Les Misérables discussion

Hi, I was wondering how long it usually lasts to get through Les Misérables. I have just started on a very "small lettered", long edition. The size of those letters are so small! It makes me feel like it will take for ever to read this, and I don´t have the opportunity to read an "easier" version either ... So, how long did it take for you to read it, if you have read it?

It took me 2 months to read it. It felt like a good accomplishment when I finished.

Gemma wrote: "It took me 2 months to read it. It felt like a good accomplishment when I finished."

OK, good to now. Thank you :)

I spent two years on and off reading it :/ Not sure how long I actually spent reading it but it was a struggle!

Jan 25 to March 6 of this year. It is not a hard book to read. The only trouble are the tangents and how interesting you might find them. I liked some: description of monastery, speaking in slang; and hated others: notably the one titled "Waterloo". The story itself is interesting and compelling and is one of the best in 19th century literature. But it is like War and Peace, as Donald Trump would say, "Yuuuuuuge!"

Do not read the abridged edition. You need to read the whole book. You need to read this book about three times before you really appreciate it.

I am reading the unabridged version, and have read to where Jean saves Cosette from Fantine. I really like the characters, but sometimes things go a little slow, so I skip some details. I'm trying not to be too strict with myself, and just to enjoy the book.

Madelén wrote: "I am reading the unabridged version, and have read to where Jean saves Cosette from Fantine. I really like the characters, but sometimes things go a little slow, so I skip some details. I'm trying ..."

Yeah, that's what happens - and that's why I suggested you read it through three times. You pick up those missed sections on the next pass and find you really like them. After that take a rest cure.

11.5 days :P

I have no life

Madelén wrote: "Hi, I was wondering how long it usually lasts to get through Les Misérables. I have just started on a very "small lettered", long edition. The size of those letters are so small! It makes me feel l..."
It depends on your own reading. If you want you can read it in a week or can take upto an year. It's a matter of choice. But yes the book is long, things go slow at times, stick to it, it's a good book.

Btw, I remember finishing it in 3 days.

just like Meg said, I spent over a year reading it on and off. The tangents are very hard to get through at times but very packed with wisdom. once i got around 3/4 i couldn't put it down. it is truly a gem! and any gem takes time and hard work to uncover. I highly recommend this book. Good Luck!

I started reading this book on the day I received it - December 25, 2019. It is now September 18th, and I still haven't finished it :(. It is still an extremely good book, possibly one of my favorites, so don't give up! Also don't read the abridged version - you don't wanna miss the meaty parts of the story :).

I read it in English, but it is not my first language.
It took me 6 months to read the full version. One of my all time favourites.

Hi.I read this book in Romanian, when I was to the college, first year. It took me some months, I don't remember very well, anyway less than a year. I've simply adored this book !! Wonderful !!!

In one month, during work……
I confess that I skipped some sections like Waterloo and the Sewer.
If I was determined to read the Waterloo section, I think I may never have chance to join this discuss.

Richard wrote: "Do not read the abridged edition. You need to read the whole book. You need to read this book about three times before you really appreciate it."

I read Les Miserables in a couple of days. This was at a time when I had just finished a grueling job (rushing through 18 to 20 hour days non-stop) which had lasted 7 years, and I'd spent much of that time dreaming of just sitting and reading long novels, without being bothered by any thoughts of pending deadlines.The job ended and at last, I could glut myself with all the books I wanted. For this reason I could sit from dawn to dusk and read, and was able to finish long novels in a very short time. I had the somewhat unusual experience of reading Les Miserables twice over the span of a month without realizing that I'd done so. I was in the library only a few weeks later holding Les M.. in my hand thinking, "This looks good! Great I'll add it to the others I'm going to take out." Something about the cover of the book looked strangely familiar. I leafed through it and recognized some sentences, and then realized, "Oh yes! This is the book I've already read twice! I think the thing is that Les M.. has such a varied set of scenes and parts of plot that it is possible to read it twice, probably even three times and have a quite different experience of the story each time. I would certainly enjoy reading it at least one more time in the future.. It's a great story and profoundly scratches the right spot in my socialist soul.

