It’s a brutal story to read, and it sticks with you. Those four lines from the show are, in the book, more than a hundred pages of story about young Fantine, a tragic character whose life goes awry when a selfish prick flees after he gets her pregnant. Those lyrics from I Dreamed a Dream are concise and poignant, and they serve to condense an entire backstory into four lines. He slept a summer by my side He filled my days with endless wonder He took my childhood in his stride But he was gone when autumn cameīy the time you finished reading the quote above, you were singing the melody, weren’t you? Quick example: If you’re a fan of the musical, you’ll quickly recognize these lyrics. I admire the beauty of its music, the raw emotional power of the story it tells, and the skill with which the book was adapted.Īnd I like it even better now that I’ve read the book.
Reading Les Mis will make you appreciate the musical even more.Īmong some fans of the book, you will find a lukewarm reception to the musical, but not here. As soon as you read Les Miserables, you graduate from the massive crowd of people who aspire to read the book into the much more exclusive club of people who actually did it.Īnd joining that club comes with benefits, which leads us to #2. People who finish the great books, particularly the massive tomes of 19th century lit, haven’t just bettered themselves as people. Collecting the experiences of reading them. We will get to the meat of the novel later in the list, and yes, it really is a profound reading experience that’s worth your time even if you never tell a soul you read it…īut we all know that part of the fun of the classics is talking about them. Every bookish person aspires to read Les Mis, but hardly anyone does. Which brings us to the first reason you should read the book. It was the thickest spine on every bookshelf, and it was always, always pristine and brand new with nary a wrinkle on the spine. In the 90s I saw that gray paperback everywhere I went. The Signet Classics edition of Les Mis, the first unabridged English translation to appear in paperback, was a megaseller in the 1990s.
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