Les Miserables read-a-long 2026 | Première Partie (1)

[AgualusasL0ver]

Welcome to the first thread of the Les Miserables Read-a-long.

I'll be using the Christine Donougher translation for posting in the main, but it doesn't matter which translation you have, they seem to follow the same breakdown. I have not seen the film, the musical, and have very little knowledge about the book, but suspect I will be doing all of these Christmas 2026.

The only rules
The plan is to read ONE chapter a day and contribute/follow the thread as you see fit. There are c. 365 chapters, so we plan to take the year to read slowly and really get under the skin. Sometimes we have clustered chapters in past read-a-longs, and people do sometimes read ahead. All fine - but No spoilers until the relevant day.

Notes from previous read-a-longs

• How you manage one a day is entirely up to you, some people prefer to store them and read all the chapters for the week at once, some read each day.
• Sometimes these books can go off on a tangent all their own (looking at Mr Tolstoy), stick with it :-)
• All formats and translations welcome. Sometimes the translation discussions are some of the most interesting conversations.
• You WILL get behind at some point, but don't worry, just catch up when you can.
• Tangents, things you discovered down a rabbit hole, articles, pod casts, clips of epic scenes when we get to them all very welcome on the thread.

Spoiler free summary , courtesy of Chat GPT below. Schmoop has book summaries so I will post those at the relevant points.

**

Les Misérables is a classic novel by Victor Hugo that explores justice, compassion, and the struggle for dignity in 19th-century France.
At its core, the book follows the lives of several interconnected characters from different social classes as they navigate poverty, law, love, and moral choice. Rather than focusing on a single hero or plotline, the novel paints a wide picture of society—showing how personal decisions are shaped by systems like the legal system, economic inequality, and social expectations.
Key themes include:

• Justice vs. mercy — how laws affect people differently, and whether strict punishment leads to fairness
• Redemption and moral growth — the possibility of change, even after hardship
• Poverty and inequality — the daily realities of people living on the margins
• Love and sacrifice — care for others as a powerful force for good
• Social responsibility — how individual actions impact the wider community

The novel is known for:

• Deep character development
• Emotional intensity
• Philosophical reflections on society and humanity
• Detailed descriptions of history and everyday life

Overall, Les Misérables is less about a single storyline and more about asking big questions:
What does it mean to be a good person? How should society treat its most vulnerable? And can compassion change lives?

Am I the only one wondering when the reverse is going to come re: M Myriel? Like, when is the real scam going to come out? The carriage allowance incident seemed like it was going that way, then the locals are proved wrong as that money too went to charitable causes. But nobody is completely blameless surely? Or is that just late 20th/early 21st century cynicism lol

Can I just check… have people read all of chapter 1, of have they read the first two parts of chapter 1.
I’ve just stopped after the explanation of he became known as Monseigneur Bienvenu

@NorthFaceofthelaundrypile - I have read the first two parts of Chapter 1 (about 5 pages in total!)

Our Bishop is a genuine Christian - putting others before himself. It's heartwarming and I already hope he doesn't turn out to be a wrong un.

Likewise, I thought it hilarious that the maid finally thought she wasn't going to have to scrimp once they received the carriage allowance and the Bishop then allocated it all to good causes.

Just read chapters 1 and 2. Took all of 5 minutes! I love the descriptions of the 2 women and how different they are meant to be. The Bishop is a true Christian, I love him already. And to the PP who asked, yes he is the Bishop from the musical, at least the have the same name and I was picturing Colm Wilkinson as I was reading.

@NorthFaceofthelaundrypile my version doesn't have parts for chapter 1.

Have read the second chapter now and it seems the Bishop’s vocation is real! Very interesting how much money he gives to education, including of girls. I am getting a good impression of Victor Hugo through this already - I don’t know much about him and I wanted to read some of his work before looking at his biography.

It feels like VH is laying it on quite thick with explaining how good the bishop is but I guess we need to understand why he behaves as he does later on, that it’s a core value and perhaps shows him up in stark contrast to Javerre (sp)? I’m feeling like VH is almost dealing in stereotypes, but this may have been very deliberate to get his feelings about things across……🤷🏻‍♀️

Yes, chapters are super short, I think chapter 10 hits - 6.5 pages!

Today is: (Donougher)
Part one: Fantine
Book one: A good man
Chapter II: Monsieur Myriel Becomes Monseigneur Bienvenu

Tomorrow, 3 Jan
chapter III, For a Good Bishop, a Demanding Bishopric
1.5 pages

I think it says somewhere he was a « refractory priest, » during the Revolution, which would mean he had real principles that put him at odds with the government of the time and therefore in serious danger (my copy is upstairs, will refresh memory later).

At one point in the Revolution, the government made the clergy, who had been a powerful force in the Assemblé Nationale, swear allegiance to the Republic and not the Pope. Many couldn’t bring themselves to do this (so were « refractory ») and either fled or were killed (in the west of France they either sent clergy into punitive exile or even executed them in mass drownings). Meanwhile the Pope was working with Austria and other countries to muster forces to invade France and restore the monarchy. Although Italy wasn’t entirely quiet (as Napoleon invaded later on), it was a better place to be at least whilst Robespierre was still alive.

