Les Miserables read-a-long 2026 | Deuxième Partie (2)

[Pashazade]

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

I've taken over from AgualusasL0ver in trying to keep us all reading together, but have copied the below over from the first thread.

I'll also be using the Christine Donougher translation (on Kindle) for posting in the main, but it doesn't matter which translation you have, they seem to follow the same breakdown.
It's a bit sprawly in places, some people have entire sections in the appendices, so I've started adding the first line of the chapter to try and lock in exactly where we are for that day, hopefully it helps us all keep together!

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?

Ah that's a coincidence @Waawo , I love it when different reads intersect!

I'm just catching up again. I thought Marius' letter (if you can call it a letter? it's more like a philosophical treatise) was far too long, abstract and pompous. But cleary Cosette thought otherwise, ha. I agree that Marius' stalking of Cosette was rather creepy, but I suppose I can forgive him somewhat on the grounds that it's his first experience of love himself. If he were some kind of die-hard rake or Don Juan stalking Cosette, it would be worse. But he and Cosette are equally besotted and equally naive.

Yes, Gavroche is a great character! I was thinking how much I loved his use of slang (and how he's teaching it to his younger brothers). But then in today's chapter, there is so much slang that Hugo has to translate it for his readers in footnotes. And there are even different types of argot: one character speaks classic old-school argot, while another speaks new modern argot. OK, I thought, that's enough slang now. I then realised that the next four chapters are entirely devoted to the topic of ... slang. 😂Oh dear. Hugo is just so Hugo. He's proud of his knowledge of street talk, but he never wears his knowledge lightly. Never mind.

Like you @DuPainDuVinDuFromage I noticed the zoo animals being treated better than the actual children! I couldn't picture the elephant, so I looked it up and found the wikipedia page, which has some good pictures😀https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_of_the_Bastille

Is there some connection between this Elephant and the Elephant and Castle?

Cross-posted with you about slang, @Pashazade !

The slang reminds me of Rabelais, an earlier French writer, whose prose is also full of slang terms (necessitating lots of seriously erudite footnotes by scholars of today, which is kind of funny given that in Rabelais' case, so much of this vocabulary is related to pissing, shitting and fucking 😳)

I relied heavily on the English translation today because the building vocabulary was A LOT.

Back on the elephant tangent, I was confused about Hugo saying the elephant was eventually replaced by a giant stovepipe. I then learned that this is Hugo's mocking term for the July Column
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Column

It's hard to believe a father could be as heartless as Thenardier, especially when he has a son like Gavroche.

Btw I enjoyed Hugo's sarcasm at the start of today's chapter, when he explained that old-fashioned 'dungeons' have been replaced by modern 'punishment cells', which just happen to have exactly the same components as... dungeons. That type of satire reminds me of Dickens.

Good question Piggy, I think they're different versions of the same symbol. I went back to wikipedia again, and there's some interesting info (you have to scroll down the page past 'howdah' to 'elephant and castle symbol'. The thing on the elephant's back is apparently a howdah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howdah#Elephant_and_castle_symbol

So it looks like Elephant & Castle is a separate thing entirely named after a pub originally on that site which was named for the cutlers guild who had an elephant on their crest because of the ivory they used for handles.
Parisiennes on the other hand a thing for elephants and there are records for several monumental elephants. It made me think of the Moulin Rouge one which existed a bit later. But there had been a plan for an earlier one than Napoleon’s, big enough to hold a ballroom!

Ooh, fascinating. Thanks both.

But yes imagery with a howdah is pretty consistent across them all.

Love that @Waawo !

Interesting stuff about the elephants, thanks for all the info @cassandre and @Pashazade ! Mindboggled at the idea of a ballroom-sized one (there’s a Trump(ety-trump) joke in there somewhere 😂)

I hope the next few chapters aren’t too boring…they’re so irrelevant to the plot that they’re in an appendix in my edition! Then again, I loved all the appendices in LOTR (sorry @Piggywaspushed I know you hate it 😆) so I’ll try to get into that mindset…

Okay, I genuinely did not expect to enjoy today’s chapter, I thought it would be turgid and boring. It was brilliant, here’s the master writer…..although I’m wondering when the first thesaurus was produced because it feels like he had one at his side! But the use of language, loved it.
I’m fascinated by the idea that “true slang” is somehow evil, I think it’s very telling that this is a French obsession, I cannot imagine an english writer talking about slang in the same way. It’s tribalism at heart, but not a term Hugo would have understood, as we use it, I think? Apparently a tribe of thieves slang is somehow inherently different to a tribe of sailors slang because they are morally corrupt? But the French have always been prickly about their language (hello Académie Française) and how it is used or “polluted”. English appears to have always adopted a more the merrier approach and if a word’s useful we just add it to the dictionary regardless of origin.

English is such a mongrel language that we can’t really complain about new words being picked up! Much healthier for the language than the Académie Française trying to enforce compliance with old-fashioned vocabulary rules 😄

The evolution of the French view of argot is interesting too - these days it’s used to apply to any kind of slang, much of which is used by the average person in any informal situation, not restricted to a particular category of people (though the younger you are, the more argot you probably use, same as in English I guess!).

Yes I’ve just been having an interesting chat with my teenager about the slang they use online. Having regaled him with a few Hugo extracts!

I think Hardy got a bit of a snooty reception for his use of dialect?

@Piggywaspushed oh that seems entirely likely but I suspect that was as much class snobbery, ie the yokels don’t speak properly, and I don’t want to assault myself by reading it as it was a purity of language thing. 😁
I don’t feel Hugo’s is so much a class thing more a moral thing. although those are possibly synonymous for him? 🤷🏻‍♀️ Hmm not sure I’m expressing myself well there.

