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Toilers of the Sea Victor Hugo 9781142060428 Books

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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Toilers of the Sea Victor Hugo 9781142060428 Books

Victor Hugo's Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame are two of the most famous books ever, but his other novels are obscure in English. The Toilers of the Sea is probably his next best known, and though less great than those immortal works, is another masterpiece. Enough of their greatness is present to ensure that anyone who likes them will like it, but it also differs in many ways, meaning those not usually keen on Hugo may enjoy it.

Toilers is certainly not the easiest book to get into. As always with Hugo, there is an incredible amount of exposition; he diametrically opposes present day fiction's cardinal "Show; don't tell!" rule. It must be remembered that photographs were rare, television did not exist, and mass media was unthinkable; readers relied on description to set the scene. Nothing could be taken for granted. This is a large part of the reason that novels through the early twentieth century are so much longer than today's. However, Hugo took this particularly far; he could hardly mention anything - location, person, idea, etc. - without giving a mini essay, or even a full one, about its features, history, and significance and seems addicted to lists. Nineteenth century readers appreciated or even liked this, but it is so different from today's fiction that many will be unable to get past it. This is particularly so in that Hugo makes no attempt to insert them seamlessly; an action scene may be interrupted with twelve or so pages of description. Hugo often seems to forget he is writing a novel, and one can even legitimately call his novels about half non-fiction; some may well forget where the story left off. Toilers has an even higher percentage of this than usual; a fifty page essay about every aspect of the Channel Islands indeed introduces it, and the first fifty or so pages of the story are deep background. As someone who thinks Les Miserables the greatest novel and Hugo the greatest novelist, I admit this is very hard going; I would have given up if it had been almost anyone else. However, I am very glad I did not; as with Les, I would not have cut one word by the end. Hugo masterfully ties it all together, making what seemed superfluous or even perverse in the plot seem inevitable, while the background makes the setting far richer and more believable. Anyone struggling with section one can skip it without significant loss, and most non-narrative sections can be passed over or skimmed without losing the plot. That said, those who do so will miss astonishing detail that makes the book so much deeper, not to mention the writing's sheer brilliance. Even those who think Hugo dreadfully digressive cannot deny the greatness of such passages in themselves; his knowledge's sheer breadth is incredible and his style nearly unmatched. I thus strongly encourage those struggling with Toilers to persevere, even if they find it necessary to skim or get an abridged edition; Hugo at least renders this easy by making non-narrative sections their own chapter and using short chapters generally.

Surprisingly, perhaps even paradoxically, Toilers also has a great amount of high adventure. No one beats Hugo for action when he finally gets down to it; no current thriller writer even approaches him for suspense and excitement. We do not expect such things from nineteenth century works, but Hugo is still supremely entertaining. I guarantee that, hard as it first is to believe, Toilers is almost impossible to put down at several points. Without spoiling anything, suffice it to say that I have read hundreds or thousands of books of all sorts, and this has some of the most exciting scenes. It would be well worth reading for this alone out of sheer escapism.

Of course, as always with Hugo, there is far more. Perhaps most obviously, the characters are wonderfully done. Gilliatt is grand, in some ways reminiscent of Les' immortal Jean Valjean but with many excellent qualities of his own, and Clubin is one of literature's more subtle and memorable villains. The cast is not as large or diverse as other Hugo works', but minor characters are also well-done. Hugo's place evocation is also hardly to be equaled. He dedicates Toilers to the Isle of Guernsey, where he lived in exile, and Toilers overflows with his love of the Channel Islands and surrounding area. His lush descriptions are unforgettable, making an area utterly foreign to nearly everyone seem very real. We can learn a great amount about them, as well as many other things; Hugo was far more than a novelist, and it is impossible not to appreciate and be enlightened by the great amount and variety of information. Only a novelist who was also a poet could write as beautifully as he does, but he goes well beyond what anyone could have expected to include significant amounts of geography, oceanography, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, theology, history, engineering, architecture, biology, meteorology, physics, chemistry, and seemingly everything else. The wealth of data is daunting, and no current reader will get all the contemporary and historical references; anyone wanting to really follow Hugo will need a dictionary and extensive Googling. However, one can get the gist easily enough, and Hugo's detail has an advantage that he likely did not foresee - it lets twenty-first century readers make sense of the book and its world, which would have been impossible otherwise without extensive notes.

