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?

I think that word has also gone from such translations.

And, yes, to Boris. Tedious windbags!

I had fallen slightly behind but have now caught up on about 10 chapters. Fair to say I am not enjoying some of these chapters as much as the Valjean chapters but I am intrigued by Marius and his destiny. Hoping we might focus on Marius now rather than random ramblings....

I was just popping on to say your concern for poor Marius looks well placed, @Pashazade... making one mutton chop last three days 😲 I admire his determination to stand on his own two feet- sending back what could be a life-changing sum of money - and its nice that Courfeyrac's looking out for him but he's going to get desperate and do something stupid, isn't he?

I agree that the walls of text are quite off putting and repetitive but I guess Hugo is getting his point across - there have been tedious bores in every age and I definitely recognise their youthful certainty from when I was at Uni - one who was studying philosophy instantly springs to mind 😃

I thought i had fallen behind but am actually a few days ahead. Agree about these speeches, I'm listening instead of reading but could feel myself zoning out at times.
If it's a wall of text in a physical copy I think I would have quit, sounds like one of my worst (reading-related) nightmares tbh

I am enjoying it more now that Hugo is focusing on Marius.

Whilst I admire Marius for taking the moral high ground and refusing the family money, it does seem a bit stupid given how financially desperate he is.

I think given there appear to be no strings with the money I kind of agree that he’s a fool to life in penury. Cutting of his nose to spite his face really, but maybe he’s just really principled, I don’t know it’s quite a moral quandary given his grandfather separated him from his father so deliberately.

But then you could look at it that his grandfather owes him a huge debt having separated him from his father.

It does almost seem as if he is enjoying his poverty.

Dropping this early as I’m away for a few days

Book Five cont’d….
Mon 6th - Ch5 - Poverty, Misery’s Good Neighbour (Marius was fond of this guileless old man)
Tue 7th - Ch6 - The Substitute (It just so happened)
Book Six - The Conjunction of Two Stars
Weds 8th - Ch1 - The Nickname: A way of Inventing Family Names (Marius was now a handsome young man)
Thurs 9th - Ch2 - Lux Facta Est (In the second year)
Fri 10th - Ch3 - The Effect of Spring (One day the air was warm)
Sat 11th - Ch4 - Start of a Great Sickness (The next day at the usual time)
Sun 12th - Ch5 - For Mame Bougon Thunder Strikes in More Ways Than One (The next day Mame Bougon)

Thank you @Pashazade - I would have no clue where I am meant to be without your weekly updates.

lol at the ending to today’s chapter:

“As we shall be encountering Monsieur Mabeuf again later, a few words will not come amiss” - we can all guess what’s coming next!

I ,too, chuckled at that!

On the n word, my French Folio Classique copy uses “nègre” which would translate as “negro”? Not as offensive? I wonder which was the original text.

I have fallen behind because of all the wind bags, I am trying to do a few chapters today and gallop up to the rear of the pack as it were!

For the first time I have had to seek out an English translation to help me with some of the long speeches and idiomatic (or idiotic) turns of phrase. The one that did it for me was Grantaire’s sentence about “La tonne d’Heidelberg” which completely flummoxed me until the cheap English online copy presented “tonne” as “tun” and I realised 💡 it was a drinking metaphor!

Yes they talk a load of bollocks.

Enjoyed Marius’ speech on Napoléon.

Soldiering on…

@MotherOfCatBoy I took the ton reference to be to a certain section of society as around that time in english society the fashionable upper classes were known as the ton.
https://historicalemporium.com/blogs/civilized-fashion/the-ton-in-regency-england?srsltid=AfmBOorV49x3Ga9vjrfaZ3pLDirBune8rHW92nlipd4cMsSa3F7dOkKm

Aww, I like today's chapter what with its perfectly understandable book obsession. We should invite Mabeuf over to our thread.

Me too at first @Pashazade but it doesn’t fit with the rest of the sentence about leeches… made more sense as the image of a barrel (tun) having a stroke (apoplexy) and leaking beer which has to be sucked up… but honestly, how convoluted!!!

Back from my trip to London to see the show 🙂a first-time watch for me, I haven't seen the film either.

I'd been avoiding spoilers and reading for the story but I have to say, now that I know a bit more about where the plot is going, I feel like I am reading with a greater understanding of the choices that Hugo is making. How he's setting his characters up, why he may have chosen this time and place to write about. So I am glad that I've "spoiled" the plot for myself.

In terms of the story, obviously the show is a much cut-down version of the novel (and I realised that I'm assuming that there are no big differences between the two other than length but could be wrong! Maybe the show kills off a different subset of characters to the book 😱). I definitely felt that the show is poorer for missing out much of the additional stuff - maybe not quite all of the waffling, but the layers of detail that are put in place before and around each character. The opening seems to go bish bash bosh, Valjean is freed, Valjean steals the bishop's silver, Fantine loses her job and becomes a prostitute, and before you know it here we are at Fantine's deathbed barely knowing any of these characters. I understand, of course, why it has to be like that, given the length of the book. But I certainly felt that I missed all the details from the book. Those chapter's about the Bishop's household and his time with social outcasts. Fantine's day out in Saint-Cloud with her friends and the students, and Tholomyès' betrayal. The change in fortunes of the people of Montreuil-sur-Mer based on whatever it was that M Madeleine invented. It all added to our understanding of the characters and the meaningfulness of the story.

(and then we fast forward to Cosette as a young woman and miss the chase and the nuns, and JVJ's tenderness to the little girl even when they're both in danger - such great scenes and so sad to lose those)

So carry on, Hugo. I forgive (most of) your waffling.

Thanks for your thoughts on the musical @VikingNorthUtsire! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'll look it up when we get to the end.

I'm pretty sure Fantine's day out was in the BbC adaptation.

I've read as far as tomorrow's chapter.
The last line made me laugh.

So I’m trying to remember how old Marius is right now, given Cosette is only 15!
Hugo also makes me want to punch him and / or throw up
“It is a virgin with a woman’s gaze”, I mean wtf! To be fair he does capture that overnight shift that teenagers can go through when you haven’t seen them for a while and the shift from child to young adult is quite surprising but yuck!
Plus poor Mabeuf’s housekeeper can’t win…..”The poor old dear was a virgin,…..she had never been able to progress beyond her cat”, so reaching old age and being a virgin is to be pitied but if she’d randomly slept with someone when she was younger you can bet he’d be calling her all sorts of names. Ugggh
I’ve just caught up….Marius is now just a bit odd, if kindly.

Yeah that whole chapter was creepy AF although probably in line with contemporary thinking.

My translation had a delightful phrase about the frumpy tween version of Cosette being "not yet a person". Obviously once she's pretty and has boobs, she achieves personhood.

Yes I was raging at that part. She’s 15 FFS leave her alone you twat she’s a CHILD.
God, makes you think about the sheer weight of this shit we have been dealing with for centuries. It’s so embedded.

Yes I’ve recently heard the song To Sir with Love (1967) a couple of times on the radio and it makes my skin crawl! Different times and all that but jeez.

I agree. It gives me the creeps. I've a DD who is sixteen.

Also, doesn't the friend say that since his housekeeper has a beard, that Marius doesn't have to have one? Ugh.