# Les Miserables: And you thought Tolkien was wordy... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 24, 2009, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187 "2009-04-24T04:35:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/21 "2009-04-24T20:08:47Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > The Penguin is _vastly_ superior but much less frequently purchased. Yep, that’s the one I read, the Norman Denny. I can’t read French, but I had a sneaking feeling it was better than the original! I’ve been meaning to start a thread, “Have you ever experienced a Les Miserables-style coincidence in your life?” You know, like when you pole vault into a convent and the first person to greet you is one of your former employees whose life you once saved. (Haven’t we all been there?) One of these days I’ll get around to it, unless someone else wants to run with it. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/22 "2009-04-24T20:11:20Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Yes, yes he is. Don’t ask me about Notre Dame de Fucking Paris. An entire chapter to describe the plaza in front of the cathedral. 15 cockpunching pages on the goatfelching \*door \*alone. > > Brother, I’ve \*seen \*the door. It ain’t all that. I had literally managed to forget reading that book until I read this. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/23 "2009-04-24T20:19:25Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > I’ve been meaning to start a thread, “Have you ever experienced a Les Miserables-style coincidence in your life?” You know, like when you pole vault into a convent and the first person to greet you is one of your former employees whose life you once saved. (Haven’t we all been there?) One of these days I’ll get around to it, unless someone else wants to run with it. Well, there was that time I promised my dying father I would revere some schlep who saved him on a battlefield, and then when I went to rent a room I happened to rent the room right next to him, even though I didn’t know it was him, and last I had heard he owned an inn in a different part of the country, but I found out when this inspector who used to be after this other guy… well, anyway, long story. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/24 "2009-04-24T20:24:40Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Well, it’s not about the story. It’s about framing a time and a place, and I’ve always thought the characters and the story were just thrown in there so he could talk about the Battle of Waterloo, and the Paris sewers, and the June Riots, and all the rest. I am in Waterloo. Still. I’ve been listening to Waterloo and the ball that they had before it and the fact that Napoleon lost because God said so for TWO STINKING HOURS. “Now, we won’t be spending much time on Waterloo, because it’s been ably chronicled elsewhere… we’ll just spend about four dozen pages talking about the bloody handprints here, the skeletons in this well, the name of the peasant who last drew water from it…” Some of this is really fascinating. Some of it, I’m afraid, is going straight through my ears. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/25 "2009-04-24T20:31:33Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > You think HUGO is wordy? Boy, don’t ever read any of the Russian authors, then!! :eek: I’ve TRIED Chekov. Added to the fun of not being able to shut up is the fact that every character has three or four different names and nicknames and diminutives and I don’t know Russian diminutives well enough to know who they’re talking about and why this name is relevant and… I read The Cherry Orchard, I think, for lit crit in high school. I remember my eyes glazing over. I’d probably appreciate it more now, but I can’t promise I would. I’m missing out, I know, but I’ll start on Hugo and work my way up. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![hawksgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ed655f/32.png) [@hawksgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawksgirl)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/26 "2009-04-24T20:39:35Z")
Huh, I didn’t think Les Miserables was bad. I thought the descriptions were long, but well-written and not distracting for me. Then again, I was reading it in short spurts between classes, not sitting down to read it for an hour at a time. ---
**Author:** ![Lunar\_Saltlick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/977dab/32.png) [@Lunar\_Saltlick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lunar_Saltlick)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/27 "2009-04-24T20:40:52Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > Which would be great, if anyone besides Victor Hugo actually cared about the Paris sewers… Didn’t Ed Norton of the Honeymooners dream of visiting the sewers of Paris? Anyway, I took the plunge, so to speak, years ago. Fascinating. Loved the catacombs too. I’ll read _Les Misérables_ some day, after I recover sufficiently from War and Peace. ---
**Author:** ![Elyanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5ac83/32.png) [@Elyanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elyanna)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/28 "2009-04-24T22:35:31Z")
I read an unabridged version, but I might as well picked up an abridged version, because I just skimmed through the sewer parts and other digressions. Despite that, it is one of my favorite books. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/29 "2009-04-25T00:39:48Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > You think HUGO is wordy? Boy, don’t ever read any of the Russian authors, then!! :eek: 😃 I haven’t read Les Miserables yet, though I have read War & Peace and actually loved it. But yes, my GOD the wordiness. I ended up learning a whole bunch about Napoleon and battle strategies back then and it literally was the only military strategy style I had any real knowledge of. Afterwards I couldn’t comprehend moving troops without horses! ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/30 "2009-04-25T02:13:12Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Well, there was that time I promised my dying father I would revere some schlep who saved him on a battlefield, and then when I went to rent a room I happened to rent the room right next to him, even though I didn’t know it was him, and last I had heard he owned an inn in a different part of the country, but I found out when this inspector who used to be after this other guy… > > well, anyway, long story. I think this is just to establish that Marius is a weakminded little trewp. I mean, the guy is about to call the cops on this jerk and his gang who’s about to kill this old man in the place next door to you, and then the guy reveals himself as the guy who “saved” his father, so he has to stand there in angst about it for a good ten minutes and nearly let the guy die. Apparently a promise to his father who he barely knew about some guy his father barely knew but is clearly a thug and an asshole from firsthand experience is worth more then a man’s life. That and the fact he treats Valjean like a child rapist when he mentions that some 30 odd years ago he stole some bread. Despite this guy being his father in law and treating him like the son he never had. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/31 "2009-04-25T02:15:20Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I actually liked those parts more than the narrative. It was like, “Damn it, stop telling me about a whiny college student and tell me more about Breton glassmaking!” Victor Hugo, at least in Les Miserables, can at least make his ramblings interesting, even if he can’t stop from rambling on. I think the only part I had to skip was the love poetry Marius wrote, because I felt like I was getting close to vomiting. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/32 "2009-04-25T03:55:12Z")
Hugo can certainly be wordy, but he also gives us this: > [@Victor Hugo](#): > > CHAPTER VIII–BILLOWS AND SHADOWS > > A man overboard! > > What matters it? The vessel does not halt. The wind blows. That sombre ship has a path which it is forced to pursue. It passes on. > > The man disappears, then reappears; he plunges, he rises again to the surface; he calls, he stretches out his arms; he is not heard. The vessel, trembling under the hurricane, is wholly absorbed in its own workings; the passengers and sailors do not even see the drowning man; his miserable head is but a speck amid the immensity of the waves. He gives vent to desperate cries from out of the depths. What a spectre is that retreating sail! He gazes and gazes at it frantically. It retreats, it grows dim, it diminishes in size. He was there but just now, he was one of the crew, he went and came along the deck with the rest, he had his part of breath and of sunlight, he was a living man. Now, what has taken place? He has slipped, he has fallen; all is at an end. > > He is in the tremendous sea. Under foot he has nothing but what flees and crumbles. The billows, torn and lashed by the wind, encompass him hideously; the tossings of the abyss bear him away; all the tongues of water dash over his head; a populace of waves spits upon him; confused openings half devour him; every time that he sinks, he catches glimpses of precipices filled with night; frightful and unknown vegetations seize him, knot about his feet, draw him to them; he is conscious that he is becoming an abyss, that he forms part of the foam; the waves toss him from one to another; he drinks in the bitterness; the cowardly ocean attacks him furiously, to drown him; the enormity plays with his agony. > > It seems as though all that water were hate. > > Nevertheless, he struggles. > > He tries to defend himself; he tries to sustain himself; he makes an effort; he swims. He, his petty strength all exhausted instantly, combats the inexhaustible. > > Where, then, is the ship? Yonder. Barely visible in the pale shadows of the horizon. > > The wind blows in gusts; all the foam overwhelms him. He raises his eyes and beholds only the lividness of the clouds. He witnesses, amid his death-pangs, the immense madness of the sea. He is tortured by this madness; he hears noises strange to man, which seem to come from beyond the limits of the earth, and from one knows not what frightful region beyond. > > There are birds in the clouds, just as there are angels above human distresses; but what can they do for him? They sing and fly and float, and he, he rattles in the death agony. > > He feels himself buried in those two infinities, the ocean and the sky, at one and the same time: the one is a tomb; the other is a shroud. > > Night descends; he has been swimming for hours; his strength is exhausted; that ship, that distant thing in which there were men, has vanished; he is alone in the formidable twilight gulf; he sinks, he stiffens himself, he twists himself; he feels under him the monstrous billows of the invisible; he shouts. > > There are no more men. Where is God? > > He shouts. Help! Help! He still shouts on. > > Nothing on the horizon; nothing in heaven. > > He implores the expanse, the waves, the seaweed, the reef; they are deaf. He beseeches the tempest; the imperturbable tempest obeys only the infinite. > > Around him darkness, fog, solitude, the stormy and nonsentient tumult, the undefined curling of those wild waters. In him horror and fatigue. Beneath him the depths. Not a point of support. He thinks of the gloomy adventures of the corpse in the limitless shadow. The bottomless cold paralyzes him. His hands contract convulsively; they close, and grasp nothingness. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, gusts, useless stars! What is to be done? The desperate man gives up; he is weary, he chooses the alternative of death; he resists not; he lets himself go; he abandons his grip; and then he tosses forevermore in the lugubrious dreary depths of engulfment. > > Oh, implacable march of human societies! Oh, losses of men and of souls on the way! Ocean into which falls all that the law lets slip! Disastrous absence of help! Oh, moral death! > > The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal laws fling their condemned. The sea is the immensity of wretchedness. > > The soul, going down stream in this gulf, may become a corpse. Who shall resuscitate it? I don’t know about you, but I’ve never read a more vivid or compelling description of what it would be like to be drowning in the open ocean, or cast adrift by an uncaring society. I realize this quote is very long for a forum post, but for Hugo, it’s the epitome of brevity. And it’s great. ---