Most people here will claim that they've read the book within a few days if not in one day, heck one or two people might even claim that they wrote the book themselves. The long version should take an average person 3-4 months.

Richard wrote: "Do not read the abridged edition. You need to read the whole book. You need to read this book about three times before you really appreciate it."

While we are at it, we should also invent a time machine and go back to 1800s in order to truly appreciate this book.

Even reading this book once is a huge torture in itself, I would rather not appreciate it if I have to endure the same torture 2 more times.

David wrote: "Most people here will claim that they've read the book within a few days if not in one day, heck one or two people might even claim that they wrote the book themselves. The long version should take an average person 3-4 months.."

How charming of you to refute my "claim" that I read Les M. In a couple of days. Apparently you didn't notice the part of my post where I explained the how and why of how I was able to do that. If a person sits in a chair from dawn to dusk (midnight in fact) and he/she takes only bathroom breaks, focuses their attention only on the book, I can pretty well guarantee they can read Les M. In a couple of, or a few days. However, for a person who claims that it will take on average 3 - 4 months!! F---in hell! What reading level are you at? Is it possible that you think that your glacially slow reading pace is normal? Apparently... Well I'll tell you, under normal circumstances when I'm not reading dawn to dusk which is usually, I read about 250 - 300 pages a day. That's no stress, no speed reading, normal pace for me. I'm reading every word, I'm not skimming. So would you think it just might be possible that some people read faster than you? It's somewhat telling that you predicted 3 - 4 months for the "average person" which means that you presume the "average" person is just like you. It just might be a somewhat larger word than you apparently assume. I've done no scientific study but I have friends who read about as fast as I do. Without hesitation, I recommend 1,200 to 2.200-page books I like, and they manage these only a little slower than me. I'm being polite to you, and only a little astonished at the phenomenally slow rate at which you must read, withholding further comment which might embarrass you, which I would so like to unload on you, simply because you went to the extent of being so sarcastic and saying "some people" - "might even claim they wrote the book" clearly alluding to your assignation that I must be lying when I "claim" (your word) the time it took me to read this book which for most people is probably something of a challenge.. That was just rude. And fairly ignorant. Here is a news flash for you, Everyone is NOT the same as you, does not have your limitations which you clearly think are normal, since you took the time it would take 'you' to read Les M. and then extrapolated that to 'everyone' "the average person". I will not belabor this any further, but I will just reiterate the key point which is that you should not be so incredulous that others have different abilities to you, and you should certainly not be so caustically sarcastic when you refute what others are able to do that you find so unbelievable. In short just don't be so rude. P.S. please don't tell me to chill out, get a sense of humor, lighten up, or any variant on that, while claiming that you were just trying to be humorous etc. That would be so predictable, it would just be really disappointing and boring. Cheers

I did it in 3 months. Amazing book.

SamyLondon wrote: "I read it in English, but it is not my first language.
It took me 6 months to read the full version. One of my all time favourites."

I often wonder how different the translations are compared to the original. Though I speak ok Spanish and can get by in French I only read in English because I think I won't get much of the nuance in other languages, particularly in "difficult" books like those by great authors/artists.
For example, I absolutely love Balzac, and Dostoevsky, but do I love the translator, or the original author? When I try to read Balzac in French, I can understand what is happening e.g. some character says something to another character. They go to place A, then to place B, but comparing this to the English translation it's clear I'm not getting any of the subtlety of what's going on under the surface.
SamyLondon since you can read in English and in your first language, have you read the same title, Les Miserables for example, or any other great book, both as a translation into your first language, then the original in English, your second language? I'd be interested to know, was there a great difference? Did it seem like the same story but written by different authors? Were they pretty comparable?
I've read and translated (for myself) some French and Spanish poetry and what I end up with, although it's certainly compelling and beautiful in its way, I can never know what the original sounds like to a native speaker. Likewise, on reading the English translations of that same poetry, it seems like a different poem entirely from the one I experienced in my admittedly imperfect experience of reading it in its original language.
Of course translating poetry presents a unique problem of its own. But it seems even in a novel there is a "poetry" of the authors own way of turning experience and characters into written text. I'm wondering if that is just not translatable. What do you think?

