Les Miserables continued with volume III: Marius.  This volume introduces a new character, Marius Pontmercy, whose father made a cameo appearance in the book “Waterloo” of volume II: Cosette.  Volume III is a little over 200 pages long and split into eight books, the usual number.  This volume includes page 611, the halfway point of the book.  It doesn’t contain as many digressions as volume II, but can still get slow and long winded such as when describing the gamins or young street urchins of Paris including the introduced character Gavroche, Marius’ grandfather, each of the “Friends of the ABC”, Marius’ father’s life, and the changing views of Marius from being a Royalist like his grandfather to believing in the empire like his father to beginning to believe people should be free.  There’s much setting up the background.  But once it’s set up the story gets more interesting and riveting in the last 75 pages of the volume.

From reading his namesake volume, I got to know Marius Pontmercy.  He lives most of his childhood and youth with his maternal grandfather, a Royalist, and has no contact with his Bonaparte-supporting father due to the different political opinion from his grandfather.  But after his father’s death, Marius grows to accept, learn of, and eventually idolize his father and reject his grandfather’s Royalist views.  Marius inherits a baron title from his father and receives a message to do service for an innkeeper, Thenardier, who saved his father’s life.  Marius seeks out Thenardier but finds his inn closed and his family moved away.  Ultimately rejected by his grandfather, he falls in with a group of young men, the Friends of the ABC.  Pronounced in French, ABC sounds like ah-bay-say that also sounds like the French word abaisse that translates to abased.  The friends include Enjolras, their leader; Combeferre; Jean Prouvaire; Feuilly, Coufeyrac who is similar in personality to Felix Tholomyes, Cosette’s father; Bachorel, Lesgle or Laigle or Bossuet; Joly; and Grantaire.  Marius wears black in mourning for his father and is poor because he refuses help from his great aunt who lives with his grandfather.  When all Marius can afford is a green coat, he only goes out after dark so that the coat appears black.

Most of the main characters from the previous volumes make appearances but often under different names.  On his daily walks, Marius sees an old man with white hair with his young daughter in a black dress.  Without meeting them, Coufeyrac nicknames them Monsieur LeBlanc (white) and Mademoiselle LaNoire.  Marius eventually falls in love with her.  Finding a handkerchief left by them with the initials U.F. he guesses her name is Ursula and so refers to her though he never meets her in the volume.  He later hears the old man give his name as “Urbain Fabre” though this is likely a pseudonym.  Marius’ neighbors are a man and wife with two daughters who seem very familiar.  The man writes letters under different names requesting financial support.  He uses alias Fabantou and Jondrette among others.  All these assumed identities along with Marius’ new admiration and conflicting loyalties set the stages for some riveting scenes.
 
Along with the main characters’ aliases, the book mentions names familiar to me in other contexts.  The royalist salon in which Marius’ grandfather participates includes the Bishop of Mirepoix.  Isn’t Mirepoix also a food term meaning celery, onion and carrot all chopped up and ready to use?  There are more references to “the Sword of Marengo” (p. 527) and “Marengo” is given as one of the “mighty words which blaze forever.” (p. 568)  Well, it does blaze a lot in this book.  I eventually researched this name of a street in Pasadena.  According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marengo (retrieved 3/2/2010)): “The Battle of Marengo was fought on 14 June 1800 between French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte and Austrian forces near the city of Alessandria, in Piedmont, Italy.  The French defeated Austrian General Michael von Mela’s surprise attack, driving the Austrians out of Italy, and enhancing Napoleon’s political position in Paris.”  The Wikipedia article later mentions Chicken Marengo, a famous dish of braised chicken with onions and mushrooms in a wine and tomato sauce.  It sounds delicious.  The article goes on to say “Local lore says it was cooked up on the battlefield by Napoleon’s personal chef using all the ingredients he could find in those adventurous circumstances.”

