The abridged PDF version of "Les Misérables" retains the core themes of the original novel:
When Hugo interrupts the narrative to spend 40 pages describing the specific geography of the Battle of Waterloo, modern readers often groan. We are trained to value "pacing." But Hugo is not wasting your time; he is setting the stage for the intervention of God. He is showing that history is a chaotic storm, and that the survival of Marius—or the fall of Thénardier—is dictated by the mud of Mont-Saint-Jean. To cut the history is to strip the characters of the heavy gravity of the real world they inhabit. les miserables abridged pdf