Talk:Les Misérables
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[edit] Musical question
Can we have a citation on the Musical Les Miserables being the second longest on Broadway. I thought both Cats and Phantom of the Opera lasted longer. Les Miz is back on Broadway, of course, but longest-running has to be continuous. I think it can be said that Les Miz is the second longest running musical in the world, since it's been running continuously in London, where it began before Broadway. Second only to the Off-Broadway The Fantasticks. Gavroche42 15:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Pronunciation
Would someone mind puting a phonetic pronunciation for the title? lay-miz-er-ob? I know that's not right, I've seen some really cool phonetic spelling here on wikipedia before... little accent thingies and what not `~' et cetera..
- That'd be good, but PLEASE don't use the hideous "lay" pronounciation of english speaking people. It's really horrible. "Les" would rhyme with "heh", not with "hay". /Daniel Lindsäth 14:38, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Original talk
mav, you changed the wikiquote link to be listed under 'external links'. why isn't wikiquote considered internal? - fagan
- Because it is on a different wiki in a different project. --mav
[edit] Rename, redirect
I think this page should be moved to Les Misérables and replaced by a redirect. Any idea why it is the other way round ? François
- I also think it's a good idea, so I've just done it. I think the answer to your question is simply that whoever first named the article didn't know how to do the é. —Paul A 01:12, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
[edit] the musical
I'm confused as to why there is so much information about the musical on this page. This is about the novel, surely? The musical already has a page of its own. And the image of the programme - now that's just foolish. As such, I'm going to remove some references and information to the musical, esp. the image, and just you try and stop me without a good reason. --AdamM 22:38, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Right, I've removed the image, corrected some grammar, made a few sentences more readable, etc. etc. That plot synopsis looks remarkably like the musical one and not the novel at all. I can't change it as I've only seen the musical and therefore don't have the right, but reading this plot synopsis, which is about the novel, makes them contrast rather strikingly. Anyone agree with me, or has read the novel and can inform me of the changes? --AdamM 23:07, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- The superfluity of musical information is mostly residue from before the musical had its own article; I can't see anything wrong with any of the changes you've made. The plot synopsis is seriously flawed (it's not even an accurate synopsis of the musical), and it's on my list of things to fix in my copious free time. --Paul A 04:07, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- Well, I have made a start, although perhaps all I have achieved is to demonstrate how far there remains to go. :/ --Paul A 09:45, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- I'm beginning to get the feeling that when I'm done we'll have a colossus on our hands. Still, we can always compress it again later, and the summary will be the better for having been laid out in full beforehand. --Paul A 04:49, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- We now have a reasonably complete and accurate plot synopsis that is definitely of the novel and not the musical. Next step: a readably short and accurate plot synopsis that is definitely of the novel and not the musical... --Paul A 10:23, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
[edit] translation of title
Can anyone tell me why the title of this work is never translated into English? Was it just that "The Miserable People" doesn't sound very good? Mjklin 20:33, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)
- As I recall, translating Les Miserables as "The Miserable People" isn't accurate as it refers to the impoverished and other such groups as well in French. I know the description is somewhere in my copy of the novel, so I'll have to check it out sometime. I might modify the plot summary if I have time too. CountMippipopolous 2005, April 14
- In the translator(Norman Denny)'s introduction to my book (Penguin Classics) I found the following comment: "An untranslatable title: the first meaning of the French misere is simply misery; the second meaning is utmost poverty, destitution; but Hugo's miserables are not merely the poor and wretched, they are the outcasts, the underdogs, the rejected of society and the rebels against society."CountMippipopolous 2005, April 15
- I strongly disagree- the first meaning is poverty/destitution, the second that was almost never used during that time is misery. the title maybe should be translated as "the wretched ones" or something of the sort? allow me to read an excerpt from charles baudelaire (yes, the famous one)'s intro to my edition- he defines miserables as "ceux qui souffrent de la misere et que la misere deshonore" and he is obviously using the poverty definition as an synonym. User:SardinoUser talk:Sardino 8 feb 06 01:21
- In the translator(Norman Denny)'s introduction to my book (Penguin Classics) I found the following comment: "An untranslatable title: the first meaning of the French misere is simply misery; the second meaning is utmost poverty, destitution; but Hugo's miserables are not merely the poor and wretched, they are the outcasts, the underdogs, the rejected of society and the rebels against society."CountMippipopolous 2005, April 15
I read a novel set during the Civil War which claimed that the Southern troops who read the novel called themselves "Lee's Miserables". RickK 07:15, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
- First off, I wonder if that's actually true. Secondly, it would be good to get a citation for the novel mentioned. Third, as this is more of a point about who read Les Miserables than anything factoring into the influences which played a part in its being written, or in the plotline or elements of Les Miserables itself, I think it's somewhat offtopic. As it is now part of the page on the novel itself, introduced on Dec 15th in a shoddy typo edit, now moved around and cleaned up, I think it's total crap. --10.1.1.100 05:21, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Why can't we just translate the title literally, making it "The Miserables?" Seems sensibel to me. Thirteen Figure Skater 12:24, Sept 9, 2006 (UTC)
[edit] a modern version
A discussion about lying to get a job made me think that a modern versions of Les Misérables is in order.
