Les Misérables: Translated by Julie Rose

By: Victor Hugo, Julie Rose - translator

Narrated by: George Guidall

Length: 60 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2008 Random House (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

“Rich and gorgeous. This is the [translation] to read.” ( Times (London))

Joyful

After postponing completing this book for 25 years, this audible version was a perfect way to digest the massive tomb. I love Hugo, but Julie Rose’s translation brings this alive. In places her choices stand out as adding texture and subtlety to a scene. Checked against other translations I prefer her choices for flow. The narration was so good that I check which other book Guidall had lent his voice to.

Overall a wonderful audiobook.

Excellent audio book

Great narrator and beautiful story. Truly a great work of literature. I listened on 1.2x and it was perfect.

Greatest book I've ever read/listened to.

I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone. A story of redemption, forgiveness, love, compassion, and all the rest of the greatest peaks of human acomplishment and God's grace. In more than one way this book is like life- sad and difficult in many instances, but it makes one greater in the end. Truly an inspired work.

This Is the Translation to Choose

Julie Rose’s translation was compared against my print version of Les Misérables, published by Signet Classics, and was found to be far more poetic and modern in its phrasing. This audiobook is a pleasure to hear spoken. The narration was superb, including the pronunciation of French names and the voices for each of the characters. I can’t speak highly enough about this edition.

Best book ever! The social commentary is brilliant

Loved it! can't wait to hear it again! I learned so much about life!

Amazing

A classic for a reason! Amazing immersive story. Very long though so make sure you’re ok with that before starting.

My favorite book

This is my favorite book! I love the themes that Hugo writes about. His characters embody Justice, Innocence, Redemption, and horrible Evil. A long read, but so good.

I thought the narrator did a good job.

wonderful adventure

The translation is beautiful the performance was amazing and full of awesomeness. Loved all of it.

Absolute masterpiece

One of the finest works of literature of all time. Encompasses so much about life, and the true meaning of being alive. I was moved to tears multiple times during the story. Jean valJean is perhaps the greatest character ever written. There's so many lessons to take from this book. Besides the obvious religious metaphor, which I can take or leave, the heart of the story about being true to yourself and allowing kindness and love to heal your wounds, is undeniably universal and powerful.

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?