Les Misérables [Paperback]

When a publisher announces the first unabridged translation of a world classic in over a hundred years, one has to get excited. But then you see it is by the same Julie Rose who recently mangled Dumas' LE CHEVALIER DE MAISON-ROUGE. Ms. Rose makes so many obvious mistakes in LES MISERABLES that one really doubts her fluency in French. But more seriously (!), it is her approach to the craft of translation that is really the problem. Ms. Rose is of the hip and groovy school. Nineteenth century peasants should of course sound like Paris Hilton. This makes the book less "stuffy" and more palatable to the "general reader". For example Hugo's Tholomyès is "un viveur de trente ans, mal conservé"; that is, a bon vivant of thirty, in bad shape. Rose's is "a wasted high roller of thirty". The MTV phrase "wasted" would be bad enough, but then she has to throw in another anachronistic expression "high roller". This means a serious gambler, not the same thing at all.

Graham Robb, the biographer of Hugo, found numerous serious errors in this translation incl. that the Duke of Clarence was drowned in a butt of malmsey ("une tonne de malvoisie"), rather than Rose's ridiculous "a tun of marsala" and that the "sacre" of Charles X was his coronation not his "consecration". Marius was not "fierce" with pretty girls (Rose) but "shy" ("farouche"). And on and on. An amateur but arrogant production all the way, and a real disgrace.

The original Wilbour translation, which was quite respectable, was revised and corrected by Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAffe for Signet some years ago. It is still available and is by every standard superior.

August, 2012 note: Penguin has announced a new translation for the fall to be published in an attractive hardcover:
Les Miserables (Penguin Classics).

November, 2012 note: Just received the Penguin hardcover. Although they announced a "new translation", it is merely a reprint of Norman Denny's "free" and abridged adaptation.

Many years ago, while commuting from Scotch Plains to Manhattan and back, I made use of my commute time to read some very big books. Some, like Larry McMurty's LONESOME DOVE, were magisterial in story, setting and character. Some were Dumas' THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (a killer of a tale). And then there was LES MISERABLES.

I was 26 years old and had never read such a sprawling narrative that commanded my attention like a murder mystery. Jean Valjean was Everyman, and so Hugo's heart touched mine. I read his prose like someone starving for inspiration and story, and read both. As I recall, I read the Penguin edition, circa 1984. It was stirring, clear, compelling.The dialogue doetailed beautifully between the French idiom and American English.

I never saw the musical of the same name, but respect those who did.

Then Julie Rose's version was published, and after reading snippets of some pivotal chapters, I had to purchase a copy, and I'm thrilled I did. Rose's translation is more arresting than the version I read so many years ago, than those I've examined since. Some translators don't "get" idiomatic phrases in a source language, and so much of what we say to one another is idiomatic, and cannot be translated literally.

Rose understands both the idiom and the importance of immediacy in THE Romantic novel of the modern Western canon. Jean Valjean's story is one of fateful coincidence, loss, fear, grief and redemption. Hugo's sub-plots are extensive and yet, unlike the Russian masters, he weaves these into the central narrative seamlessly.

If you love political suspense, mystery, romance, and an author's sheer ability to tell a very long story and give it wings, please purchase this version. Rose will not disappoint you, and at roughly one-third off retail,the posted price barely buys two movie tickets.

Reading LES MISERABLES is one of the only experiences that made New Jersey Transit tolerable in those days. And on those late nights when the loneliness of the Port Authority became overwhelming, Hugo's masterpiece took me to another place.

I cannot write about this book with critical authority, only to say I loved it. I cannot recommend this translation on the basis of scholarly training, because I never received in in this field.

But I know what I like, and Rose's translation is a smash.

As for the size of the book, buy an extra pillow and settle back. You won't regret it.

I have to say that this is one of the most captivating and masterful books I have ever read. Victor Hugo has a very unique writing style and I feel that this is something that the translator should try to reproduce as closely as possible. While the book is certainly not abridged, it is edited in other ways that don't make sense. The translator adds her own voice to the translation, especially by inserting contractions and modern prose. I understand that one of the purposes for creating a new translation was to make the old-fashioned prose easier to read and understand. There are certainly many horrible editions out there that are both hard and painful to read. However, the book sometimes comes off as casual and out of place, since it is so grounded in historial detail.

The main problem I have with this edition is that it doesn't exactly supply the right emotional depth that was in the original. I first read the Signet Classics edition, which is very literally translated at times during the dialogue, but translates the meaning behind the characters' words very well. In that edition, the dialouge seemed stilted but gave a better tone to every scene. Julie Rose's dialogue is easier to read and sounds right to American readers, but she often makes changes and additions to Hugo's writing that don't feel right. To me, it sometimes fails to convey the emotion behind the scene. Making something easier to read should not be the main goal of the translator. And while she mentions in her introduction that the book was very dear to her and she was careful in rewriting it, there are some moments in the book when the writing seems awkward even if you're reading it for the first time. Compare referring to someone as 'a beautiful slab of marble' to 'a beautiful statue.' The choice is the translator's, but it seems at times that she didn't think hard enough about how her writing sounded. Her writing is far improved from those editions that translated a chapter entitled "The Blotter Talks" as "A Drinker is a Babbler", because she can capture the actual meaning of the French words and switch it into understandable English, but it feels like something is missing from the original.

Since it is possible (though extremely difficult) for me to read the French original, I will probably have more complaints about the translation than those who are reading the book for the first time. If that's the case, I would recommend the Signet edition, particularly if you already feel daunted by the size. The Julie Rose translation is actually larger and longer than the French original, and since she adds rather than deducts from nearly every passage, it can be hard to read. To me, the Signet edition retains the feel of the original and better reproduces the characters. While the writing is much clearer than the original translation and many other editions, it isn't contemporary, and it may be easier for you to read Rose's edition. In either case the book is magnificent, but if you read and love one translation, I would look at the other just to compare. You'd be surprised just how different they are.