Main character starts out in a regular IT (computer) job around 1995 and everything is pretty normal. Then the dot-com boom hits, things go upward but crazy; finally it all crashes down in the bubble burst. He manages to find another non-dot-com job, but is soon forced to train his offshore replacements from India and Israel, and is terminated.
A medical complication forces him to sell everything and ends up living in a box under a bridge. One day he decides to forgo his religious upbringing and to start lying on resumes and job interviews and finally it produces a job. He eventually moves up in rank, until one day his lies are discovered after making a small accounting mistake that could land him in jail due to the Sarbanes Oxly laws applied against his forged cridentials....
- But then he would be just a criminal, and Jean Valjean was not just a criminal. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:57, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
Why doesn't wikipedia list this as one of the greatest novels rather than a well-known novel? I have read this book and loved it, but i also read war and peace by tolstoy and i thought it was a load of crap. please appreciate this book as the masterpiece it is!
- Because that wouldn't be NPOV /193.11.202.125 18:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Context of "ghoul" quote from nethack?
I haven't read this novel, but I saw a quote from it while playing a game of Nethack when querying a ghoul:
The forces of the gloom know each other, and are strangely balanced by each other. Teeth and claws fear what they cannot grasp. Blood-drinking bestiality, voracious appetites, hunger in search of prey, the armed instincts of nails and jaws which have for source and aim the belly, glare and smell out uneasily the impassive spectral forms straying beneath a shroud, erect in its vague and shuddering robe, and which seem to them to live with a dead and terrible life. These brutalities, which are only matter, entertain a confused fear of having to deal with the immense obscurity condensed into an unknown being. A black figure barring the way stops the wild beast short. That which emerges from the cemetery intimidates and disconcerts that which emerges from the cave; the ferocious fear the sinister; wolves recoil when they encounter a ghoul. [ Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo ]
What context was this description of a ghoul? Are there fantasy/horror elements in this novel, or was Victor Hugo using ghouls as an metaphor for something? I'm curious as to the overall context this paragraph is set in... but I don't really have the urge to read the book at this point in my life. --69.234.208.76 09:20, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
There aren't any fantasy elements in Les Mis, though in a couple of chapters Hugo deals with some characters's beliefs in things like ghosts and ghouls, and at one point describes a legend about the devil burying gold. It's a metaphorical description of criminals; Eponine has just prevented her father from robbing Jean Valjean's house, and that's the way Hugo describes them disappearing into the darkness.--70.156.16.155 20:02, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Hugo tends to go off on a lot of tangents like that. A substantial portion of the book has nothing to do with the actual story but, anecdotal type things that lead to a greater understanding of the story. There was also a page-long description of a man dying out on sea after falling off a ship and although it is nothing to do with the story, it's extremely chilling and powerful, and leads us to a greater identification with the sufferings of his characters. --User:Goneja--
[edit] Themes analysis
I've been revising the plot synopsis to make it briefer and reflect the POV of the book more; but the Themes section seems seriously flawed to me, and I'm not the best person to fix it. Is anybody else interested? --70.156.16.155 20:03, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
- I think there's a case to be made for removing the Themes section entirely; literary analysis is, as I understand it, one of the things that Wikipedia is not for. Good work on the plot synopsis, by the way. --Paul A 06:28, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] parody
The plotline of Terry Pratchett's 28th Discworld novel, Night Watch, is a direct satire of Les Misérables. I thought it might be. Or else I'm slowly going insane, and everything I read is starting to resemble The Brick.