This would of course not be a Hugo novel without a healthy dose of weighty themes, and Toilers has more of them than most books despite avoiding his usually overt social/political/theological framework. His main intent was to show Nature's immensity and humanity's difficulty in combating it, which the book does brilliantly; indeed, very few works approach its handling of this common theme. Toilers is also a towering testament to human endurance and vividly shows the harmful effects of poverty, xenophobia, class conflict, and capitalism; it is also an unforgettable portrayal of love's dark side.

All told, though less ambitious and transcendentally great than Hugo's best-known novels, Toilers is an epic of eternal greatness that would be nearly anyone else's masterpiece. It is a must for anyone interested in great literature.

Product details Paperback 342 pages Publisher Nabu Press (January 1, 2010) Language English ISBN-10 114206042X

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Toilers of the Sea Victor Hugo 9781142060428 Books Reviews

A great sea classic. A terrific writer addressing a terrific story about a particularly interesting area and time. The mechanical details described in the story seem accurate. The author goes into great detail and back stories in his descriptions and it may get tedious sometimes, interrupting the flow of the story, but it is a different time and a different place. The story is still very interesting, and I would recommend it.
Glad I read it with a group! I really didn't catch a lot of this book, and my take on it was so different from those I read it with.

Victor Hugo said that man struggles against three things religion, nature, and society. Then he proceeded to write about each of those stuggles. Les Mis is man's struggle against society; Hunchback is man's struggle against religion, and Toilers of the Sea is man's struggle against nature.

In typical Hugo fashion, this book has lots of descriptions of the area the book is set in. There are whole chapters (lots of them) where nothing happens to further the story line. But of course the writing is beautiful and ennobling.
I remember reading this book in Spanish in my adolescent years, and was impacted by the force of the descriptions of Gilliatt's quest and the masterful narrative by Victor Hugo. For me, now as a senior citizen of the world, this book became a standard against which I have read many books since then. The fact that this is a reproduction of an early edition makes it even more enjoyable, giving it a flavor of the time it was published in. Of course, minor errors are still there, but they do not detract from the work of art created by Hugo.
I would not normally give a book only 2 stars but, for me, "Toilers of the Sea" was very disappointing. I tried hard to find a plot line to follow, couldn't pick up on any romance and the descriptive passages, which Hugo enjoyed indulging himself in, were often seemingly off on a tangent, giving me the impression the author had also lost the plot .
I have loved Hugo's work when translated to the big screen or stage but have not succeeded in finishing any of his book. I guess this great author is not for me.
This is one of my all time favorite books, I read it on kindle and so loved it that bought this edition paperback. Unfortunately, the print is SO TINY it can't be read without a magnifying glass, the pages are laid out in two columns (like a Bible) even if the print were larger, the format is very annoying and difficult to read. I had to request refund/return which was handled immediately by CS (the best CS on the planet)
This is NOT about the novel itself, which I have not read yet -- it is about the book. When other reviewers have stated that the text is too small to read, change this to "the text is ridiculously small and all but unreadable even with magnification."
I had never heard of this Hugo book but found it after reading Les Miserables. While not as well known, Toilers of the Sea is a well-told tale of adventure and fortitude with the same kind of character development Hugo's other books contain. A masterful use of language.
Victor Hugo's Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame are two of the most famous books ever, but his other novels are obscure in English. The Toilers of the Sea is probably his next best known, and though less great than those immortal works, is another masterpiece. Enough of their greatness is present to ensure that anyone who likes them will like it, but it also differs in many ways, meaning those not usually keen on Hugo may enjoy it.

