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Translation Is Rich In Detail

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By ROGER K. MILLER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 31, 2008

"Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo; translated by Julie Rose (Modern Library, $28)

This may be the veriest heresy to admirers of Victor Hugo, but the main idea of "Les Miserables" is absurd, you know:

A relentless, 20-year chase of a saintly ex-convict, Jean Valjean, by a monomaniacal police inspector named Javert. An absurd idea propelled absurdly along by its primary plot mechanism, a wildly improbable series of coincidences.

But absurdity and outrageous coincidence are the stock-in-trade of the movies, so it is no surprise that "Les Miserables" has been filmed so often. Six versions from 1935 to 1998 are listed in "Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide."

Then, of course, there is the magnificent story. The ecstasy and the genius of "Les Miserables," as literature, rather than film, lie in how wonderfully Hugo triumphs over these absurdities. The telling of the story (marvelously captured in this new unabridged translation by Julie Rose) is so splendid that, for the reader, a job of work becomes a labor of love in observing how Hugo has snatched dramatic art from the jaws of melodrama.

Every third novel that comes off the presses these days, especially if it's fat, is trumpeted as an "epic," but this is one fat book that really is an epic. It achieves that state by satisfying in such a variety of ways. For one thing, it offers one of the most delightful pleasures of fiction: learning about other worlds and other times.

Then there is Hugo's sympathy for "les miserables" themselves, the background population of the novel. And, while it is far from a swashbuckler, "Les Miserables" is more than occasionally exciting, as when Valjean, briefly returned to prison, saves a seaman's life, or when he is almost buried alive.

And, of course, the famous Paris sewers scene. I guarantee you will read every word, every article, definite and indefinite, of Valjean's struggle to escape through the pestilential sewers carrying Marius on his back. Having pushed through more than 1,000 pages, you are not going to balk at slogging through the muck with the hero.

Basically the book's structure is like a funnel, with everything narrowing until the remaining characters, whose paths have crossed and recrossed so many times, merge into the pressure of one great denouement - the recognition of Jean Valjean and of his goodness.

You may tire of the novel's length. You never tire of its story.

Roger K. Miller, author of the novel "Invisible Hero," writes the blog grau stark.blogspot.com.

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