- Maybe there should be something in here regarding the title "Miserable Les", used by the opera ghost in Maskerade for one of his musicals? I don't know where to put it, doesn't seem to fit with any of the reference categories in the article. /193.11.202.125 19:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] synopsis
I've hit a wall in my attempts to make the plot synopsis any shorter, and everybody else who edits it seems to be bent on making it longer. Should I admit defeat, and create a separate sub-article for describing the plot at length? --Paul A 08:04, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
- Clearly, the answer is "yes". --Paul A 02:18, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
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- ROFL. Sorry, Paul, I hadn't read the talk page before jumping into the editing of the synopsis (since it clearly needed some fine tuning, IMO). Sorry. I think you may have over-reacted, in that there should still be at least a small (attempt) at a summary that's at least as long as the discussion of "grace and legalism." I think most encyc. readers would first want to know what the book is about before getting into a discussion of themes. With all due respect, as the task of summarizing this novel is a tough one. Reminds me of the old Monty Python's Flying Circus w/the game show based on competitive summarizing of the works of Marcel Proust. Kaisershatner 15:05, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
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- You're right: there should also be a short synopsis on this page. I intended to do one all along, but I needed to pause and get my breath back first. :)
- It's just that it was becoming clear that we needed a long description as well, because any short synopsis will inevitably leave something important out. --Paul A 03:00, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Student revolt
Did the student revolt ever actually occur? many sources claim that is did but all the leaders are fictional.--Gary123 00:46, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
- The key point, as I understand it, is that there was more than one barricade involved in the uprising: the barricade featured in Les Mis is fictional, but the others that the book mentions in passing were all real. --Paul A 06:16, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes. The revolt actually did happen. Victor Hugo (the author) fought in it. Like in the book, it was completely crushed by the government. --Thirteen Figure Skater 8:50, 12 September 2006(UTC)
Insurrection of 1832. See entry for General Lamarque. --Goneja 22 January 2007
[edit] My Name Is Earl
Would the NBC show "My Name Is Earl" be considered somewhat of a take off of Les Mis? I mean, considering the plot similarities... they [the characters] did bad, thus they want to redeem themselves through acts of good, while providing morals/social commentary.
I think that is crap! Whoever said that should NOT have. This story is WAY more complex that that stupid TV show! - ktahnx-Ally
- Whoever wrote that didn't say it was a 'good take off', just that it was a take off. A work of literature can inspire stupid television shows, and brilliant ones alike. (note: I am not agreeing or disagreeing that 'My Name is Earl' is stupid. I haven't seen it.) However, the idea of redemption is an old one. CF. Pilgrim's Progress. So the fact "My Name is Earl" is based on the concept of redemption doesn't make it a take off of Les Mis. Is he being chased by anyone for his past misdeeds? Does he adopt the daughter of a woman he has wronged? Are there any characters that resemble revolutionaries?--Gavroche42 01:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] New Plot Summary
I realize that some people want to have a short plot summary for this novel. However, this cannot be done, as the novel is far too long even to have a short synopsis. I have lengthened the summary but made it more readible; that is, I divided it into several shorter paragraphs rather than that large block of text. Personally, I think my new synopsis is far superior to the original one; of course, all authors would think that of their own writing :) Mipchunk 06:06, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
- Good work. --Paul A 05:03, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Night Watch Edits
There is no evidence that Pratchett's novel is a "direct satire" of Les Mis, though it certainly has similarities. But the events of the novel certainly can't be directly linked to the Jacobins, either. As for the comment about Les Mis being about Louis-Napoleon, this is erroneous. The uprising was during 1832 during the reign of Louis-Phillipe (the July Monarchy, for those who know their French history well).Mipchunk 02:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Eponine
There used to be an article on Eponine that I linked to, what happened? 69.156.93.133 23:05, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
- Usually, characters of novels are only given their own articles if they are individually significant, or perhaps have some special importance. Examples include, say, Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, or Gimli from the Lord of the Rings. This is obviously a rough guideline; there are no rules regarding this (I don't think), but the character of Eponine would not be one to fit this mold. Anyways, your article was erased and became a redirect to the main article. I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do without any discussion, but I don't think Eponine deserves her own article. You can look at the history here. Mipchunk 01:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
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- Well, there are a bunch of other little/insignificant articles on Wikipedia as well, that doesn't mean we should remove them all..69.156.93.133 20:33, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
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- Yeah, I do see your point. But I think the idea is, Eponine info belongs in the "main" Les Miserables article. So, if you want, you can create a "characters" section and start adding...but that would be a lot of work.Mipchunk 06:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
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- Ok, I see what you're saying. But I still think that the article shouldn't just "die". 64.228.194.48 21:40, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
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- Why in the world is Gimli more important than Eponine? And note that for Star Wars, we have articles on people like Nute Gunray and Boba Fett, not just Luke. It was ridiculous to turn that article into a redirect when it contained tons of information not currently in the main article, and much of which probably shouldn't be in the main article, as being too much detail. john k 02:55, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Seriously, why is there a page for a minor character (Eponine), but not one for the main characters? Cacophony 06:46, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
- Two answers. 1) Because the other pages haven't been written yet. If that doesn't satisfy you, and you find yourself asking, but why? If you're not really concerned about appropriateness, but about the mentality that results in Eponine being the first character written about. 2) Many female viewers of the musical strongly identify with the character. They see her as in love with a man who barely sees her. Perfect tragic heroine for a girl suffering from teenage angst. The article does a good job, in my opinion, explaining why some don't view the novel's character in the same way.--Gavroche42 01:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Confederate soldiers reading
I find the claim of Confederate soldiers reading the novel during the American Civil War dubious. The book wasn't published until 1862. How could a book be published in the French language in France, be quickly translated into English despite its enormous length, and become popular enough on another continent during a devasting war, and be purchased by poor soliders whose homeland was been ravaged, all within three years? This definitely needs a citation. 70.153.231.83 17:21, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
- Hugo was already popular in English for Notre Dame de Paris (I'm reading The Woman in White, which was written in 1860, at the moment, and there's a mention of Hugo's novel). According to our article, it was published in English for the first time, in, um, 1862. Dickens was certainly popular in America, and I see no reason to think that Hugo was not as well. There should still be a citation, but it's a perfectly plausible claim. john k 23:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
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- Yes, Les Miserables was published in French and English simultaneously. A pretty harsh July 1862 review, from the Atlantic Monthly, can be read here: http://gavroche.org/vhugo/review.gav --Gavroche42 01:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I think the reference to Confederate soldiers calling the book "Lee's Miserables" comes from Gone with the Wind, where Melanie keeps a battered copy of the book and Confederate soldiers passing through refer to it as "Lee's Miserables". I've never heard of it actually being carried by the soldiers.
- If you follow the link used as the source for the first three English translations, you'll see a quote from William G Stannard of the Virginia Historical Association, referring to the Richmond edition, saying, "Few perfect copies were left after 1863...They were read to pieces by the soldiers."
