Reading Order
Les Misérables Reading Order
Les Misérables (1862) by Victor Hugo is one of the longest, most ambitious, and most beloved novels in world literature — a narrative spanning approximately seventeen years (roughly 1815-1832) in the life of Jean Valjean, an ex-convict who was sentenced to nineteen years of hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread and whose attempts to build a new life and become a good man are complicated by the relentless pursuit of Inspector Javert, a policeman whose entire identity is organized around the idea that law and justice are the same thing. The novel is also a vast social panorama of post-Napoleonic France, including extended chapters on the Battle of Waterloo, on the Paris sewer system, on the history of the Petit-Picpus convent, on the argot of the criminal underworld, and on the political situation of the July Monarchy. Its major characters include Fantine, a young woman whose poverty and exploitation are the novel's primary social accusation; Cosette, Fantine's daughter, whom Valjean raises; the Thénardiers, innkeepers of magnificent and comic villainy; and Marius Pontmercy, a young idealist who falls in love with Cosette and fights on the barricades of the 1832 June Rebellion.
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Les Misérables (1862)
Complete Les Misérables Book List
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Les Misérables
Victor Hugo·1862
Les Misérables — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Les Misérables too long to read? How long is it?
Les Misérables is approximately 1,200-1,500 pages in most English translations, making it one of the longest novels ever written. The length is the source of both its power and its reputation for difficulty: the novel contains many extended digressions — on the Battle of Waterloo, on convents, on sewers, on criminal slang — that are not strictly necessary to the story but that create the social world that makes the story meaningful. There are two broad approaches: reading the full text (recommended, because the digressions are often extraordinarily interesting and are part of Hugo's argument about French society) or reading an abridged version (which will give you the story without the ambition). The novel's narrative propulsion is powerful enough that many readers who begin it discover that the length becomes an asset rather than a liability.
Who is Inspector Javert and what does he represent?
Inspector Javert is the novel's primary antagonist and one of the great literary studies of a certain kind of moral rigidity. He is a policeman who was born in prison (the son of a convict and a fortune-teller) and who has organized his entire identity around the law — not because he is cruel or sadistic, but because the law is the only thing that has given his life structure and meaning. For Javert, law and justice are identical: a man who has broken the law is a criminal, permanently; redemption and reform are not possibilities within his moral framework. The novel's argument against Javert is not that the law is bad but that justice is larger than the law, and that a man who cannot recognize this — cannot see Jean Valjean as anything other than the sum of his crimes — is himself a kind of prisoner. Javert's death is the novel's most radical statement: faced with the evidence that his framework is insufficient, he destroys himself rather than revise it.
What is the significance of the Thénardiers in Les Misérables?
The Thénardiers — the innkeeping family who take in Cosette and mistreat her, and who recur throughout the novel in various guises — are Hugo's primary comic and satirical creation in the novel. Monsieur Thénardier is a villain of magnificent, practically self-advertising evil: he fought at Waterloo for personal profit rather than patriotism, he operates his inn as a machine for extracting money by fraud and violence, and his attempts at blackmail and extortion recur throughout the novel. He is funny precisely because he is so unreservedly mercenary, so completely without any of the romantic pretense about principle or justice that makes Javert tragic. The Thénardiers represent a different social evil than Javert: where Javert represents the cruelty of the system that claims to be just, the Thénardiers represent the opportunism of those who exploit the system for personal gain.
Is the musical version faithful to the novel?
The musical Les Misérables (music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, book by Alain Boublil, first produced in Paris in 1980 and adapted for London in 1985) is faithful to the novel's major plot and emotional arc — the story of Valjean, Javert, Fantine, Cosette, and the barricade — but necessarily compresses and simplifies it. The novel's vast social digressions (Waterloo, the sewers, the convent) are absent or reduced; some characters are simplified; the ending is adjusted. The musical captures the novel's emotional core more effectively than any other adaptation and has introduced Hugo's story to generations of readers. Many people who have seen the musical but not read the novel find the novel's scale revelatory — the musical is about the people; the novel is also about the world they inhabit.
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