This volume mentions names significant to itself.  One of Jondrette’s letters asking for financial support is addressed to “Monsieur Pabourgeot, elector, wholesale merchant, milliner, Rue Saint Denis . . .” (p. 618)  The fourth and next volume is called “St. Denis.”  Are they related?  When describing the exploits of Marius’ father, Colonel Pontmercy, the author mentions how the colonel fought at the same place as his uncle, Louis Hugo.  Another reference is more significant.  After a visit from their elder daughter, Marius starts to notice his neighbors and realizes they are even worse off than he is.  “Undoubtedly they seem very depraved, very corrupt, very vile, very hateful even, but those are rare who fall without being degraded; there is a point, moreover, at which the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confounded in a single word, a fatal word, Les Miserables;” (p. 627)

I learned some new words used in this volume that I had to look up in my Random House dictionary.  The Friends of the ABC have conventicles or secret meetings at the Café Musain.  One of the ABC, Joly, thinks himself a valetudinarian or an invalid who is excessively concerned about his poor health.  Marius passes the bar exam but continues to work for a book binder and doesn’t pettifog.  The dictionary describes a pettifogger as “a petty, shifty, and often dishonest lawyer.”  So they had just as much respect for lawyers in the 19th century.  Complaining of some radical students planning a protest, Marius’ grandfather exclaims, “Virtue of my quean.”  I’m not sure what that expression means.  A quean is “a shrew or a hussy.”

Like the last volume, Hugo includes some humor in his writing.  In the early chapters he describes how the gamin points to a house and says that a cure lives there.  A cure is a minor clergy but the Papal Nuncio actually lives in the house.  The new landlady at Gorbeau House is another old woman prompting Hugo’s line, “I do not remember what philosopher it was who said ‘there is never any lack of old women.’” (p. 504)  While the Friends of the ABC are having another conventicle at the Café Musain, at another table an old man of thirty advises a young man of eighteen.  Later Coufeyrac and Bossuet (A.K.A. Laigle) see Marius following Jondrette.  Laigle proposes following Marius but Coufeyrac scolds him, “Bossuet . . . you are a prodigious fool (to) follow a man who is following a man.” (p. 654)

Along with the humor Hugo’s writing includes some interesting points that edify.  In the section on Gamin, Gavroche is described as “one of those children . . . who have fathers and mothers, and yet are orphans.” (p. 504)  Marius’ friend’s servant reads her books out loud because “to read out loud is to assure yourself of what you are reading.” (p. 583)  Much of the exciting action in the volume takes place on February 2 that is “Candlemas Day” in 19th century France “whose treacherous sun, the precursor of six weeks of cold, inspired Matthew Laensberg with those two lines . . . Qu’il luise ou qu’il luiserne/ L’ours rentre en sa caverne (Let it gleam or let it glimmer/ The bear returns to his cave.)” (p. 615)  That sounds like a version of Groundhog Day.  There is the contrast between evil in the city and the forest: “ . . . in the cities, what hides thus is ferocious, unclean, and petty, that is to say, ugly; in forests, what hides is ferocious, savage, and grand, that is to say, beautiful.” (p. 628)  Finally there’s Thernardier’s speech about the rich and charitable who “think themselves above us, and come to humiliate us, and to bring us cloths! As they call them! Rags which are not worth four sous, and bread!  That is not what I want of the rabble!  I want money!” (p. 635)

I used tape flags to mark 26 places in volume III: Marius, possibly a record for a book of any length, and this was just one volume of a book.  This volume doesn’t have as much equivalent in the musical that doesn’t give much information about Marius’ life story.  Marius seems to be the least miserable of the Miserables, if he can even be categorized as such.  But that doesn’t make him any less a complex and interesting character.  The 26 tape flags can attest to that.

