Les Miserables (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

Would It Be Possible To Love A Book More?

This book is truly a masterpiece. The reader is absolutely drawn in by the characters. I adore books that make me cry because I know that then, I am definately involved. For this book, I bawled! I have to warn you that I have read a couple of different abridged versions and some of them cut out really crucial parts. Play it safe, pick up the unabridged version! You'll love it!

12 out of 12 people found this review helpful.

Buy at your own risk!

I love this book, but I was not at all satisfied with the Nook version. It worked fine at first, but then it would freeze up on me. I would constantly get error messages saying the Activity Reader has stopped working, and then I would have to force close it. Then to top it all off, the last part of the book is missing! Not worth wasting your $ ... even if it's only a dollar.

7 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

Over-rated

I'm not sure how this excruciatingly long-winded book managed to achieve classic status. The characters are completely flat, from the relentlessly selfless Bishop of Digne to the reformed Jean Valjean who, though he sometimes doubts himself, always winds up being utterly generous and humble, to Thenardier, the caricature of bottomless greed, and Javert the relentless inspector who instead of pursuing murderers, rapists and con-artists, inexplicably spends ten years obsessing over the capture of a guy who stole a loaf of bread and wouldn't give a kid back a coin that he'd dropped.
For all its flowery prose, this book doesn't manage to bring much of anything to life. We're told that Jean Valjean has this timeless love for adopted little Cosette, but we never get to see that love develop. We never see any tender and inspirational moments between them. The author just insists that it's an amazing love and we are supposed to take his word for it. Likewise the romance between Cosette and Marius. Not much of anything happens between them. There is never a moment when they are together and we feel like we're seeing two people discover the elements of love buried beneath their outward surfaces. Here everything is surface. VH insists that their love is great; we watch them pining away for each other; but really we wonder why exactly they're pining.
As for the famous digressions in the book, they aren't the problem. Okay--four chapters on the sewers of Paris and the poetics of excrement were a bit much, but the real problem is that Hugo endlessly repeats himself. It seems like he doesn't think the reader is smart enough to appreciate the sense of what he's saying unless he repeats it three or four or five times. At one point, I put the book down in disgust because he posed the same philosophical question (with slight rewording each time) over and over again till it filled up most of a page. If you read this book, be prepared to mutter under your breath "All right, I get it already...could you move on please" quite frequently.
I've read some reviews that cite this book as a good lesson in the history of the French Revolution. It's not actually about THE French Revolution, just an uprising in Paris more than forty years later, though echoes of the Revolution and its aftermath are everywhere. Unfortunately for the modern non-French reader, Hugo pretty much assumes you already know everything about the Revolution, the Restoration, the reign of Napoleon and lots of more obscure tidbits of French history. He doesn't often explain, but only rhapsodizes on bygone days so that, if you aren't already steeped in French history, you often have to resort to an online encyclopedia to find out what it is he's actually talking about.
Speaking of not being a French reader, will someone please tell the idiot translators of these kinds of books that they need to translate everything into English. There are untranslated French and Latin phrases sprinkled throughout every chapter. I realize they may not have an exact equivalent in English, but I could at least get a sense of them if they were translated. Leaving them in French or Latin just leaves me with a bunch of words I have to translate myself.

4 out of 13 people found this review helpful.

Try a different version!!!

The very ending of the book is missing. It starts freezing towards the end. Loved the story and so upset I couldn't finish it.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Do Not Buy THIS Version

I have spent nearly two hours with customer service because my nook freezes up whenever I try to something unusual like highlight a portion, look up a word, or turn the page. Also got the Activity Reader Error. Final engineering report: we will refund your money. I will purchase another version, but still unabridged as the story is wonderful.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Good Book but Glitchy File

The story of Les Mis is absolutely wonderful. I was drawn to reading the book after seeing the 25th Anniversary production of the musical at the O2 in London (also highly recommended). I like that in the unabridged version, you get more details about the story, but you also get extensive social commentary from Hugo on the world he sees around him. It adds another dimension to the book. That having been said, this particular file works great until you get to 700 out of the 1250 pages. From that point on it continually freezes everytime you try to turn a page. It also frequently kicks you to an entirely different page which may be numerous pages back from where you are currently reading or several chapters ahead.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Great book, but why pay?

This is truly a classic. But why pay even $0.99 when you can get it for free at Project Gutenberg????

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Amazing!!

