Les Misérables

De: Victor Hugo

Narrado por: Walter Covell

Les Miserables is set in the Parisian underworld. The protagonist, Jean Valjean, is sentenced to prison for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread. After his release, Valjean plans to rob monseigneur Myriel, a saint-like bishop, but cancels his plan. However, he forfeits his parole by committing a minor crime, and for this crime Valjean is haunted by the police inspector Javert. Valjean eventually reforms and becomes, under the name of M. Madeleine, a successful businessman, benefactor, and mayor of a northern town. To save an innocent man, Valjean gives himself up and is imprisoned in Toulon. He escapes and adopts Cosette, an illegitimate child of a poor woman, Fantine. Cosette grows up and falls in love with Marius, who is wounded during a revolutionary fight. Valjean rescues Marius by means of a flight through the sewers of Paris. All seems headed for a happy ending until Javert shows up again and this leads to an incredible climax.

About the abridgement
The one major issue of this book is Hugo's long "asides" in which he departs from the action to write about anything he finds of interest. In the printed version, one can simply flip by those pages to get back to the story. That is not so easy in an audio version so these tangents have been removed. The whole story, all 33 plus hours of it, remains.

©1989 Jimcin Recordings (P)1989 Jimcin Recordings

Abridged copy is just as good if not better

I have read the unabridged version and I listened to this abridged version and I was very happy that I made that choice. I didn't feel that I missed anything with the abridged version and I definitely avoided wanting to reach back through time and strangle Victor Hugo's publisher for not insisting on edits. This book is a classic of Western literature and it is heartrendingly beautiful (even though Marius is an idiot) . THe the reader was enjoyable and did a good job even though almost all of his women sounded the same, usually there was only one woman in the scene so it worked out. There was a chapter that repeated itself and a couple of chapters where the audio quality went way down but otherwise I was very happy.

Abridged? Never! Except this time.

I loved the Broadway musical. I greatly enjoyed the movie too. What I liked best about the movie is it added some details from the book that were impossible to include on the stage. However, as often happens, the book reigns triumphant over any other version of Victor Hugo's masterpiece.

However, Hugo was ridiculously wordy with literally hundreds of pages that he himself admits are irrelevant to the story. As such, I highly recommend this abridged version for any normal human beings who, unlike me, do not feel obsessively compulsed to read unabridged versions. I also recommend this version to those who have already waded through the unabridged version, and (like me) loved it enough to enjoy the story again.

Disappointing abridgement

I love Les Miserables, so I won't rate this any less than 3 stars. However, I was disappointed to find that some of the actual story was left out of the abridgement, in addition to just the author's "lengthy asides." For example, Fantine's history was missing, as well as all mention of the youngest Thenardier children, both of which strike me as important to the story.

I found the narration a bit dry as well. I definitely recommend listening to the sample before you purchase this audiobook.

Life Changining! inspiring! Wonderful.

I have seen the movie and the play, but loved the performamce of the book and all the details it filled in.

Well done

I tried listening to another, full length version of this book and didn't get very far. The "asides" were just too much to take. This, while still quite long, cut to the heart of the story and was quite fascinating. A wonderful reading as well.