Die Elenden (1862)

Wow. Or is that most sacred excrement? On my fourth attempt, I finished this Fall River Press/Barnes & Noble hardcover, published in 2012 presumably to commemorate the sesquicentennial (150-year anniversary) of the novel's original 1862 appearance. It crams the 1,463-page mass-market paperback edition into 908 pages of tiny print, the story of ex-convict Jean Valjean, as well as that of the massive underclass everywhere about which nobody cares. The only reasons I didn't give this greatest of all French (translated into English) novels five stars are the many tangents on which the author flies, including a multi-page "history" of the Parisian sewers. A long, sometimes depressing, sometimes aggravating--I wanted to strangle Inspector Javert--but ultimately great read. ( )

Stopping it midway. Cannot continue as it has so much of details about everything and it is making me so confused. Maybe will restart it some other day.
( )

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't take it any more. Every day a new sermon about religion or politics or some other topic that he absolutely beat to death. I don't care enough about the story to endure any more of that. ( )

“However, this sceptic had one fanaticism. This fanaticism was neither a dogma, nor an idea, nor an art, nor a science; it was a man: Enjolras. Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated Enjolras. To whom did this anarchical scoffer unite himself in this phalanx of absolute minds? To the most absolute. In what manner had Enjolras subjugated him? By his ideas? No. By his character. A phenomenon which is often observable. A sceptic who adheres to a believer is as simple as the law of complementary colors. That which we lack attracts us. No one loves the light like the blind man. The dwarf adores the drum-major. The toad always has his eyes fixed on heaven. Why? In order to watch the bird in its flight. Grantaire, in whom writhed doubt, loved to watch faith soar in Enjolras. He had need of Enjolras. That chaste, healthy, firm, upright, hard, candid nature charmed him, without his being clearly aware of it, and without the idea of explaining it to himself having occurred to him.”

The most encompassing obsession of my life. "To love or have loved that is enough." ( )

My pick for 2021 PopSugar Reading Challenge prompt #41: The longest book (by pages) on your TBR

After one month, I finally finished it few minutes before midnight (last night)! If it's not for the reading challenge, I'd have postponed reading it indefinitely. For a classic, it's the typical book that I really dread to read. I'm not going to reread this unless I'm held at gun-point and it's life-threatening. It's dense and full of philosophical ramblings that swerve from the main direction of the plot. Thanks to the audiobooks and text-to-speech features, I managed to read it in a shorter time. If I used my eyes only , I'd have stared at one sentence in five minutes.

The thing I love about it is how the narrator engaged the readers by reminding us of the previously mentioned instances that lead to the situation of that scene. Will definitely watch any--or all-- adaptations of Les Miserables, including "Cosette". It's an anime adaptation by World Masterpiece Theater. ( )