The Les Misérables Reading Companion

For International Women’s Day, let’s take a look at the women of Les Misérables.

Hugo is sometimes (fairly) criticized for not giving as much focus to his female characters as to his male ones. But the women we do get to know in this book are strong and brave, and it’s BECAUSE they’re women. 1/

I love that you're doing this, thanks for sharing! I've been away from my socials for a bit, but this all looks so interesting!

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I wish Javert’s story ended differently. I wish he could have a conversion experience like we see other characters have, that Hugo is right that a locomotive can have a road to Damascus. That’s how he could start making things better. 10/10

Let me not be subtle: if seeing the victims of your government piling up alarms you, even if that's for the first time, it’s possible, today, to begin to think differently. Javert doesn’t have that in him, but you can. 9/10

He had been at the barricade as a spy, and had been taken prisoner by the insurgents before he could do anything to harm their cause. He didn’t kill them, but his philosophical support was for the soldiers who did. And now, in this moment, he sees what that means. 8/10

But today, I’m OK with that. Because this moment suggests that when Javert sees the protesters killed by government forces, he suddenly sees good innocent people who fought for something honorable, who deserve his Legion of Honor medal, maybe more than he does. 7/10

Adding this moment to the 2012 film – over a musical motif from “Bring Him Home” that corresponds to the lyrics, “he’s like the son I might have known if God had granted me a son” – adds a layer that isn’t in the book. 6/10

He entertains the idea that maybe not everyone on the other side (of the law, or the barricade, or another divide) is utterly and irrevocably bad. That maybe Jean Valjean doesn’t deserve to be turned in to face a likely death sentence. That maybe Marius deserves dignity. 5/10

What Javert *does* do after the barricade section in the book is glimpse something that he can’t quite reckon with: that he’s been wrong this whole time, because his way of carving up the world and picking sides has been wrong. 4/10

But this moment from the 2012 film is decidedly not in the book. The book is pretty clear that Javert didn’t return to the barricade after Jean Valjean freed him, so this couldn’t even have happened “off stage.” But it asks us to think about Javert in a way that is important right now. 3/10

Les Misérables (the book) said its piece on the subject of government forces killing protesters and the right and wrong of protest and resistance – for heaven’s sake, there have even been barricades in Minneapolis. A huge chunk of the book is about EXACTLY THIS. 2/10

Gavroche Gets a Medal YouTube video by Graeme Scott

In this grim time in the U.S., being a Les Misérables account, I want to talk about Javert, and the choice to add this moment to the 2012 film adaptation.

I promise it’s relevant.

youtu.be/g35YkMe3O1A?... 1/10

Happy New Year 2026!!

I don't plan to repeat my daily posts this year, but any year is a great year to read the 365 chapters of Les Misérables in 365 days!

Resources for doing that, including my daily commentary from 2025, at the link in my bio

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Especially here at the end, the podcast ties a lot together. And, maybe also treat yourself to one of these, to mark your accomplishment. You’ve earned it!! www.redbubble.com/i/sticker/I-...

If you’ve read a chapter a day, it’s time to listen to the podcast “Ep59 - V,9,v-vi - Endings,” and then, to wrap up, “Ep60 - So what is Les Misérables about?” Available at the website (link in bio) or your preferred podcatcher.

A careful read of this book resists comfort at the end, even as the surface may offer it. Sure, Cosette gets her happy ending, and Jean Valjean finds peace, of a sort. But the work of this book is never done.

And then Hugo leaves us, as ever, with a complex message about the way his story ends. It’s tragic, but it’s peace. It’s Jean Valjean’s wish, but it’s a sign of vast persistent injustice, which he has shown us at length.

Meanwhile, lifting one little girl – ONE – out of poverty has taken the herculean efforts of many, many people, including Fantine’s and Jean Valjean’s immense sacrifices. Things are still deeply broken.

Plus, Thénardier is still profiting off human misery in the Americas. Gavroche’s little brothers (children Thénardier basically sold) are still wandering, starving, or worse, and many good people have succumbed to this world.

I won’t make you guess: it was Thénardier. The first words Marius heard him say when he peeked through the hole in the wall were citing exactly this as a persistent sign of inequality.

But, because this is Les Misérables, all is not necessarily well. The description of where his tomb is placed is oddly familiar, as someone earlier on talked about these damp, forgettable tombs for the poor….

After the absolute gutting that the last few chapters have been, there’s a sense of peace that reaches an almost existential level: he accomplished his mission, and when it was done, he could rest.

The way Hugo uses the Alexandrines, in other words, takes us from a kind of halting, bumpy ride as it discusses his “strange fate” and his final loss, to resolution and peace as “day” retreats.

The first two have an irregular rhythm, which makes for an awkward, uneasy read, but the 3rd and 4th – (Hapgood’s final sentence) – are in a very regular, calming rhythm.

But because poetry is always richer in its original language, I’ll mention just a bit about the verses themselves. They are Alexandrines, the 12-syllable prestige verse in traditional French poetry.

“He sleeps. Although his fate was very strange, he lived. He died when he had no longer his angel. The thing came to pass simply, of itself, as the night comes when day is gone.”

I hope your translation keeps the meaning of those lines more or less intact; here is the Hapgood translation, which is pretty precise in meaning, if a bit clumsy:

Here are those four lines in Hugo’s handwriting (from the manuscript digitized by the French Bibliothèque Nationale):