Les Misérables

I must have had twenty people tell me this book is their favorite book ever. One thousand four hundred pages seemed like a lot, so I decided to go abridged. Not sure one should ever try abridged and translated. (When Marius, in the last third of the story, finds a sign saying “Remove”, for example, I was completely lost. Not “remove”, I learned later, but “go away”.)

What a story, nevertheless. The plot centers on a young man, Valjean, who steals a loaf of bread to feed his sister's family and is thrown in prison for this. Once released, Valjean is denied work, for he must present a passport tainted by his time in prison. A priest finds him in the streets and takes him in. Valjean steals the valuable objects from the church and runs away, but he is captured. When confronted by the priest, the priest denies Valjean stole the objects and even gives Valjean additional items, reminding Valjean of a (false) promise he made to the priest to turn his life around.

If this intrigues, then read the whole novel. It's a series of these sorts of reversals and twists of fortune and little acts of grace. Absolutely fascinating.