The Podcast about Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. In each episode, I will comment on a section of the book, to make it a bit less daunting, and hopefully help you enjoy it a bit more. I am a professor, but this podcast is created with a non-academic, non-ex
We finish up the 2012 movie musical -- with watch-along commentary!!
We tackle the middle section of the 2012 movie musical. Watch along!
We end this series by stepping back and thinking about this journey as a whole.
The more some people change, the more they stay the same.
In which I offer explanation, but not comfort, at this sad turn of events.
A day of confession and penance, deserved or not.
More delays, more excuses. But I hope it will be worth it.
Celebration, anguish, and how this all comes together at Mardi Gras.
Our characters are suddenly unrecognizable -- or are they?
Javert joins the last group in the world that he wanted to join.
In which we get some surprising déjà vu....
Jean Valjean wrestles with what he finds beneath the streets.
In which I explain what the holdup is, and what you can do while you're waiting for me to get my act together.
A whole new view of what's below Paris's streets. It's not pretty, but that's what's great about it.
Friendship, rescue, and contemplating defeat, as the uprising comes to an end.
The perils of being trapped inside, and of getting out.
In which we're surprised to learn who might be on the other side of the barricade.
Jean Valjean can still surprise us.... or can he?
What do our characters gain when they have nothing left to lose?
We continue to explore what goes into a barricade.
Gavroche and Mabeuf join the cause.
All you'll need to know about the 1832 Paris Uprising.
The perils and power of being a girl.
When you visit a place, it's only polite to try to learn a bit of the language....
Gavroche teaches us a thing or two about fatherhood.
Our characters reach across the barriers that separate them.
Places where we do, and don't, want to see roses.
What can we make of the fallout from the ambush?
An overview of the July Revolution, and some other bit-picture stuff.
Love, theatrics, and betrayal in the Gorbeau house.
We explore miners and their tools, and how they fit into Les Misérables.
The descent into poverty is a familiar one.
Marius's horizons expand, and we try to get a sense of the new world he has entered.
Marius begins to understand who he is.
Another child atrophies in another kind of darkness.
We meet fan-favorite Gavroche and the gamin de Paris, the character type that he doesn't quite exemplify.
Les Misérables moonlights as a sort of macabre sitcom.
I try my hand at live commentary on the 2012 movie-musical adaptation of Les Misérables.
A few things are familiar in this strange new place.
We decipher Hugo's complex position on Jean Valjean's latest hideout.
We discuss Hugo's take on life inside his fictional convent.
Will our hero escape the clutches of the police? And what kind of strange place will his safe haven turn out to be?
Two kindred souls finally find each other.
We look more deeply into another of the novel's most famous scenes.
Caught in the web of fate, what reason is there for hope?
We think about just what, exactly, this long digression about Waterloo is doing in this book.