To celebrate Valentine’s Day on Saturday, February 14, 2010, we had dinner at Fonda Don Chon in Covina.  Sometime in 2009, my wife got a bunch of coupons from restaurant.com.  Fonda Don Chon looked like a good local restaurant to try.  For $3 she bought a coupon for $25 off a total bill of $35.   We didn’t use it for a while.  I also noticed there were small coupons in our church’s bulletin for the brunch buffet at Fonda Don Chon.  A while before we went there we did do recon to determine the exact location of the restaurant.  It’s on Shoppers Lane, a small street that turns perpendicular.  It is connected to Citrus Avenue from the east and Rowland Street from the south.  There are some shops, restaurants, and a nightclub along the street.  Fonda Don Chon is along the east side of the part where Shoppers Lane runs north-south.  The lane has angle parking all along the right side and a small parking lot on the left side.

On Sunday, February 14, we went to the 5:30 church service.  We learned that it was also was World Marriage Day, though I think that’s always around Valentine’s Day.  After the service ended at around 6:35 we slowly exited the parking lot, turned right onto Workman Avenue, and left on Citrus Ave.  I got Shoppers Late mixed up with a commercial driveway but we soon found it on the right and turned right.  We parked at an angled spot just past Fonda Don Chon and arrived there at 6:50 pm.  It looks a bit like a Mexican adobe on the outside.  It has several tables for sitting outside and there were people sitting at them this evening.  It had been warm for February that day, in the 70’s, though by 6:50 it was dark outside and quite cool.  We entered the arched doorway and queued up at the desk just to our left.  Earlier that day I had called the restaurant to try to make a reservation.  But they said they didn’t take reservations and seated on a first-come first-serve basis.  We hoped it wouldn’t be too crowded because of Valentine’s Day.

The restaurant wasn’t too crowded, just a little over half full.  There was one party ahead of us in the queue at the desk.  They were seated and then we were seated at 6:55 pm.  They put us at a table close to that party.  The inside consisted of one large room with many tables, some round and some smaller and rectangular.  They put us at one of the latter.  The chairs were large, sturdy, and made of dark wood like the tables.  It was a bit of work getting around between the tables and chairs.  The room had yellow-orange walls and lots of Mexican décor including sombreros and dolls of flamenco dancers on the back counter.  Painted on the walls were paintings that looked like little alcoves with shelves or windows, arched like those in a traditional Mexican Adobe, an example of trompe l’oeil style.  In the back hall there were more wall paintings of outdoor scenes that covered and nearly hid the doors to the restrooms.  Traditional Mexican music played over the speakers.

The servers handed us menus that were large and had lots of colorful photos.  There were sections for breakfast, appetizers, antojitos, combinations, carnes, chicken, tacos, salads, “From the Grill”, entrees, seafood, and more.  In addition to many regular Mexican dishes they had some unique ones such as Sopitos Estilo Tonaya, Supreme Molcajete, and Schwartzeneggar Taco. (Unrelated news flash (2/15/10, 6 pm): as first I wrote this, a woman sitting near me on the train said that she was friends with the aunt of a member of the 80’s music group Expose.)  Under beverages they had Jarritos soda.  In addition to the menu, on our table was a flyer listing specials including a pork loin dish and “Taco Bomba”.  Most choices were fairly inexpensive with many under $10.  We had to get our total tab to $35 and that took some work.  We ordered our beverages: hot chocolate for my wife and a tamarind Jarritos for me.  Unfortunate they were out of both so my wife got an apple juice and I got a lime Jarritos.  Later I got an orange Jarritos to further bring up the tab.

They brought us a large basket of chips and a bowl of salsa that were good together.  As we waited for our food I noticed there was a flatscreen TV mounted on the ceiling in the back right corner.  It was showing the halftime show of the NBA All-Star game with Alicia Keys performing.  We had hoped the see Shakira’s performance but I guess we missed it.  They showed a clip of it where she was wearing this “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” outfit.  We notice that the young Clipper Eric Gordon had made the All-Star team and we also saw a Sprite commercial featuring the rapper Drake.  After a wait of 10-15 minutes they started serving our food first bringing my wife’s antojito, the Tostadas de Tinga.  The two tostadas were stacked several inches high with all the toppings: shredded chicken marinated in tomato and chipotle salsa, pico de gallo salsa, lettuce, cotija cheese, and sour cream.  My wife enjoyed them but they were a lot of food for an antojito.

