Questions tagged [les-miserables]
For questions about Les Miserables, a novel by Victor Hugo. Use in conjunction with [victor-hugo].
2
votes
1answer
145 views
Why did Victor Hugo take several pages to say that his knowledge of Paris was woefully out of date?
At one point in Les Miserables, Victor Hugo inserted a fairly lengthy disclaimer (I don't recall the exact chapter number) explaining that his knowledge of Paris was basically accurate but several ...
11
votes
0answers
129 views
When was young Cosette's bedtime?
While the song "Come to Me" was probably not intended as a treatise on astronomical timekeeping or 19th-century French child-rearing, some of Fantine's lines (taken at face value) fit together for a ...
32
votes
1answer
7k views
Was there a reason Victor Hugo chose 24601 as the number for Jean Valjean?
24601 has developed into being an iconic part of both the Les Miserables book and musical. Was that number special to him, or was it simply a random number he chose (I doubt it)?
0
votes
3answers
502 views
Why don't these lines rhyme in Les Miserables?
In Castle on a Cloud from Les Miserables,
There is a room that's full of toys,
There are a hundred boys and girls
I know it's translated from French, but why isn't it girls and boys? There ...
9
votes
2answers
263 views
Was there a deliberate parallel between the Thénardiers and Gollum?
Long ago, I noticed that there was a parallel between The Lord of the Rings and Les Misérables in the characters of the Thénardiers and Gollum.
Gollum has the One Ring at the start of the tale in The ...
14
votes
1answer
371 views
Why all those tangents?
Anyone who's ever read Victor Hugo's immortal masterpiece Les Miserables knows that it's a long read...mostly because Hugo goes on a bunch of random tangents in the middle--on such topics as the ...
