Test: James K Robinson Les Miz Abridgement

 

Les Miz in Book Abridgements

Even at this early stage, there's certain story-based events that are present in some versions, but not others. Personally, I'd want to see as many of these as possible, so these have become the Plot Points Table.

I've also included a bullet list of certain writing style aspects that are unwanted and unwelcome, IMHO- artifacts of old 19th century translations that were sometimes carried-over to modern abridgements. This was unnecessary for Monte Cristo but are very relevant to Les Miz.

• Place Name Censorship: "Bishop of Digne" is censored as "Bishop of D-". "Montreuil-sur-Mer" as "M-sur-M-".
• Language Style: Several abridged books contain words that are no longer in standard usage, untranslated French words/sentences or long, complicated sentences that need to be read twice to comprehend it. A reader of an abridged work doesn't have time for that. Keep it simple.
  
• Victor Hugo Rhetorical Questions (VHRQ): It drives me up the wall. There are multiple instances in the text where Hugo asks (the reader) inane questions like, "Where is he/she going?" "Where was he/she?" "What was he/she doing?" "Why is that here?" Hmmmpf, you tell me, Victor Hugo! I have no idea. I'm a noob and I've never been here before. You're the one telling me the story, not me! 
  

Les Miserables. 308 pages, abridged by James K. Robinson. 1961?, pub. Fawcett, Ballantine Books, Dover Publications. Word count: Approx 109,000. Keeps the place-name censorship Language style is old-fashioned VHRQ: present Has a lot about Jean Valjean and very little about Fantine. Pg 7: She arrives in M-sur-M and gets a job and she's earning a living. Jump to Valjean as Mayor Madeleine stuff, Champ Affair and by pg 68, Fantine is sick- why? They talk about the Mayor getting her child- why? Huge chunks are obviously missing. Valjean rescuing Cosette is hugely rushed. All of that is two sentences. No water bucket, no doll, no paying off the Thenns. It reads like this: "That done, he had gone to Montfermeil. On the evening of the same day that Jean Valjean had rescued Cosette [...] he entered Paris again." There's no story here- no details at all!😡 Later, we get a lot of Marius' cousin Theodule stuff (zzzzz). Because he's way more important than Fantine and Cosette (/s). Marius lives poorly in a tenement and practically starves. Yet he pulls out a pistol (p. 152) when his neighbors, the Jondrettes are expecting a visit from their benefactor. Where did the pistol come from? Later, Marius saves LeBlanc (Valjean) by tossing a note that Eponine wrote about "The cops are here" but when was that? We never saw her writing the note! Marius and Cosette meet, but Valjean is displeased and receives a note that tells him to "move out", so he plans on going to England with Cosette. Marius, despondent over not seeing Cosette anymore, gets a message from Eponine to meet his friends at the barricades. What friends? What barricade? How did this get plunked in? Enjolras who? Gavroche who? What are they fighting for and why is Marius joining them? As the book reaches the end, pages and pages (22 of them) are devoted to Marius & Cosette's marriage and their estrangement with Valjean. It's pretty wordy. By the end, Valjean reminisces with Cosette about the water bucket in the woods. Continuity errors, because all of that was edited out earlier in the book. What's he talking about? (Cringes) In a way, this is the worst of all worlds. I'm feeling sorry for kids who were assigned this book at school. 1) The text removes/censors all of the parts regarding Fantine and Cosette's suffering so we don't understand how/why Valjean is a big hero 2) The last few chapters have bad punctuation. Sentences begin with "he" in lower case. 3) It's been so heavily edited that plot points that are important to the narrative are missing, yet there's pages and pages of fairly trivial stuff left intact.4) It says it's based on the Wilbour translation and is just as difficult to read, even as an abridged work 5) The book doesn't claim a copyright and says it's a "standard abridgement of Wilbour's translation" so what exactly did James K. Robinson do, again? The Verdict: Not Recommended. If you're a Les Miz noob, you will get lost. You'd be asking: Who's that? What happened? How did they get there? What is that? Should I care? And there's no reason to need a freakin' dictionary just to read a shortened (but not improved) version of the book. ❌ 1-Fantine sells her teeth and becomes a prostitute ✅ 2-The ship Orion and Valjean's faked death ❌ 3-Cosette and the doll ❌ 4-Thenn chases after Valjean, wanting Cosette back. Valjean blows him off with Fantine's claim letter. ✅ 5-Javert disguises as a beggar/Gorbeau House ❌ 6-Valjean's "Convent Coffin Caper" ✅ 7-Waterloo: Thenn saves Pontmercy ✅ 8-Valjean & Cosette leave convent and move to Rue Plumet in Paris ✅ 9-Eponine/Cosette/Marius Love Triangle ✅ 10-Thenn and thug buddies ambush Valjean in his tenement, and attempt to rob and extort him. ✅ 11-Eponine dies saving Marius ✅ 12-Thenn unlocks the sewers for Valjean for a bribe ✅ 13-Thenn's greed accidentally ends the estrangement between Marius, Cosette and Valjean. They reconcile as Valjean is dying. ✅ 14-Thenn's fate Adaptation Deviation Score: