Re-Reading Les Misérables

I finished reading the final battle on the barricade a little after noon on June 6. It happens…a bit after noon on June 6. That was kind of weird.

I don’t have a lot new to say about it compared to last time. Just a few notes.

The digression to the 1848 barricades is shorter than I remember. I also really like contrast between the chaotic, throw-everything-on-the-street barricade and the perfectly engineered stone wall with silent snipers.

Enjolras, after a scouting mission determines that no help is coming and they’re all going to die, gives a stirring speech about the glorious future their deaths will usher in. He’s painfully optimistic about the 20th century.

Combeferre’s story about the starving orphan whose autopsy he attended is one of the hardest things to read in a book full of people experiencing horrible things. (Every stage and movie adaptation I’ve seen downplays how awful things are for the characters.)

Here’s a rare case where I like Denny’s translation over Donougher’s. Regarding Valjean’s pattern of shooting helmets instead of heads, Combeferre says he “does good deeds with a gun” (Donougher), which doesn’t get the same idea across as saying that he “does kindness with bullets” (Denny).

Most of the named characters die in lists. Bullet points, if you will. Only a few get individual send-offs: Mabeuf, Éponine and Gavroche. They hear Jean Prouvaire being executed after he’s captured. And at the end, Enjoras and Grantaire face a firing squad together.

There’s a lot of philosophical commentary about urban warfare, civil war, revolutions that have or don’t have the support of the populace, and how revolutions are sometimes necessary in preserving the long-term life of society over the short-term life of the individual. It’s presented as supporting material for the June Rebellion. But it’s the other way around.