ones that have the advantage of being in the public domain. Having been made close to the time of the novel’s publication, they retain the more formal English style of the period, and they usually retain the euphemisms and bowdlerizations of the time as well.
You won’t find many euphemisms in this one. Only a translator possessed of genuine heroism would tackle a project like this, so hats off to Julie Rose for pulling it off: it’s a fluid translation that retains Hugo’s narrative dignity but still brings alive his colloquial dialogue. The audiobook is read by George Guidall, one of the few narrators with the range and gravitas to inhabit the story from the inside.
There are plenty of surprises in the book, but most of them depend on carefully-prepared coincidences. Some of these will be especially surprising if your familiarity with the story comes mostly from the musical: as magnificent as that musical is — and I’m a tremendous fan of it, both as an adaptation and as a work in its own right — it does skirt over the complexity of some of the relationships in the book. (How could it not? The book, as read here, is 60 hours long.)
Hugo works on a huge, sprawling, tragic canvas, but there are moments of glee (many of them courtesy of Gavroche) and moments of melodrama and bathos (courtesy of Eponine and Cosette). Through it all broods the figure of Jean Valjean, the man who remade himself, who constantly scanned his soul for tendencies he abhorred — any trace of jealousy, hatred, or vindictiveness— and who put himself repeatedly in harm’s way to reform them. He is a rock on which the soul of Javert, unable to accept that such a being exists, crashes and is destroyed.
To listen to the book in its entirety is to visit another time and place and live another life. I mean that. I honestly feel as if I’ve lived Jean Valjean’s life from first to last. I don’t even remember when I started; it seems like ages ago. At this point I’m not sure I can separate his memories from my own. Jean Valjean’s Paris feels as real to me as my own hometown.
I admit that I skimmed through the afterword by Adam Gopnik. I rarely find anything he has to say interesting.
The unabridged Les Miserables is not for everyone. Hugo included many chapters providing background on peripheral subjects: the battle of Waterloo, the history of Paris convents, the history of the Paris sewer system, the whole career of Monsignor Bienvenu. I love those chapters, but they amount to about a third of the book, and they add to the challenge for a first-time reader. Hugo can’t help himself: in the middle of the war at the barricades, when the students realize a cannon is being pointed at them, they stop for a page or two to discuss the merits of various materials for making cannon and the advantages and disadvantages of rifling the bore.
Unfortunately the only abridged versions available remove not only these chapters but gut much of the core narrative as well. Some of them render the story itself incomprehensible. My heretical recommendation would be to start with the unabridged version, but listen carefully and do some judicious skipping, being willing to backtrack if you find that you skipped too much and find the characters in an unexpected place.
Beware, though. If you skip the side roads, you’ll miss fascinating observations like Hugo’s proposal for managing Paris sewage. Human waste, he says, is the best fertilizer in existence; we could solve two problems with one looping pipeline — take the human waste out of Paris, and instead of dumping it into the ocean, pump it into the surrounding farmland.
In fact the one question he never answers is about the sewer system. It’s not a set of abandoned tunnels; it’s in active use when Jean Valjean makes his way through the darkness. At times he has to step off the work paths and wade directly into the sewage, usually waist deep but sometimes up to his chin. So.... how many years did it take before he got rid of the smell?
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- John
- 10-04-11
The Best Book I Have Ever Listened To
Nothing compares to this book.
Don't miss this one
I have purchased over 180 books thru Audible.
This is by far the best.
The story and the narration are incredible.
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- Bill
- 12-19-12
It is the best of books, it is the worst of books
Les Miserables is more of a quest than a book. It is a huge book that meanders along taking many long detours but eventually arriving at its destination. You must be prepared for a long journey, don't be the child who continually asks "are we there yet?"
The narrative of this journey follows Jean Valjean an ex-convict who finds redemption, love, and seeks to do good. Along the way we get long discourses on slang, politics, the street urchins of Paris, the sewers of Paris, and the Battle of Waterloo to name a few (there are many long detours). There are also many subplots and stories, such as the Bishop of Digne which opens the book. There are many long detours, many.
Is the book worth the time? I think it is, it is a wonderful story and the long detours add much to the experience. It is named Les Miserables for the portrait of the poor that it gives, but it does not idolize them, it shows the good and the bad, the weak and the strong. It should encourage you do go out and help some one.
This particular translation is advertised as being more earthy and closer to the French of Hugo than the more staid traditional translations. It is more earthy, more sprightly and not academic, but not knowing French I can't say if it is actually closer to Hugo or not. Some translation choices seem odd to me (clink for jail) but once you get into the flow of the story it works.
The narrator is one of the best in the business and he does a commendable job here.
So, should you read this book? I think so, I highly recommend it.
Would I read it again? Yes I will, in a while, when I'm ready for a long, long journey.
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- Peter Y C.