Very soon after bringing my wife’s antojito they brought her entre: Filete a la Plancha.  But she only had room for a bit of the large white fish filet.  She took the avocado garnish and mixed it with her excess lettuce from the tostada to make a salad.  Like all our dishes the fish had little Mexican flags planted in it.  They then brought the accompaniments to my order: Mexican rice, guacamole (with a Mexican flag in it) and pico de gallo.  They had sprinked a little cheese on them so I didn’t eat much of them.  But then they brought my main entrée: beef fajitas that were still sizzling on a hot black iron platter.  The tasted great with much of the beef blackened but not chewy at all.  The beef was mixed with slices of grilled red and yellow onion and red and green pepper.  The server also brought out a round plastic container of hot tortillas: two corn and two flour.  The corn tortillas were thick but not too chewy.  They held their integrity well when made into tacos.  They were a bit like the ones at Babita.  Everything was good and so much food.

After we had our fill, we doggy-bagged the Filete de Plancha.  Our server said we were still $2 short of $35.  They had only charged $4.99 for the Tostadas de Tinga rather than the $6.99 given on the menu.  We brought another Jarritos (sealed this time) to bring our total up to $35 and with the discount we only paid around $21 including tax and tip.  The server passed out red roses to all the female customers including my wife.  We put it in an empty Jarritos bottle at home.  The next day I was off work for President’s Day so I made fish tacos with the leftover tortillas and the Filete de Plancha.  The fish was very good, flaking easily even after I heated it up in the microwave.  It’s great we have so many good Latin restaurants in our neighborhood.  However, they don’t sell the $25 of $35 coupon on restaurant.com anymore.  They now sell a $25 of $40 coupon.  That would require getting a whole lot of food from Fonda Don Chon.

(Spoilers)

My reading of Les Miserables continued with Volume II: Cosette.  This volume comprises 232 pages, eight books and spans a time period of less than one year of the main story.  While Volume I: Fantine has its title character descend into misery, Volume II’s title character, who was born in misery, slowly starts to emerge out of it.  Volume II also has some long digressions, moreso than Volume I.  Much of it is Hugo talking to the reader.

The volume begins with a 47-page digression about the Battle of Waterloo.  It gives long descriptions of the battlefield and how the armies are arranged including how the field resembles a letter “A” and most of the fighting takes place in the top triangle of the A.  All the description of the setting is rather tedious, though Hugo does reassure the reader that “one of the scenes that gave rise to the drama which we are describing hangs upon that battle.” (p. 265)  The prose gets a bit more readable once the battle is underway, though it can get a bit hard to follow with all the action.  Hugo doesn’t always say to which side he’s referring.  I have to go by whether the names of the commanders sound French, English, or German.  I’m not sure who is being referred to as “the man of Marengo was wiping out Agincourt.” (p. 277)  I just know that around the time I read this we had driving north on Marengo Avenue in Pasadena.

Hugo often waxes philosophically as he describes Waterloo just as he does at many other points in the book.  He believes that by the time of Waterloo it was time for Napoleon to fall because “the excessive weight (as in power) of this man in human destiny disturbed the equilibrium.” (p. 280)  This description reminded me of the character in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series known as the Mule.  He could control entire worlds with his mind and his emergence in power was not predicted by the Foundation psychohistorians.  Back to Waterloo, it isn’t until the end of the book about it that the reader learns how it applies to the main story.  After the battle, a prowler searches the bodies for valuables.  He takes a ring from a presumed dead French officer.  But the officer is not dead and the prowler carries him to safety.  The officer asks the prowler his name and the prowler answers, “Thenardier.”  The officer then gives his name, “Pontmercy.”

