Les Miserables Blu Ray Review

[Luciana]

I am finally feeling more capable of writing a few thoughts about Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I love this book. I am in awe of this book. I am still a little intimidated by it. And I hope I can make sense of my jumbled thoughts.

First, this novel is incredible in scope, fascinating in its details, and epic in influence. I cannot do it justice in a review. But I will try to synthesize a few thoughts here. First, a few thoughts on the final 4th of the novel. You can also read my thoughts on part 1, part 2, and part 3.

The amount of time that passes is incredible. We begin in 1815 with the climax nearly 20 years later. To write a novel that covers that amount of time with grace, complexity, and interest is a masterpiece. Hugo successfully covers a story of epic proportions but allows readers to connect intimately with his protagonist. It is truly remarkable.

While I certainly read a translation of the original French, I was fascinated by the language. There were so many moments when I just sighed and read sentences again. What makes this story so timeless is the language. Telling a compelling story is one thing. But add to that story incredible imagery, complex philosophy, and thought-provoking expression, and you have a truly remarkable work.

Les Miserables is absolutely brimming with compelling philosophical ideas and questions. Overall, I really enjoyed the ongoing commentary from Hugo about society, the poor, faith and God, justice versus mercy, and redemption. Sometimes, this was hard to understand and get through but sometimes it was absolutely fascinating. A few favorites are below.

Thank you so much! I appreciate that! I absolutely agree that the mercy vs justice theme is fascinating. And I love that mercy triumphs for Valjean. It is definitely a book that has kept me thinking still!

We are reading this book in my book club in a few months, and the musical is coming to our town as a part of its Spring tour so I will be picking up this book in a few months. I like the advice to work through the book a little at a time. I just finished War and Peace on audio today, and I agree there is something special about the classic sagas.

I read Les Mis, the unabridged, three years ago. I was moved to read the book because of. I was able to understand what was going on because of the musical and I was able to mark up major characters from the book and pick up scenes in the book that was a song. So the musical helped me read the book even in scenes that were not in the musical

First of all I must say that this book is huge! 1000 pages, relatively large, with small font, it must be one of the longest books I've ever read. I read the full version, because I don't like abridgements. Truly, there are extremely long books (this one included) which won't be spoiled by a bit of cutting, but I just don't like that someone else decides what I read or not.

This book is rightfully considered one of the greatest novels of all times. Itspans a period of a few years in the life of Jean Valjean - an escaping convictwho "switched to the good side", and the characters around him. The place isFrance, mostly Paris, and the period is the first half of the 19th century - avery turbulent times in Europe and France in particular.

Victor Hugo certainly writes beautifully, his command of the words and sentencesis excellent, and the philosophic detours, though tiring at times, are verytouching. I hope not much was lost in the translation, but even in English Ifelt the power of words under Hugo's pen very well. The level of English isquite difficult - I'm not used to looking up words in the dictionary, but withLes Miserables I was forced to do it quite a few times.

This is a book about everything - right and wrong, love and hate, war and peace,goodness and evil, rich and poor. The characters are very believable, and infact developed extremely well. Hugo doesn't just throw random characters in, anyone has his place, and is described sufficiently well for the reader to relateto him. This is true about other facets of the book as well: although being verylong, you won't find needless things in it. Everything has a reason, and Hugoknows how to collect facts and bring them together in a masterful way, sometimessurprisingly.

I especially felt for the descriptions of poor/hungry people in this book -extremely credible. Reading the book makes you actually feel sorry for thesepeople, specially children, relate to their hardships, and being thankful tohave a roof above your head and food in your stomach. It's also amazing howstrong some of the characters are. Eponine, Gavroche, Father Mabeuf - young orold, these people have been beaten by the sufferings of life enough to developcertain power and a way to look life right into the eyes - something to admire.

The main message in this book as I see it is living with your conscience. Whatis really to a person is not what others think of him and how they judge him,but what he feels about himself, his inner peace of mind. Jean Valjean wascertainly very hard on himself, even after doing so much good. I even felt thathe's a bit too much self-criticizing, but the moral is clear - you can run fromthe police, hide from people, but you can never escape yourself.