Toilers is certainly not the easiest book to get into. As always with Hugo, there is an incredible amount of exposition; he diametrically opposes present day fiction's cardinal "Show; don't tell!" rule. It must be remembered that photographs were rare, television did not exist, and mass media was unthinkable; readers relied on description to set the scene. Nothing could be taken for granted. This is a large part of the reason that novels through the early twentieth century are so much longer than today's. However, Hugo took this particularly far; he could hardly mention anything - location, person, idea, etc. - without giving a mini essay, or even a full one, about its features, history, and significance and seems addicted to lists. Nineteenth century readers appreciated or even liked this, but it is so different from today's fiction that many will be unable to get past it. This is particularly so in that Hugo makes no attempt to insert them seamlessly; an action scene may be interrupted with twelve or so pages of description. Hugo often seems to forget he is writing a novel, and one can even legitimately call his novels about half non-fiction; some may well forget where the story left off. Toilers has an even higher percentage of this than usual; a fifty page essay about every aspect of the Channel Islands indeed introduces it, and the first fifty or so pages of the story are deep background. As someone who thinks Les Miserables the greatest novel and Hugo the greatest novelist, I admit this is very hard going; I would have given up if it had been almost anyone else. However, I am very glad I did not; as with Les, I would not have cut one word by the end. Hugo masterfully ties it all together, making what seemed superfluous or even perverse in the plot seem inevitable, while the background makes the setting far richer and more believable. Anyone struggling with section one can skip it without significant loss, and most non-narrative sections can be passed over or skimmed without losing the plot. That said, those who do so will miss astonishing detail that makes the book so much deeper, not to mention the writing's sheer brilliance. Even those who think Hugo dreadfully digressive cannot deny the greatness of such passages in themselves; his knowledge's sheer breadth is incredible and his style nearly unmatched. I thus strongly encourage those struggling with Toilers to persevere, even if they find it necessary to skim or get an abridged edition; Hugo at least renders this easy by making non-narrative sections their own chapter and using short chapters generally.

Surprisingly, perhaps even paradoxically, Toilers also has a great amount of high adventure. No one beats Hugo for action when he finally gets down to it; no current thriller writer even approaches him for suspense and excitement. We do not expect such things from nineteenth century works, but Hugo is still supremely entertaining. I guarantee that, hard as it first is to believe, Toilers is almost impossible to put down at several points. Without spoiling anything, suffice it to say that I have read hundreds or thousands of books of all sorts, and this has some of the most exciting scenes. It would be well worth reading for this alone out of sheer escapism.

Of course, as always with Hugo, there is far more. Perhaps most obviously, the characters are wonderfully done. Gilliatt is grand, in some ways reminiscent of Les' immortal Jean Valjean but with many excellent qualities of his own, and Clubin is one of literature's more subtle and memorable villains. The cast is not as large or diverse as other Hugo works', but minor characters are also well-done. Hugo's place evocation is also hardly to be equaled. He dedicates Toilers to the Isle of Guernsey, where he lived in exile, and Toilers overflows with his love of the Channel Islands and surrounding area. His lush descriptions are unforgettable, making an area utterly foreign to nearly everyone seem very real. We can learn a great amount about them, as well as many other things; Hugo was far more than a novelist, and it is impossible not to appreciate and be enlightened by the great amount and variety of information. Only a novelist who was also a poet could write as beautifully as he does, but he goes well beyond what anyone could have expected to include significant amounts of geography, oceanography, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, theology, history, engineering, architecture, biology, meteorology, physics, chemistry, and seemingly everything else. The wealth of data is daunting, and no current reader will get all the contemporary and historical references; anyone wanting to really follow Hugo will need a dictionary and extensive Googling. However, one can get the gist easily enough, and Hugo's detail has an advantage that he likely did not foresee - it lets twenty-first century readers make sense of the book and its world, which would have been impossible otherwise without extensive notes.

This would of course not be a Hugo novel without a healthy dose of weighty themes, and Toilers has more of them than most books despite avoiding his usually overt social/political/theological framework. His main intent was to show Nature's immensity and humanity's difficulty in combating it, which the book does brilliantly; indeed, very few works approach its handling of this common theme. Toilers is also a towering testament to human endurance and vividly shows the harmful effects of poverty, xenophobia, class conflict, and capitalism; it is also an unforgettable portrayal of love's dark side.

All told, though less ambitious and transcendentally great than Hugo's best-known novels, Toilers is an epic of eternal greatness that would be nearly anyone else's masterpiece. It is a must for anyone interested in great literature.