The volume contains another digression about Paris in the 1820’s and 1830’s.  Hugo describes how when we live a place we feel indifferent towards most of the streets, windows, roof, and doors that we see every day.  “But in aftertimes, when we are there no longer, we find that those streets are very dear, that we miss those roofs, those windows, and those doors.” (p. 378)  Two later books in Volume II, VI. Petit Picpus and VII. A Parenthesis, are about nuns and religious orders (VI) and Hugo’s opinion that religious orders are obsolete (VII).  I mostly just had to dig my way out of these books.  There were only a few interesting bits such as one nun “known in the convent only by the horrible noise she made in blowing her nose.  The pupils called her Racketini.” (p. 421)

The digressions can be long and tedious to read through especially that book VI: A Parenthesis that’s a digression of a digression.  But between these sections the story itself is compelling and exciting.  I learned details such as how Jean Valjean escapes after being captured and sentenced to life in prison.  While on work detail on the ship Orion that’s dock in Toulon, he dives into the sea and is presumed drowned.  I got a clear picture of Cosette’s miserable life with the Thenadiers.  She doesn’t fantasize about a “Castle on a Cloud” as in the musical but the book does refer to Thenardier as “Master of the House” (p. 322)  Thenardier also has a monologue that mentions “to sell to the first comer …”, “… empty small purses and honestly lighten large ones …”, “… to charge for the open window, the closed window, the chimney corner …”, “… to make the traveler pay for everything even to the flies his dog eat!” (p. 323)  I found compelling Jean Valjean’s attempts to evade Javert through the dark streets of Paris.  At one point Hugo writes, “If Jean Valjean had a kingdom, he would have given it for a rope” (p. 387-388) alluding to Shakespeare’s play “Richard III”.  In this volume, Jean Valjean acquires another alias (in addition to Monsieur Madeleine from volume I), Ultimus Fauchelevent.

Within the story Hugo cannot help but include bits of commentary on the class struggle, on how the rich live in a different world from the poor.  When the ship Orion approached the port of Toulon, her pennant “entitled her to a regular salute of 11 guns which she returned shot for shot: in all twenty two.”  Hugo goes on to describe how for all similar salutes the civilized world fires off “daily 150,000 useless cannon shots.  At 6 francs per shot, that would amount to 900,000 francs per day or 300 million per year, blown off in smoke.  This is only an item.  Meanwhile, the poor are dying of hunger.” (p. 310)  I’m not sure where he got the 150,000 figure.  That seems like a lot for the salutes in one day.  When describing how Thenardier’s daughters, Eponine and Azelma, treat Cosette like she’s below them, Hugo interjects, “These three girls could not count twenty-four years among them all, and they already represented all human society; on one side envy, on the other, disdain.” (p. 341)  In a digressive unrelated note, Eponine and Azelma are described as “regnant” a word I hadn’t known before that means “reigning in one’s own right and not as a consort” according to my Random House dictionary.

Not all the commentary is serious.  Hugo includes a few humorous anecdotes.  When Jean Valjean and Cosette first move to Paris, they rent lodging at Gorbeau House, and naturally, Hugo gives the entire history of the place.  He tells a story of two attorneys named Corbeau and Renard who worked at the same law office.  Their names translated to “crow” and “fox” respectively and the law clerks always made up silly songs about them and laughed.  The attorneys petitioned the king to change their names.  Corbeau became Gorbeau that has no meaning and Renard became Prenard that means “a grasping fellow” and the law clerks continued to laugh at him.  Hugo adds a bit of morbid humor later in the volume.  He writes, “It is, however, true; gravediggers themselves die.  By dint of digging graves for others they open their own.”  (p. 466)

