Tag: Les Miserables

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Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Miserables_Vol1_1201As good as the play is it is but a hearty soup when compared to the book. Of course, at 1100 pages, some folks may consider the book a gluttonous meal. For this reader, in those 1100 pages, I found very few times that the book dragged.

The book is many things besides the story of Jean Valjean and company. At its heart it is a religious work. At the beginning of the 7th book of volume II, Hugo pens:

“This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the Infinite. Man is the second.”

With the story as the driver, Hugo interweaves history, philosophy, sociology, politics, religion and accounts of contemporary social norms and practices. Ultimately, it is a book about morality and self-sacrifice.

This is a story we all know well from the play and from the movies.

Jean Valjean is sentenced to the galleys, Continue reading “Les Misérables by Victor Hugo”

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Word of the Day – Skein

  • Noun:  Skein
    1.  a loosely coiled length of yarn or thread wound on a reel
    2. something suggesting the twists or coils of a skein :  tangle
    3. a flock of wildfowl (as geese or ducks) in flight
  •  Synonyms:
    1. tangle
    2. complication
    3. labyrinth
    4. snarl
  • Usage:
    1. “All day long, Cosette remained in a sort of bewilderment. She scarcely thought, her ideas were in the state of a tangled skein in her brain,she could not manage to conjecture anything, she hoped through a tremor, what? ”
  • Encountered:
    1. While reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

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Word of the Day – Genuflect

  • Verb:  Genuflect
  • Noun: Genuflection
    1. to bend the knee
    2. to touch the knee to the floor or ground especially in worship
    3. to be servilely obedient or respectful
  •  Synonyms:
    1. bow
    2. curtsy
    3. kowtow
    4. salaam
    5. obeisance
  • Usage:
    1. “Genuflection before the idol or before money wastes away the muscles which walk and the will which advances.”
  • Encountered:
    1. While reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

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Word of the Day – Irascible

  • Adjective:  Irascible
    1. becoming angry very easily : having a bad temper
    2. characterized or produced by anger
  •  Synonyms:
    1. Irritable
    2. quick-tempered
    3. short-tempered
    4. hot-tempered
    5. testy
    6. touchy
    7. tetchy
    8. edgy
    9. crabby
    10. petulant
    11. waspish
    12. Dyspeptic
    13. snappish
  • Usage:
    1. “Cournet was a man of lofty stature; he had broad shoulders, a red face, a crushing fist, a bold heart, a loyal soul, a sincere and terrible eye. Intrepid, energetic, irascible, stormy; the most cordial of men, the most formidable of combatants.
  • Encountered:
    1. While reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

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Word of the Day – Miasma

  • Noun:  Miasma
    1. a vaporous exhalation formerly believed to cause disease; also :  a heavy vaporous emanation or atmosphere <a miasma of tobacco smoke>
    2. an influence or atmosphere that tends to deplete or corrupt
  •  Synonyms:
    1. fetor
    2. fumes
    3. vapor
    4. foul air
  • Usage:
    1. “It sometimes happens that, even contrary to principles, even contrary to liberty, equality, and fraternity, even contrary to the universal vote, even contrary to the government, by all for all, from the depths of its anguish, of its discouragements and its destitutions, of its fevers, of its distresses, of its miasmas, of its ignorances, of its darkness, that great and despairing body, the rabble, protests against, and that the populace wages battle against, the people.”
  • Encountered:
    1. While reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

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Word of the Day – Sophism

  • Noun:  Sophism
    1. an argument apparently correct in form but actually invalid; especially :  such an argument used to deceive
  •  Synonyms:
    1. Absurdity
    2. Deception
    3. Misconception
    4. fallacious argument
  • Usage:
    1. “Conscience is the chaos of chimeras, of lusts, and of temptations; the furnace of dreams; the lair of ideas of which we are ashamed; it is the pandemonium of sophisms; it is the battlefield of the passions. .”
  • Encountered:
    1. While reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

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Word of the Day – Gamin

  • Noun:  Gamin
    1. a neglected boy left to run about the streets
    2. a street urchin
  •  Synonyms:
    1. Urchin
    2. Ragamuffin
    3. Waif
    4. Stray
    5. (derogatory) guttersnipe
  • Usage:
    1. “That is the pure-bred gamin. There are a great many varieties of the gamin species. The notary’s gamin is called Skip-the-Gutter, the cook’s gamin is called a scullion, the baker’s gamin is called a mitron, the lackey’s gamin is called a groom, the marine gamin is called the cabin-boy, the soldier’s gamin is called the drummer-boy, the painter’s gamin is called paint-grinder, the tradesman’s gamin is called an errand-boy, the courtesan gamin is called the minion, the kingly gamin is called the dauphin, the god gamin is called the bambino.”
  • Encountered:
    1. While reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

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Word of the Day – Redoubt

  • Noun:  Redoubt
    1. a temporary or supplementary fortification, typically square or polygonal and without flanking defenses.
    2. a defended position :  protective barrier
    3. a secure retreat
  •  Synonyms:
    1. bastion
    2. barrier
    3. defense
    4. stronghold
  • Usage:
    1. “The battery, which, if completed, would have been almost a redoubt, was ranged behind a very low garden wall, backed up with a coating of bags of sand and a large slope of earth. This work was not finished; there had been no time to make a palisade for it. “
  • Encountered:
    1.  While reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

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Word of the Day – Chimera

  • Noun:  Chimera
    1. (in Greek mythology) a fire-breathing female monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail.
    2. any mythical animal with parts taken from various animals.
    3. an individual, organ, or part consisting of tissues of diverse genetic constitution
    4. a thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve.
  •  Synonyms:
    1. illusion
    2. fantasy
    3. delusion
    4. dream
    5. daydream
    6. pipe dream
    7. figment of the/one’s imagination
    8. castle in the air
    9. mirage
  • Usage:
    1. “Conscience is the chaos of chimeras, of lusts, and of temptations; the furnace of dreams; the lair of ideas of which we are ashamed; it is the pandemonium of sophisms; it is the battlefield of the passions. .”
  • Encountered:
    1.  While reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

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Word of the Day –Laconic

  • Adjective:
    1. using or involving the use of a minimum of word
    2. concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious
  • Adverb
    1. laconically
  •  Synonyms:
    1. terse
    2. concise
    3. pithy
    4. succinct
  • Usage:
    1. ‘”My lord, what are your orders in case you are killed?” “To do like me,” replied Wellington. To Clinton he said laconically, “To hold this spot to the last man.”.’
  • Encountered:
    1.  While reading Les Miserables

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