- I've found the reference to "Lee's Miserables" in Gone With the Wind by a 'search-through-the-book" at Amazon. It's not clear whether Mitchell made this up, or perhaps she also had read this somewhere else, and put it in her novel. Gavroche42 11:57, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
- Eureka! Found a reference in the book, Pickett and His Men, dated 1899. Written by the widow of General Pickett. Gavroche42 13:55, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Gavroche/Eponine
It's exquisitely lame that somebody created a redirect from Gavroche to here, with the edit summary "there should not be an article on this, so to prevent it's creation, I'm making this redirect", without insuring that Gavroche is actually mentioned in this article (which, in fact, he is not). Way to go. I've also restored the article on Eponine, which has lots of detailed information not present in this article. We have tons of articles on characters in various Dickens novels. The fact that other characters redirect here is no reason to destroy a lot of decent work that people have put in. john k 23:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
- Let's make a Gavroche article. :P --Masamage 23:48, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
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- done! (and it's the first article I wrote from scratch to boot!) Gavroche42 03:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
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- I'd suggest first that we improve this article so that it mentions him, but I don't see why it would be a particular problem. Why shouldn't we have articles at Fantine, Cosette, Jean Valjean, Javert, and so forth? john k 02:53, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
- I admit I am biased, as is obvious by my signature. However, there are arguments that Gavroche is third on the list of most familiar characters from the novel, behind only Valjean and Javert. There are restaurants world-wide named after him. There is an European organization benefitting orphans named after him. There's a French beer named after him. And I have read that the word 'Gavroche' has come to mean 'mischievous child' in French, however I have not been able to confirm this. There are also some great 19th century illustrations that could be included in the article, including two sketches Hugo drew. So yes, I agree that an entry should be written on Gavroche. And he should be mentioned here too. --Gavroche42 01:21, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
- I have added a character list, and lo and behold, some of the pages have been written, just not referenced in this article. Some of these still need some serious work, as they seem to be written by someone more familiar with the musical than the book, in my opinion. I will focus my wiki attention on the characters for a bit. Gavroche42 18:05, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
- I admit I am biased, as is obvious by my signature. However, there are arguments that Gavroche is third on the list of most familiar characters from the novel, behind only Valjean and Javert. There are restaurants world-wide named after him. There is an European organization benefitting orphans named after him. There's a French beer named after him. And I have read that the word 'Gavroche' has come to mean 'mischievous child' in French, however I have not been able to confirm this. There are also some great 19th century illustrations that could be included in the article, including two sketches Hugo drew. So yes, I agree that an entry should be written on Gavroche. And he should be mentioned here too. --Gavroche42 01:21, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
- I'd suggest first that we improve this article so that it mentions him, but I don't see why it would be a particular problem. Why shouldn't we have articles at Fantine, Cosette, Jean Valjean, Javert, and so forth? john k 02:53, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 24601
There's a lot of duplication between the Cultural references section of this article and the article 24601 (number). I propose that all the information be put at one location, with a note at the other saying "For details of references to Jean Valjean's prison number, see..."
The question is, which should be which? --Paul A 04:18, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Trivia and Cultural References
The end of this page is plagued with various trivia and cultural references, almost none of which seem appropriate. Yes, they do bear some connection with the main topic, but the information seems incredibly unnecessarily and certainly unencyclopedic. Does anyone else agree that we should remove these sections? Mipchunk 17:22, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
- I think some of them should definitely go, but not all. (The one about peeing in a room with a painting of Little Cosette, for instance, is so outrageously irrelevant that I'm going to clip it right now.) --Masamage 20:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'm just worried that trivia just makes the article unencyclopedic. I'm not sure if that's a concern of others, but it just seems silly that you are reading this article about a famous book from literature, and then at the end there are just some various cultural references items that don't really give you any more information about the actual subject matter. Mipchunk 07:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oh, and I recently read these guidelines on talking about a work of fiction. Note the out-of-universe perspective emphasis. This is what we need to transform this article into. Mipchunk 02:58, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
- In the guidelines, under 'out-of-universe perspective' there's a bullet point: the influence of the work on later creators and their projects. This is where the Cultural References come in, but not the trivia. Unless there is some evidence that Hugo intended any of the numerological coincidences, and no references are cited for that, those items are conceivably just that - coincidences, and meaningless. The Cultural References about the musical belong on the entry about the musical, not the entry about the novel. So...I would delete the first three sentences under 24601, and just leave the pop culture references to 24601. I would delete the subheader Musical Adaptation and move that information to the Musical's page. I'd leave the information under Other. And the only trivia I'd keep would be the one on the telegrams between Hugo and his Publisher, since it is footnoted. Those would be my suggestions. --Gavroche42 00:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
- Oh, and I recently read these guidelines on talking about a work of fiction. Note the out-of-universe perspective emphasis. This is what we need to transform this article into. Mipchunk 02:58, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'm just worried that trivia just makes the article unencyclopedic. I'm not sure if that's a concern of others, but it just seems silly that you are reading this article about a famous book from literature, and then at the end there are just some various cultural references items that don't really give you any more information about the actual subject matter. Mipchunk 07:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Cultural References Proposal!