Coincidentally, as I was first writing the preceding paragraph while riding the Metrolink train to work (at around 6:20 am on February 9, 2010), I noticed part of the name tag of the guy sitting next to me.  On the top part was written what looked like “Los Angeles” in a logo.  Below that was his first name in big bold type and below that in smaller type was the word (or name?) “Javert”.  Speaking of coincidences, while I was reading the long digression about Waterloo in mid-January that name came up in some other contexts.  We used MapQuest to get driving directions to Club Spaceland in Silverlake and one route has us taking a bunch of little side streets, one of them called “Waterloo”.  One of the opening bands at Spaceland, either Rabbit or Arms Control, sang the song “Waterloo Sunset” that’s originally by the Kinks.  Around that time there was a contestant on Jeopardy! who was a graduate of the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

Wow, I didn’t think this review would go this long.  Compared to the first volume not as much happened in the second and, of course, there were all the digressions.  Some do relate to the story and help explain some things such as the non in perpetual adoration in the chapel.  But much of it is tedious.  Still, the gripping story is worth it.

Towards the end of 2009 I started reading the classic novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.  I got the unabridged version of 1,222 pages translated into English by Charles E. Wilbour.  The edition I got from the Cal State L.A. Library was published by Modern Library, New York and does not have a publication date.  It also doesn’t have illustrations such as the famous one of Cosette that was used as the poster for the musical (more on this later).  There is one illustration just inside the cover page of a man standing knee-deep in water stooping over with a lantern and a walking stick.  The book is separated into five volumes: Fantine, Cosette, Marius, St. Denis, and Jean Valjean each between 120-300 pages long.  Each volume is separated into 8-15 books that are between 10-70 pages and each of these books is further separated into chapters of 2-10 pages.  All these segments allow the reader to feel like they are making incremental progress.

I first heard of the musical Les Miserables in the late 80’s or early 90’s when my dad bought the soundtrack on cassette.  The songs are very emotional and passionate.  When I was a freshman in college I saw a professional production of Les Mis in Portland, Oregon.  They used a revolving stage and there were more scenes than those featured on the soundtrack.  In late 2009 I decided to try reading the book.  The Cal State L.A. Library let me check out books for an entire quarter and renew them for two more quarters as long as no one else put them on hold.  My wife had read the unabridged version on Les Mis many years ago and enjoyed it.  She doesn’t read books very often, instead preferring to read magazine articles and web articles.  I thought the book might flesh out the story and explain some things not completely explained in the musical such as Jean Valjean’s past.  Within its great length, the book does this and much more.

The first volume, Fantine, is 253 pages long and separated into 8 books.  The reader learns almost immediately that Hugo likes to digress.  The first 50 pages (ie. the rule of 50) don’t mention any of the main characters.  Rather, they’re all about the Bishop of D_____ who plays a small but very important role in the main story.  I learned all about his background, religious life, and how good a man he was.  Hugo blanks out a few names of towns such as D_____ and M_____ Sur M_______ where Fantine comes from and where Monsieur Madeleine builds his factory.  Other town names are given such as Arras where the trial takes place and Montfermeil where the Thenardiers live in their inn.

The narrator (Hugo?) sounds as if he’s telling someone a story and sometimes refers to himself in the first person saying things like “I forget the place.”  Many digressions discuss the political and economic situation in France and Europe in the early 19th century.  After going through Jean Valjean’s past life and what led him to prison in the first place, Hugo writes, “English statistics show that in London starvation is the immediate cause of four thefts out of five.” (Hugo, p. 74)  Hugo uses some words that had different meaning back in 1862 when the book was published.  Diligences were horse-drawn coaches that brought people from one town to another.  People didn’t have cars to get around.  So far I found only 1-2 typos, pretty good for a book of this length printed before modern word processors.  On page 197 Monsieur Madeleine “rsumed (his) monotonous dismal walk.”