- 03-14-13
Stunning. Life-altering. Best Narrator.
I almost never write reviews but this work was so great I felt that I owed it to honor, post-mortem the author, the translator, and last but not least the narrator. Yet how do I write a review on a book that is a Literary Classic already and has been reviewed by countless individuals certainly more qualified than myself? How could I bring anything new to this work? I won't try to attempt this other than point out the excellence of the narrator and some other aspects.
In such an epic masterpiece you need a masterful narrator and I've found George Guidall to be top of his class, par none. Mr. Guidall drew out each character, adding subtle inflections, cadences that brought life to the story in what I imagined Victor Hugo intended when he wrote the book. I can't imagine narrating a book 50+ hours and being so consistent as Mr. Guidall. There was no evidence whatsoever of weariness, he was in a word, awesome.
We all are familiar with movies we've seen that are much longer than the traditional 80 minutes, that perhaps were 3 hours but the time just flew by. This is how I see this version. I have a long commute and with a companion like this audiobook I was taken away to a time long ago, to a character of the highest nobility with a heart as tender as they come - Jean Valjean, a nemesis representing the anthesis of grace - Javert, and redemption all played out on a scale as large as life itself. I was never anxious for it to end and was left feeling like I was leaving someone I got to know that I wouldn't see again. I didn't want to go, I didn't want it to end.
This is and will be I suspect, one of the best audiobooks I have listened to. I have listened to quite a few up to this point.
Thank you Mr. Hugo, Julie Rose, Mr. George Guidall and finally Audible.com.
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- Deborah
- 09-02-11
This book is an amazing experience! WoW!
At first I was not familiar with Victor Hugo's style of writing. It would start to get very interesting and then all of a sudden he was off on another topic. That knocked me for a loop, until I got into the swing of things, and treated each new topic as a new book. In the end it all came together and was an amazing experience.
Out of both unabridged versions of this book on audible, I found George Guidall to be the better narrator. I had the opportunity to listen to the first few hours of the other version, and could not understand the narrator very well. I was very happy to get this one where I had no problem understanding the English. Great book.
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- Merlin
- 12-29-12
great in parts, tedious in parts
The good:
Hugo's sympathy with the oppressed; the grand scope of the novel; Hugo's gift for fine metaphors and aphorisms; some of the dramatic scenes; the sensitive narration.
The bad:
Absurdly long, detailed tedious digressive essays on things like the battle of Waterloo, the history of convents, the history and geography of the Parisian sewers; hard-to-believe characters who act in unbelievable ways; corny melodrama and sentimentality; excessively long and repetitious accounts of almost everything due, it seems, to Hugo's sheer delight in showing off his poetic inventiveness.
I have great tolerance for long 19th century novels. But so often I found myself thinking: come on Victor, you've said everything you've got to say abou this event, character, situation, action, motivation, relationship, dilemma. All you're doing now is just repeating yourself using alternative metaphors. Let's get moving! I also found the plot pretty silly in places; a lot depends on coincidence and people acting in unbelievable ways.
Hugo's philosophical reflections, which abound throughout, are sometimes interesting; but he's too much in love with paradox and coupling unexpected antitheses--a tendency which has bedeviled French writing ever since.
The narration is good. I liked the translation: it employs up-to-date language which makes the novel less stodgy than it might otherwsie be.
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- David Briner
- 06-25-16
I finished!!
This is not a book for the average reader. I love this story, but this book is long. I had to work at finishing this. However, this is one of the most profound and insightful books on humanity and our connection with God. If God is not your thing, then you and victor Hugo would be friends. He was a agnostic pessimist. However, his insights on humanity and their connection with God are miles beyond other writers.
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- DickensRocks
- 01-21-13
Translation NOT to my taste
This is a classic for all the right reasons. It is a long book and not everyone's cup of tea, however. I like my literature long, complex, beautifully written and with fascinating and well-drawn characters. Les Miserables fits the bill. I read it in print many years ago (due it its length, not many attempt multiple readings) and loved it. You can read reviews of the books itself elsewhere, so I will primarily address the translation and narration. I have no memory of which translation I read back in the 1970s, but it was probably Hapgood or Wilbour and might even have been Norman Denny (a slightly abridged version from the mid-1970s). When I chose the Audible version to buy, my choice seemed conflicted from the beginning: Narrator vs. Translation. I chose George Guidall, who is masterful and simply delightful. And he does beautiful work here, you can be assured. But the Julie Rose translation (2007) is simply too modern for my taste. There are just too many instances of jarring, contemporary turns of phrase. I suppose if one struggles to read old-fashioned language it might be the right choice for you, but I was dismayed. As much as I love George Guidall, I stopped listening after about 4 hours and instead downloaded a digital copy to my Kindle. I was very sad to do so, but I just couldn't take Julie Rose.
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