As a final solution to the clean-up that obviously must be done for the Cultural References section, I hereby propose that we remove all the Cultural References items and replace it with a section that explains the impact on popular culture, rather than a long list of specific instances. In this proposed section, exceptionally notable cultural references will be specifically spelled out. Look at the Lord of the Rings popular culture section to see what I mean. Please post some input or suggestions, etc, about my proposal. I honestly believe that this section is growing without end, and it is both ugly, visually and stylistically, and above all incredibly un-encylopedic. Mipchunk 07:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
- I like that, and LoTR is a good article to emulate, being Featured. One concern is that they didn't actually eliminate their list of specific pop culture references; they moved it to another article. How would that be handled here? --Masamage 17:29, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
- Personally, I think some of the information should just be eliminated. I think lots of the cultural references that we're dealing with are actually related to the musical version, anyways. There's not much point in listing every single various TV show from Family Guy to the South Park that happens to mention Les Miserables.Mipchunk 02:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
- I commented above, blindly not seeing this proposal. There probably are enough cultural references to the novel Les Miserables to justify a separate page for those individuals interested in a list. On this separate page I'd add the movie The Fugitive, which I've heard said to be "extremely loosely" based on Valjean/Javert. I'd add a couple issues of an X-Men comic from the 90's that had a prisoner branded with the numbers 24601 chased through some sewers. And I'd add an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where a character compares Capt Sisko to Javert. But that's probably just scratching the surface. In this entry we could write the section on the impact on popular culture, and link to the separate entry that actually contains the list, in the same way the LOTR article links to the other articles. --Gavroche42 01:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
- Personally, I think some of the information should just be eliminated. I think lots of the cultural references that we're dealing with are actually related to the musical version, anyways. There's not much point in listing every single various TV show from Family Guy to the South Park that happens to mention Les Miserables.Mipchunk 02:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Inappropriate use of Musical quote in discussion of Grace vs. Legalism
"Les Misérables is, among its many other themes, a discussion and comparison of grace and legalism... in the musical adaptation of the work, this is expressed very well in the solo "Stars", with the lines..."
Isn't it a little silly to be using a quote from the musical when trying to prove how well Victor Hugo expresses the argument of Grace and legalism? Shouldn't we use an actual quote from the book rather than a lyric from a song written a hundred years later by someone who wasn't Victor Hugo? This doesn't make sense. Someone please find a good quote before I'm forced to. --Goneja
- It is also my understanding that Wikipedia isn't for 'original thought', so unless we're able to cite someone else on the comparison of legalism and grace, that entire section is original thought. Might be a fine analysis of Hugo's intent, but irrelevant, since that isn't the role of Wikipedia. Gavroche42 16:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Translations
Is an adbridgment of a particular translation worth noting separately? I hesitate deleting someone else's addition, but James Robinson's abridgemnet of the Charles Wilbour translation doesn't feel like a separate entity to me. It's still the CE Wilbour translation. And, alas, there are likely dozens of abridgments out there. Gavroche42 05:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
- You're probably right. Removing it seems very reasonable to me. --Masamage 06:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Javert's Mother?
Under Major Themes: Grace, the article currently has "In a way, his view at this point is similar to that of Javert's Mother, with the exception that Javert does think the punishment just." That doesn't look right to me. Going by the rest of the article (or even the rest of the sentence) it seems like it's Javert's view we're talking about, not that of Javert's mother. However, I haven't read the novel so I don't know for sure. Can anybody who has, take a look at it? By the way, the revision in which the "mother" appeared was "20:44, 18 February 2007" by 72.179.135.181. -- Why Not A Duck 20:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
- Good catch. The book tells us Javert had a mother, and she was a fortune-teller, but that's about all we know of her. Gavroche42 00:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Long Sentence
I have read that "Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo contains a sentence that is 823 words long. Is this an urban legend or is it something that should be mentioned in the article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.225.210.205 (talk) 02:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC).
- I'm not too sure which sentence it is. Some trivia books have listed it as 'the longest' in literature, but this is nowhere near the case. A sentence from Joyce's Ulysses has over 4,000 words, Jonathan Coe's Rotter's Club has a sentence containing almost 14,000 words, and a Polish novel contains a 40,000 word sentence. So while 823 words is certainly a long sentence, I doubt this is a 'notable' piece of trivia. [1] Gavroche42 14:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)