Despite the writing style and digressing, the book does a good job of fleshing out the story that the musical only highlighted.  In fact, Hugo is very thorough.  Not only did I learn that “Valjean” is possibly a contraction of “Voila Jean” and changed from Vlajean to Valjean but that his mother’s maiden name is Mathieu.  Speaking of names, Cosette’s real name was actually Euphrasie, but her mother, Fantine, made Cosette out of it as mothers tend to “change Josepha into Pepita and Francoise into Siltette.”  (Hugo p. 127)  I also learned why Jean Valjean faces life imprisonment after being released from prison.  Not long after, he inadvertently robs a young boy from Savoy, Petit Gervais.  At that time in France, those convicted of a second offence were sentenced to hard labor for life.  Two strikes and you’re out, I guess.

After Fantine is dismissed from the factory she not only sells her hair (golden blond in the book) but also her two front teeth for two Napoleans or forty francs.  Earlier Fantine is described as having gold on her head (her hair) and pearls in her mouth (her teeth).  Before she becomes a “Lovely Lady” (or a “woman of the town” as Hugo writes), she tries to make a living sewing coarse shirts for soldiers of the garrison for twelve sous per day.  This helps her get by until “a prison contractor, who was working prisoners at a loss, suddenly cut down the price, and this reduced the day’s wages of free labors to nine sous.” (Hugo, p. 157)

One aspect of the story that’s very fleshed out is Cosette’s full parentage.  Her father is Felix Tholomyes, a rich young idler of 30 and a student possibly equivalent to the privileged “career students” of currents.  He dates Fantine and three of his friends date three of Fantine’s friends.  The men dress extravagantly and smile with “effeminate foppery.”  The eight of them walk the public gardens of Paris, go to fancy restaurants, and eat apple puffs.  Tholomyes is very witty, stating that there is good sense and art even in apple puffs.  At one point he sings a Spanish love song in the gallega dialect.  At another he describes how the ladies eat too much sugar and sugar is desiccating like salt causing diabetes (p. 116).  Fantine and Felix are together for two years and not for just “a summer” as described in the song “I Dreamed a Dream”.

There is much consistency between the musical and the novel and some differences.  I believe the poster for the musical came from an illustration that’s not in this edition of the passage that reads, “It was a harrowing sight to see in winter time the poor child, not yet six years old, shivering under the tatters of what was once a calico dress, sweeping the street before daylight with an enormous broom in her brittle red hands and tears in her large eyes.” (p. 132)  Just as he sings in the song “Confrontation” in the musical, Javert was born in a prison. (p. 143)  Also just as Jean Valjean sings in that song, he asks Javert to “Give me three days” to retrieve Cosette and return her to Fantine.  Valjean does agonize over whether to reveal his identity in the chapter called “A Tempest in the Brain” (p. 184-199) of book VI (called “Javert) but he never explicitly asks himself “Who am I?”  At the trial he does declare “I am Jean Valjean” but does not say “2-4-6-0-1”.

Another difference is Fantine’s dismissal from the factory.  Her coworkers do spread incorrect and malicious gossip about her that gets her dismissed.  What happened was “the overseer of the workshop handed her, on behalf of the mayor (and factory owner Monsieur Madeleine), fifty francs, saying that she was no longer wanted in the shop, and enjoining her, on behalf of the mayor, to leave the city.” (p. 150)  I guess this isn’t really better than what happens in the musical.  Also unlike the musical, the overseer is not a man but an “old spinster.”  The directive actually came from her and not from the mayor.

The long digressions can make reading Les Miserables go very slowly and tedious but when Hugo gets to the main story, the reading becomes riveting and the book is hard to put down.  Just getting to the trial is a struggle for Monsieur Madeleine as he faces one obstacle after another.  I began to wonder if he would even make it on time and he’s not even sure he wants to go.  Then there’s the altercation between Fantine and the idle gentleman who throws snow at her back.  This leads to her arrest, her meeting Monsieur Madeleine in person, but also to her final downfall.  She doesn’t survive the volume that bears her name.  Though she didn’t start out as one, she is arguable the most miserable of the Miserables.