Les Misérables is, as I keep thinking to myself, The Uberbook. At least as far as 1800's European fiction goes. It out-dickens Dickens. It's longer than the fecking Lord of the Rings by a good 3-400 pages. I keep taking breaks to read other books. It's only fair, since Hugo keeps taking 20 or 40 pages out to discuss Monasteries and religion or discourse on Argot and French social politics (several times). I don't mind the constant absurd co-incidences that keep the main plot afloat - I fully accept that they serve to illuminate the more realistic backdrop.

The prose and ideas are excellent in spots; (as I've said before) you might think that given the sheer volume of writing, there are bound to be excellent bits from time to time just by chance. This is however not so, Take David Eddings. And Raymonst Feist. They are proof that it is possible (perhaps even easy) to write thousands of pages and not a memorable phrase in the lot of them. Thus, Monsieur Hugo is doing something exceptional.

The Guardian had it right. I'm looking forward to finishing it, not (only) in bad sense of being done with it, but to find out what happens next.

I got it off BookMooch