Check-In: Les Misérables

My intention was to have done a check-in long before now. I was really hoping to have a regular check-in schedule but got caught up in over-analyzing it, like I often do with things. I really am amazed I ever got this blog up and started. I'm one of those people who have a hard time officially starting something until it suits me perfectly. Laura Ingalls Wilder said it best, "We'd never get anything fixed to suit us if we waited for things to suit us before we started." Seriously, this is the story of my life! I am working on it...

Anyway, I am reading the Norman Denny translation because, of the three I tried, I like the way it read the best. I do own a Kindle, but decided I wanted this for my home bookshelf. I bought the Penguin Classics version (pictured below) and am really pleased with it. My schedule is pretty easy: twenty-five pages a week, Wednesday to Wednesday (that's the day of the week I started it on and have just gone with it). If I continue being consistent with my schedule, I should finish in mid-December, giving me a couple of weeks until my 2014 year-long reading challenge. The only thing I regret is having made this a year-long challenge. I could have easily done it in six months, but had some Facebook friends who wanted to join me. We started the read-along with ten women participating and are already down to just three.

I've enjoyed the musical since junior high school and can't for the life of me figure out why I didn't pick up the book then. The release of the most recent movie got me to thinking about how I had yet to read the book. Normally I am the type of person to just pick up a book and read it until I'm done, with no other books on the side. I had several reading commitments for the months of January and February, so I thought I'd try my hand at reading a second book slowly on the side. I'm really enjoying this arrangement because I don't feel as guilty reading twaddle (mindless drivel) when I know I spend some part of my week with something more challenging.

I have completed Part One: Fantine, and am about 30 pages into Part Two. It is wordy and descriptive, but in a worthwhile way. The characters are slowly built up, with lots of background stories about each of them. I'll admit that this can be tedious at times, particularly where I am right now with the detailed background on the Battle of Waterloo, but I just keep reminding myself that this was how books were written before stories and images were thrown at us in quick succession via television and video games. Overall, though, I'm enjoying having all the cracks filled in and getting to know all of the characters better.