It mentions his move to Italy, so that makes sense in that context.

I think the short chapters may become a blessing later on from what I remember.

Loved the Bishop getting the carriage money and giving it away. Also him moving the hospital into his palace.

Think I’d missed the whole idea of M Myriel being a womaniser and then changing to become a better person as a priest/bishop when I read it before.

I’m thinking Pope Francis might have got on well with the Bishop.

But OMG I’ve been deceived by my kindle and I’ve read all the way through Book I and Book II as my kindle said they were the chapters. Not deliberate!

My next chapter is In the Year 1817

Imagine if there was Book 1 x 365 😮

Enjoying so far, it’s a nice chatty style and more readable than perhaps I expected. Loved the swapping of the hospital and the bishop’s palace!

I've just read Chapter 2 in English - can anyone help me with the last sentence? What's going on there?

(In Donougher)

We would not say that the portrait we have presented here is one that seems very likely; all we say is that it is very like.

(In my Esperanto version, translated by Centezimala)

Ni ne pretendas, ke la portreto, kiun ni skizas ĉi tie, estas verŝajna; ni nur diras, ke ĝi estas vera. (We do not pretend that the portrait we have outlined here is likely, we only say that it is true)

I just downloaded the French edition from Kindle Unlimited to check and that has:

Nous ne prétendons pas que le portrait que nous faisons ici soit vraisemblable; nous nous bornons à dire qu’il est ressemblant.

I assume both translators are trying to echo the similar sounds of vraisemblable and reseemblant with verŝajna and vera in Esperanto and 'very likely' and 'very like' in English; and I get that that is part of the translator's art, to echo the author's language. But where the Esperanto sentence is perfectly grammatical, the English kind of stopped me in my tracks a bit, because it's just, well, not!

Would someone reading something English and not Donougher care to share the last two sentences of chapter 2?

Or perhaps I'm just missing something entirely :)

I just found there’s a free French edition on kindle and read the last chapter in the original as well. It’s actually very simply written in French and way easier to read than I thought it would be (only because I had already read the translation though!)

I read slightly more than I’d intended last night as I was enjoying it and finding it more readable than I thought I would.

I have the most tremendous sense of dread. I don’t know the story other than it doesn’t stay this nice and charitable.

@Waawo isn’t the English just saying very like in the sense that it would be used eg in Austen - a very good likeness. In other words not a likely portrait (as men of such goodness are not commonly found) but one which is very like he actually was (because he WAS that good).

Yes I think so, I'm just not convinced I've ever seen that construction before, at least it's never stood out so much.

BUT ngram suggests that as a sentence ending "is very like." did have a moment in the sun in the mid 19th century, so Christine Donougher is in fact much cleverer than me and I'll just stop arguing with the translator!

Here's the Hapgood translation of that last sentence:
"We do not claim that the portrait herewith presented is probable; we confine ourselves to stating that it resembles the original."

The description of the people thinking he was awful for taking all his expenses reminded me so much of nowadays when people do the same for local politicians. We had a local councillor who didn’t take any expenses then actually realised it was better to claim them and donate them to local causes if they weren’t personally needed and I thought it was interesting we had that same situation in ch2. I’m now wondering if our councillor read the book before deciding to do that. 🤣

I checked my copy and it doesn’t say he was a refractory priest - sorry I must have got that somewhere else! It does give a lot of information in the notes at the back on the real person M Myriel was based on, a M Miollis who really was Bishop of Digne. There’s some reference there to his not supporting Napoleon during the Cent-Jours and I must have got mixed up somewhere!
So we still have a mystery as to what happened in Italy to make him become a priest!

@Waawo the Denny translation has: “We do not claim that the portrait we are making is the whole truth, only that it is a resemblance”.

I don’t think “the whole truth” is a good translation of “vraisemblable” - it suggests there is some hidden secret about the bishop. The Donougher and Hapgood translations seem to be closer to the original in that respect. But the second half of the sentence does fit with the original. I think the overall intended meaning is as @Onceuponatimethen says.

I’m fairly certain that I remember learning that vraisemblance was a concept in 17th century drama. It’s why the tragedies of authors like Racine and Corneille sometimes depart from the Greek myth. The authors weren’t realist in the 19th century sense of the world, as they were writing about gods & goddesses etc., but they did feel that the emotional like of the characters ought to have a sense of truth or authenticity so they would change the source myths to achieve that.

Vraisemble/ vraisemblance literally means “true seem” but if I was translating it into English, I might also use plausible/ plausibility; believable/believability or authentic/ authenticity as well as truth-seeming. The reader has to believe that a character’s actions are in keeping with their personality/ nature. It’s a great concept and one that I often think about when posting my 50 book reviews.

Whether or not that influenced Hugo, I don’t know but I think we do have to bear in mind that his literary heritage would be very different to ours so there may be subtle cultural / literary references that we overlook. For example Racine and Shakespeare might have been writing tragedies in the same century, but they are very different types of dramatists.