As if anyone needed an excuse to read Les Miserables--one of the most fantastic pieces of literature of all time--we now have a wonderfully rendered translation by Julie Rose. Coupled with a wildly intelligent introduction by Adam Gopnik, this is the most complete and informative edition of Hugo's masterpiece to date. With ludicrously complete endnotes, one can read the novel and achieve near total comprehension of the era about which Hugo was writing. We understand through this winning translation and notes why Napoleon was good and evil, why he was such a polarizing figure, why the French Revolution was so important to European and world history. Understanding the world from which Hugo's charaters come helps us relate and identify with them even more. We understand why Enjolras is a zealot, why Javert is dedicated beyond reason to the law, why Fantine felt she had run out of options, to name a very few. Les Miserables, at its core, is a meditation on the human spirit in its idealized form: what Man can achieve through good deeds, dedication, and love of his fellow men. Read and be inspired.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Well... Where to start? I really did enjoy this story, despite

Well... Where to start? I really did enjoy this story, despite the fact that I had to read the UNABRIDGED version for a school assignment. I believe that if I could have read it for pleasure (and not have a deadline) I would have enjoyed it much more. Overall, I liked most of the characters. There were a few who kind of creeped me out, like Cossette and Marius' story, but I digress. I really got attached to some of the secondary characters that ended up dieing in the end (which was frustrating). I also felt that Hugo spent much too much time on certain things (like chapters on battles and convents and sewers) while skimming over more important things (like character development). Overall, I would say it was worth the read. However, if you have a choice, I would definitely go with the abridged version unless you have hours upon hours of spare time.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Good book, Bad version.

I think this book is inspiring and touching but this version seems to not work. Read the book though.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Check it out.

Huge, wide-ranging story, including a lot of French history of the era. Much of it is obscure to me with "insider" references, but the classic aspects of this great work are apparent. The translation is dated, but quite readable, particularly with the dictionary feature of the Nook.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Good Story, but cannot open Sample

Although I am somewhat familiar with this story through theater, I wanted to see how much more the book went in detail, etc., but the sample will not open. BUY WITH CAUTION.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Great Book!

This book is great. I don't know about the sample, but I bought the real deal. I downloaded it and its great. This is a rather large book so it definitely took longer than normal to download. Probably the other users problems. Highly recommended!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Totally Challenging!! I loved it!!

I really enjoyed this book so much for the fact that it was challenging! I usually only read books that were "fun" or "enjoyable" for me, but this was the first real book that actually tested my mind! The wording in this book is totally different (probably because it was written by someone who is french), but it changes the way you think and understand what the story is about. I cannot even count how many new words I came across! It helped me practice my reading skills and enhanced my ability to think about and understand different types of writing.
This book is not only for the challenge, it is also for the enjoyment. I honestly thought that I would not like it at all, but as I started to get into it, I was hooked. This author really goes into detail of all of the character's emotions, and various opinions about certain problems. It really makes you understand what the main characters are going through, and you almost feel that you are with them, feeling those same emotions. This book really shows the true meaning of love towards father and child. This author really opened my eyes to how the main character (Jean Valjean) will do anything to take care of her, and nothing more. It would be very easy for him to escape and go off by himself, but he truly respects the law, but also knows that she (Cosette) cannot live in the state she was first in, (being a slave). he therefore dedicates his life into taking care and raising her up until she can take care of herself, so then he can settle his deal with justice. I really admired this character, and loved all of the detailed feelings he had for this little girl, which truly touched my heart.
I would defiantly recommend this book to people (around ages 15+) who want a challenging book, and are wanting to put their mind to the test. It is such an amazing book with challenging words and names that are hard to tell apart, but that was the fun of it for me! :)

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Abridged???

I keep missing parts of the book. This is no good for someone who already loves great literature and is trying to re-read.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Les Mis

Oh, quel bon livre! I picked up Les Misérables because it was French, and it filled me with the pain of Fantine, the innocence of Cosette, the reform of Jean Valjean, and the valor of Marius. When I finally got to the last page I didn't want to be there. It was as if I'd known the characters for years. The book constantly surprised me and even caused me to exclaim aloud a few times, which is highly unusual for me. Don't be daunted by this book's size. It is intimidating, but once you get into the intricately weaved story, you'll never forget it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Victor Hugo is to France what Abraham Lincoln is to the United S

Victor Hugo is to France what Abraham Lincoln is to the United States, What Mohandas Ghandi is to India. Les Miserables is not a work of Fiction in the simple sense - It is a vision from the mind of the great French Visionary, a tale from the mind of a man made a hero by his own humanity. It may sound cliche, I know - but this book has the ability to change your life...that is, assuming your willing to let that happen.

If you knew how to

Speak French than we mersi

One second...

I absolutely loved this book. I first read it as a library copy and now i want to buy it....is this version abriged or unabriged? I want the full version. Anything less is a complete joke and waste of money.

Les Miserables

This book was good overall but ther are some parts in the story that are boring and can be skipped