**Author:** ![Albrecht\_Durer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ccd318/32.png) [@Albrecht\_Durer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Albrecht_Durer)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/33 "2009-04-25T15:04:24Z")
I read the unabridged version a few summers ago and absolutely loved it, and I went back to Paris shortly afterward and oddly enjoyed Paris _more_ because of _Les Miserables_. Something about the book and its descriptions made Paris, a hugely visceral city, even more visceral. Maybe it helped that there was a long description of the area I stayed in, which was apparently once a hellish butchers/tanning area. Strangely, though, I was very underwhelmed by the Waterloo section, which I had heard fantastic things about. It was certainly not as exciting as Rashkilnokov killing the landlady in _Crime and Punishment_, which is the best 19th century literary description of anything. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/34 "2009-04-25T17:24:42Z")
I love Norman Denny’s comments from the translator’s introduction: > [@](#): > > The defects . . . may be summed up in a single word, extravagance. Hugo, although as the final result shows was masterly in the construction of his novel, had little or no regard for the discipline of novel-writing. He was wholly unrestrained and unsparing of his reader. He had to say everything and more than everything; he was incapable of leaving anything out. The book is loaded down with digressions, interpolated discourses, passages of moralizing rhetoric and pedagogic disquisitions . . . It is not uncommon to find eight or ten adjectives appended to a single noun. Still, it’s a great book. I enjoyed it more the second time through, when I knew what would happen, so I could forget about the melodramatic plot and concentrate on the writing. Plus, I could skim over the repetitive parts. (“OK, they’re mean to Cosette. I get it. On to the next chapter . . .”) One of the things I found interesting was how, decades after the fact, characters are defined by their attitudes toward the Bourbons, the Revolution, and Napoleon (a.k.a. “Buonaparte, the Corsican usurper”). In history books, Napoleon sails off to Saint Helena and history moves on to other topics. But in France, the events of those years left their mark for decades to come, just like the Civil War in America. ---
**Author:** ![Scuba\_Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Scuba\_Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scuba_Ben)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2009, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/35 "2009-04-26T03:00:19Z")
Now I understand where Tom Clancy learned his style. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Woodhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Miss\_Woodhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Woodhouse)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2009, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/36 "2009-04-26T03:21:04Z")
I really enjoyed the book, but then I purposely chose an unabridged version, going against all my previously held prejudices about novel abridgment. It’s a beautiful story, but I have to agree that poor Cosette gets a bum rap getting stuck with Marius as a husband. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2009, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/37 "2009-04-27T06:15:56Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > I don’t know about you, but I’ve never read a more vivid or compelling description of what it would be like to be drowning in the open ocean, or cast adrift by an uncaring society. Lord, I loved that part. It helped me appreciate the whole thing: it’s very well written, but it’s paced by a man without a watch. Still, it’s not like I can say what he says as effectively in any number of words, so… ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2009, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/38 "2009-04-27T09:54:37Z")
Chinese novelists run into the same problem (paid by the installment, and by GOD can you see the padding from the fucking Moon). [Romance of the Three Kingdoms](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_three_kingdoms) gets a tentative pass for covering two hundred years of history, but good luck getting through lite-Classical Chinese (yeah, it’s a bit archaic, a little like reading Chaucer in Middle English, but it’s still a fuckload more vernacular than some of the other novels) on your first try. [Bandits of the Water Margin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B0%B4%E6%BB%B8%E5%82%B3) tries to juggle _One Hundred And Eight_ protagonists (and yes, you get all their backstories, complete with supporting cast). No wonder the writer just got fed up and killed off a gigaload by the end. [Jin Yong](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_Yong) bores the hell out of me for the same reason. Stop going on your goddamn tangents and get back to the plot already. The only one of his I like is “[The Deer and the Cauldron](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deer_and_the_Cauldron)” because its main character is an unrepentant scoundrel (but still manages to be sort of heroic in a very cute way). ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2009, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/39 "2009-04-27T13:37:48Z")
Apparently Hugo was only wordy when he was paid, because he’s credited with the shortest letter ever, when his correspondence with his publisher regarding the success of Les Miserables consisted of “?”. The response was “!” [History’s shortest letter](http://books.google.com/books?id=1zo4AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA600&lpg=PA600&dq=hugo+%22shortest+letter%22&source=bl&ots=7bln6ydpjb&sig=dP7SPjcFvSAxoZJzjflTGvXjiHM&hl=en&ei=6bP1SZSlOpuxtgfn1pmsDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3) ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2009, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187/40 "2009-04-27T16:13:04Z")
In large part due to this thread, I’ve picked up _Les Miserables_ and started re-reading it. It’s been a while since I read it the first time (like, oh, 30 years!). I find myself pulled into the descriptions, reading them word for word, and going back to suck more imagery out of them. But, then the narrative in most parts isn’t exactly hang by the seat of your pants narrative, so it’s not like you are tempted to skip over the descriptions to find out what the heck is coming next! 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/les-miserables-and-you-thought-tolkien-was-wordy/494187.md?page=3)