Yes, I know what you mean!

I’m just catching up, I’m three days behind, but have just read the slang chapter (with the English translation on hand which is at times pretty useless and leaves some of it in French!).

You’re right about his delineation between “evil” slang and everything else he describes which is what we would call jargon I suppose, because it’s often specific to a profession. It is so interesting. Even though his description of pulling the slang out from the depths is dramatic and repulsive (and self serving - look what a horrible job I the Author am doing for you!) he takes the time to say how a historian should pay attention to the feelings and worries of the masses as well as the great events - that was probably (?) quite new? And chimes with Tolstoy’s deconstruction of the Great Man view of history. I was reading that paragraph thinking it basically describes 20th C social studies and humanities!

Then you have the political aspect of the unifying of the French language - Napoleon did a lot to make sure it was taught the same way in schools everywhere and it suppressed local languages and dialect (langue d’Oc, Breton), and the line between that and slang can be a thin one .. you can see how society was in a period of “standardisation good, local variation bad and threatening to the social order.”

It’s so interesting now when you think about verlan and how basically everyone uses some of it.

And one last thing - like you said @Pashazade “merry” English (such a Tudor word 🤣) just adopted all the slang anyway, much of it from Shakespeare, so we’ve never really had as sharp a line … (although plenty of snobbery about regional accents).

And back to the story!

BOOK EIGHT, Enchantment and Despair
Mon 14th - Ch1 - All Is Light (It must be clear to the reader)
Tues 15th - Ch2 - In a Daze of Perfect Happiness (They lived in a daze)
Weds 16th - Ch3 - An Incipient Shadow (Jean Valjean was completely unsuspecting)
Thurs 17th - Ch4 - A Cab Drives in English and Barks in Slang (The next day was the third of June)
Fri 18th - Ch5 - Things of the Night (After the villains had gone)
Sat 19th - Ch6 - In a Return to Reality Marius Gives Cosette His Address (While this she-dog)
Sun 20th - Ch7 - Interaction between an Old Heart and a Young One (Old Gillenormand by this time)

Thank you, Pashazade!

I really liked* *the chapters on slang. It never occurred to me to think of it as a moral failing or as a representation of the underworld or the evils of society. Interesting idea! I would see slang as an opposition to the standard form and as a kind of codified language for certain groups. Hugo takes it further into the moral realm of right and wrong and good and evil.

I liked his own descriptive language too; it was so vivid. Also, the detail in the examples of slang were astonishing. These chapters were a fun diversion (for once!)

Oh dear. I was v bored by them...

Probably not concentrating.

I was bored too Piggy, glad we’ll be back to the story tomorrow!

I’m generally not a fan of abridging books - but I do wonder if I ever reread Les Mis whether I would skip any chapters.

Commenting a bit late on the stalking question, I think that you have to take into account how restricted the access was between young men & women in the 19th century (at least for “respectable” ones) & the impact that inevitably had on relationships.

I’m not an expert on 19th century literature, but I can’t help wondering if authors / readers enjoyed characters pining after each other (similar to how the 18th century readers enjoyed the theme of persecuted innocence in books like Clarissa or Les Liaisons Dangereuses).

I was trying to think if there are other 19th century books with stalkerish behaviour- Cyrano de Bergerac & A la recherche du temps Perry (the narrator - Albertine story but possibly Swann & Odette too) were the 2 that I thought of but happy to be corrected on this by people who know these texts better.

I then wondered which 19th century novels actually feature healthy relationships & that’s also problematic. Jane Austen yes - but then all of the women are in the unhealthy situation of basically trying to catch a man. I like the romance in Agnes Grey & in North & South - but can’t think of many more mid-century works (Dickens doesn’t count due to his insipid heroine problem). Balzac probably has a few (Illusions Perdues I think has a supportive married couple but they ruin themselves supporting a useless BIL) & Zola has Au Bonheur des Dames - but both have far more doomed relationships. I suspect Hardy is the same, but I haven’t read him recently enough to identify the positive ones.

Black Beauty & Anne of Green Gables (although that’s early 20th century) do better on this - but strikingly both were relegated to children’s literature.

Ugh - not a fan of the slang chapters and for the first time in this read through just wanted him to get on with it.. and actually skimmed the last three (really only needed one, it just went on and on!

Anyway, delighted to be back on track from tomorrow 😁

So I have caught up, enjoyed the first two slang chapters (read the first one on schedule then got busy), for someone so repulsed Hugo is awfully engrossed by slang! The second two chapters were monotonous and about how wonderful the French Revolution was, so yeah I skimmed those too!
Today’s chapter is very sweet and does describe the oblivion of being absolutely besotted with someone so beautifully. Although again we bump into Hugo’s weird sinner or saint approach to women, no sinner in this chapter but the idolisation is just wearing, “Sweetness and profundity, that is the essence of woman, that is the essence of heaven. ” 🙄

I am still enmired in the slang chapters. Thanks as always to everyone who's shared their thoughts and expertise.

I also wondered about the Elephant and Castle (my grandma always used to tell me it was named for the Infanta of Castille but apparently this is a south London urban myth). Also thought about Parisians and verlan, although I didn't know the name for it.

I can’t help wondering if authors / readers enjoyed characters pining after each other

I feel like this is still the case, especially in TV writing where a slow burn relationship can be stretched out for multiple seasons. You can't have girl meets boy unless there is an impediment, however contrived, to keep them apart so the audience can enjoy the yearning!

Urgh, somehow have got ahead of myself, so no chapter to read now until Saturday, never quite sure how this happens!