I needed 8 days to read it, because of quarantine-holiday... usually I would need about 2 weeks I guess

Jie wrote: "In one month, during work……
I confess that I skipped some sections like Waterloo and the Sewer.
If I was determined to read the Waterloo section, I think I may never have chance to join this discuss."

I think you should read Waterloo. It is very beautiful description of the battle. Of course I knew the absolute basics of Waterloo, but the book sparked so much interest in me and I spent months reading more about all sorts of deatils.

J. Indi wrote: "SamyLondon wrote: "I read it in English, but it is not my first language.
It took me 6 months to read the full version. One of my all time favourites."

I often wonder how different the translation..."

Hello,
My first language is Arabic, but I didn't read it in Arabic (apart from a heavily abridged version for kids when I was about 9).
Since I moved to London, I stopped reading Arabic translations from other European languages. English is far more closer to French (I know very, very basic French) than Arabic in everything. The structure, the origins, the cultural refrences etc.
Translating poetry is an art in itself. Poetry is very hard to translate, and unless the translator is a poet/writer himself it is rarely good.

I listened to it on LibraVox. The total running time for all 5 volumes is about 63 Hours. Assuming 8 hours per day, you should finish it in about 8 days.
If you finish this book in less than a week, you want to seriously look at your lifestyle. That annoying noise in the background is your wife/husband/lover/kids/boss/customers (delete as appropriate), baying for some attention.

David wrote: "I listened to it on LibraVox. The total running time for all 5 volumes is about 63 Hours. Assuming 8 hours per day, you should finish it in about 8 days.
If you finish this book in less than a wee..."

Hahaha, maybe the people who finished it in a week are living alone and it was a holiday xD But listening to it was a good idea. Maybe I'll do that at some point.

Read it in three days years ago. Some people are speed readers.

Overall, I would say this would be very doable as a summer read, but a little ambitious for a week. Possible, but ambitious. (For comparison, the audiobook is about 60 hours.)

So much of it depends on how fast you read and what your habit of reading is like. If you are a fast reader and read a lot of pages in a week (1000-5000), you should be able to read this within a few days, a week or a month according to your lifestyle and commitment. (Some factors that affect this are if you fall asleep at reading for longer sessions--a common issue for me now that I have young kids!--, whether you are committed to reading one book start to finish or have the habit of working through multiple books according to your mood, etc.)

Even if you are a fast reader, it is not uncommon to take a few months or years to get through it. I am a relatively fast reader (500 pages a day is not unusual for me), and when I read it I read about half of it in a week and then switched jobs and lost focus-- when I finally prioritized it 2 years had passed total.

What I'm trying to say is, some books like this can take a while to get through, and you are in good company if it takes you a while or if it feels like a slog at times (but what a beautiful slog! This really is one of my favorite books). I do highly recommend trying to read at least 20-50 pages in a sitting if you possibly can (and for any other longer novel). It is a richer experience than just reading a few pages a day and you'll see more significant progress, which is highly motivating. But any approach is worth it for this rewarding book.

I also agree with others that while some of the tangents are fascinating, I don't know enough about the Napoleonic wars to find the Waterloo chapter interesting--there is no shame in skimming at times! The unabridged version is worth whatever approach it takes to read it.

I read it in 9 days, although I did skip the Waterloo and sewers part. I might go back and read the full Waterloo part one day, but I was mostly interested in the bits that related to the characters.

I was 18 and started reading it in the summer. I fell so deeply in love with the whole story that I woke up at 6 a.m. just to read it. It took me 8 days. Now, it's definitely one of the books I love the most.