It is curious that I didn't find any character to relate to - any "favorite"character. Even Jean Valjean, the most obvious candidate, is so muchintroverted, that I as a reader felt some distance from him.

There were also some things I didn't like about Les Miserables, but compared tohe positive things in this book, they are minor. One is "the detours", usuallyhistoric like the battle of Waterloo or the sewers of Paris, or political, likethe whole discussion of revolutions before the barricade scenes. Some of thisare just too long, and in this case I can relate to the abridgers. Hugocertainly wants to deliver a lot through this book, and sometimes he goes offthe limits of a novel. The other is the coincidences. There's just too many ofthem, IMHO. The main characters in the book just can't stop from running intoeach other, especially Jean Valjean, Javert and Thenardier. It keeps the plotmoving, but it feels a bit forced at times.

To summarize: this is a great book. Prepare yourself to spend a lot of timereading it - it's long, the language is difficult and you have to be fullyawake, or you'll easily miss key moments. But it's all worth it, this book is aliterature marvel, I enjoyed it immensely.

Edit (30.07.2010): I've just finished re-reading the book andliked it a lot again, so I don't have much to add to this review. One minorissue is that while reading the last few tens of pages I became quite annoyedwith Marius's hypocricity towards Jean Valjean. Marius, who fought on thebarricades against the government, killed gendarmes and soldiers, and wouldsurely be hanged it he'd be caught, was just terrified and appalled by JeanValjean, the past convict who was in the galleys? Give me a break.

This brief review of Les Misrables is provided by a completely novice movie reviewer, but a Les Mis lover and a parent. I had a tough time deciding if the movie was appropriate for my 9-year-old, and I imagine there are others out there wondering the same thing.

The running theme implied Les Mis showed as much sex as a PG-13 movie allowed. Since that is the one thing I absolutely shelter him from, I decided to see the movie before I ended up having an exceptionally awkward conversation about the birds and the bees on the drive home.

It IS France. They drink wine. A lot of it. And of course, the perfectly cast Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen portray the Thnardiers, scoundrels who keep their patrons sloppy drunk so they can fleece them for every sou or two.

During the battle scene, many men and women (some we are rooting for) are shot and killed. More realistic than stylized (as in, say, comic book flicks). Not super graphic, but they bleed. Later, blood flows through the gutters and women must scrub it from the cobblestones.

Fifteen years after it opened I finally got round to seeing the self proclaimed 'Worlds Favourite Musical'. Being a musical nut, it may seem strange that in the past ten years I have seen most of the big shows (many of them on more than one occasion), but never even considered watching 'Les Miserables'. In my defence, my father highly recommended the show to me some 12 years ago and I have probably sub-consciously avoided it thinking I couldn't possibly enjoy something that the 'old man' liked. But enough of this psychological clap-trap and on with the review. As soon as I entered the wonderful Palace Theatre I knew immediately I had been wrong all these years. Mingling with my fellow audience in the rather small (little moan) Dress Circle bar I sensed an air of excitement and expectation that I had not witnessed before at previous musicals. I knew then that this show was going to be something special and I hadn't even heard a note sung in anger yet. With the adrenalin pumping through my vains (what it must be like to perform in this show) I took my seat and settled down for the most enjoyable three and a bit hours of my life.

Simon Bowman as the lead character VALJEAN was very good. He portrayed the changes in Valjean from hopeful ex-con to embittered thief to eventual compassionate foster father with such understanding it was a joy to behold. He acted his songs rather than just sang them and despite not being able to sing some of the high notes, as mentioned in the previous review, the score has been changed to suit his voice and the musical as a whole does not suffer because of it.

In contrast to Bowman, understudy Paul Monaghan as JAVERT was not animated enough during most of his songs and a little too stiff and rigid for my liking (even for a policeman). His main problem however is that he has too sweet a voice and too angelic a face to be totally convincing as the baddie. That said, his singing was first class and his amazing 'suicide' proved to me that he deserves a bigger role than the Bishop (his normal role in the show) - perhaps a future Valjean?

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