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I mention this because Les Misérables is an anomaly: It is a big book—weighty in heft (quite literally), ambitious in theme, and an iconic part of popular culture—that people think they know . . . but don’t. Because they haven’t read it. Unlike The Great Gatsby, it’s a doorstop. Unlike the half dozen novels Jane Austen gave us, it has not become a fixture in reading group circles. And, for better or worse, the narrative is filled with lengthy digressions about the battle of Waterloo, the origins and meaning of “argot,” and (most famously) the Paris sewers. In my obsessively underlined copy of the novel, it is not until the one hundred and second page that Jean Valjean finally steals the bishop’s silver candlesticks.
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