1 month, about 1 week per volume.

Took me about 2 weeks

Lexi wrote: "Took me about 2 weeks"
Wow!!! did you like it?

Eudes wrote: "Lexi wrote: "Took me about 2 weeks"
Wow!!! did you like it?"
Yeah I loved it. It my favorite book now.

It took me two or three weeks.

I was reading an antique edition that was in my Grandmothers library and, yes, 9 or 10 point font makes it difficult to read. Because of that and life interfering with my reading it took about 3 months to read. I didn't want to see a movie or play without having read the book first. Still haven't seen either.

It took me about a month . Had to wade thru tangents on politics , the revolution and Waterloo but even with that the story and characters are compelling and you get used to his style .Roughest patch was the patois of the street people but even there I learned of the usefulness of their jargon

I admire those of you who are writing weeks. It took me at least a year, tbh

To be fair I did read this in October 2020 in lockdown with nothing to do but read .I would lose track of characters,plot lines and Hugo’s style otherwise. I actually may reread it .

4 and half days. It was the fluent book i have ever read before. I was 17 years old, in a winterbreak, i started to read and I could not leave it. I was sleeping so late because i was wondering what will happen, and I was waking up so early so that I could read more. I like to read classics but it is the what I like as a classic. The fluency of book can be a result of best Turkish translation version, I read the book in Turkish. Translator affects it also.

i started in july of 2020 and will just now be finishing it, It wasnt hard to read but there is alot of philosophy and political tangents as well as history pertaining to the story. I did read it in a month in hs but honestly didnt digest anything besides the story of the people. Ive been reading it on and off so that i could reference philosophers names and teachings and get a base for the history and know what he was talking about the story is great but i really read it for the philosophy i.e french socialism, public awareness ect. It really just depends on you and how you feel comfortable taking it in

Megan wrote: "I spent two years on and off reading it :/ Not sure how long I actually spent reading it but it was a struggle!"

Me too :)

Anyone who says they read it in a few days obviously didn't read the full version and only read the abridged version or that they sped through it without actually understanding and digesting the material.

I had the unabridged edition where the story was printed into the five volumes. I think the separate printings helped me finish it faster than I would have otherwise, as I perceived it as five shorter books instead of one ginormous one. In total it took around three months with some breaks for other books scattered in between.
Fantine: June 23, 2020
Cosette: July 16, 2020
Marius: August 5, 2020
Saint-Denis: September 1, 2020
Jean Valjean: September 9, 2020

Finished: September 21, 2020

Ave wrote: "I had the unabridged edition where the story was printed into the five volumes. I think the separate printings helped me finish it faster than I would have otherwise, as I perceived it as five shor..."

Cool! That sounds like a great edition! I also find that reading shorter passages at the time makes me read quicker.

True, shorter passages help break things up! Actually I have a pretty interesting story - my mom is a substitute teacher and one of the twelve-year-old girls in a class she had was reading Les Miserables. She put a sticky note every ten pages and took them out as she read them, and got through the whole thing by the next time my mom saw her, which I was very impressed by.

Ave wrote: "True, shorter passages help break things up! Actually I have a pretty interesting story - my mom is a substitute teacher and one of the twelve-year-old girls in a class she had was reading Les Mise..."

Wow! That's so cool!

About a month and a half, but it sat in my library for three years before I decided to finally pick it up :)

From memory it took me about a month. To read the 1400 pages without taking shortcuts, it does require a commitment. Le Mis is something you really need to read. It stays in your head always.
My Kevin@11 trilogy is 600 pages per book for which, incidentally, the first two books are on a free Amazon promotion for 72 hours this weekend Sat-Mon.

Megan wrote: "I spent two years on and off reading it :/ Not sure how long I actually spent reading it but it was a struggle!"

kSimilar to Sarem by Edward Rutherfurd, is a great biggie, but somehow stops you in your tracks.