tbr

I enjoyed this volume as much as the first. The story continues with Marius desperate to find Cosette again, but without knowing her name or address, he sepairs of it ever happening. But fate plays a hand when he overhears his neighbours planning the robbery of a rich man, who turns out to be Valjean and the neighbours?...Therandiers! The story moves quickly, with the two lovers finding each other and the fight Marius has with his grandfather over his wish to marry...only Paris is in revolt and soon Marius is caught up in the fight.

Again, this novel's only fault is the way that it meanders off to explore things of slight consequence to the story...such as the whole chapter on the history of the Paris sewers! But when the story has it's say, you are hooked. The characters are so much larger than life, that you just have to find out what happens to them. The fight at the Barrier is poignant and sad, with a lot of people we have come to know losing their life. The ending is sad, although happy for some. Each character thrives or dies as fits his portayal. The only story that I found a little weird, was the ending of Javert...without spoiling it, I thought that it was too much out of character to be realistic. Still, it was a fantastic novel that I may well return to sometime in the future. For now, it can go out and find new readers to entertain.

Some quotes that I liked:

"Algebra applies to the clouds; the radience of the star benefits the rose; no thinker would dare to say that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Then who can calculate the path of the molecule? how do we not know that the creation of the worlds are not determined by the fall of grains of sand? Who then understands the reciprocal flux and reflux of the infinatley great and the infinately small, the echoing of causes in the abysses of being, and the avalances of creation? A flesh-worm is of account, the small is great, the great is small; all is in equilibrium in neccesity; fearful vision for the mind. Ther are marvellous relatuins between beings and things; in this inexhaustible whole, from sun to grub, there is no scorn; all need each other. Light does not carry terrestial perfumes into the azure depths without knowing what it does with them; night distributes the stellar essence to the sleepog plants. Every bird which flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw. Germination includes the hatching of a meteor and the tap of a swallow's bill breaking the egg, and it leads forward the birth of an earthworm and the advent of Socrates. Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the grander view? Choose. A bit of mould is a pleid of flowers; a nebula is an anthill of the stars. The same promiscuity, and still more wonderful, between the things of the intellect and the things of matter. Elements and principles are mingled, combined, espoused , multiplied one by another, to such a degree as to bring the material world and the moral world into the same light. Phenomena are pepertually folded back upon themsleves. In the vast cosimical changes, the universal life comes and goes in unknown quantities, rolling all in the invisible mystery of the emanations, losing no dream from no single sleep, sowing an animalcule here, crumbling a star there, oscillating and winding, making a force of light and an element of thought, disseminated and indivisible, dissolving all, save that geometrical point, the me; reducing everthing to the soul-atom; making everything blossom into God; entangling, from the highest to the lowest, all activities in the obscurity of a dizzying mechanism, hanging the flight of an incect upon the movement of the earth, subordinating, who knows? where it only by the the identity of the law, the evolutions of the comets in the firmament to the circling of the infusoria in the drop of water. A machine made of mind. Enormous gearing, whose first motor is the gnat, and whole last wheel is the zodiac."

Also see page 636, for some lively quotes on the nature of love.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Sent in a box of books as a major RABCK - hope you enjoy them all!

Thought you had made a mistake to start by sending the same book twice, silly me - part 1 and part 2!!!!

20 Jan 12 - This seems to have taken an age to read, but I've finally got there. Overall I enjoyed the story and was pleased to find out what happened to all the characters. At times I was completely hooked and could not put the book down, but he does tend to go off on a tangent or give you the history is something which although relevant is not necessarily needed in my opinion. Am really interested to see how this has been translated I to a musical and an looking forward to seeing the film or the stage show or both! :-)

Following volume 1 to Jpix - safe travels little book.

Thanks very much kingfan30 for sending me the 1st and 2nd volumes of this book, which has been on my wishlist for years. This is number 114 in the BBC Big Read top 200.

As I said for the first volume, this was a great story and I loved all the parts involving the characters, but I found the long diversions into history and other tangents quite boring. Having said that, I preferred meandering off into the Paris sewers in volume 2 to the battle of Waterloo in volume 1. Now I've read the book I want to go back and watch the film again.

Sent as a RABCK to wal-89, enjoy!

Received with Volume 1, thank you so much for sending. I am looking forward to reading this book. Added to Mount TBR.

It took me ages but I finally read this book! I really enjoyed the story, even though there were lots of parts of the book which seemed to drag! Overall, it's a good read with lots to keep you interested. Would recommend but only to those who have the time to commit. Wild released somewhere last year =)