Cosette: The Sequel to Les Miserables
by Laura Kalpakian
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Description
Victor Hugo's epic saga, Les Miserables continues in this dynamic and exhilarating sequel. Beginning in the barricades in Paris in 1832, Kalpakian's novel chronicles the life of Cosette, the memorable waif and adopted daughter of Jean Valjean, and the marriage she shares with her love, Marius Pontmercy, in the middle of the Revolution.Tags
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Member Reviews
What I learned from this book: Cosette has small breasts and (apparently!) enormous reserves of courage and fortitude beneath her 'I want to wear merino and sit vacuous in the Luxembourg gardens' exterior; sex with Marius is good, albeit "sticky and slimy and wet"; a man can hide from the police beneath a woman's hoopskirts and then somehow consummate the relationship from that position; your children will certainly betray you but don't worry 'cause they'll feel just awful about it later; Eponine had red hair.
Plus some stuff about how to hold a proper revolution. Marius should maybe have given up on insurrection after all of his friends died in the first one, but no: he goes off to get shot at again. Brave, or stupid?
A very long "bleh".
Plus some stuff about how to hold a proper revolution. Marius should maybe have given up on insurrection after all of his friends died in the first one, but no: he goes off to get shot at again. Brave, or stupid?
A very long "bleh".
Cosette is a beautiful sequel to Les Miserables, but the original is still better. Cosette marries Marius and they have 2 children, Fantine (named after Cosette's mother) and Jean-Luc. In this book, Cosette's life comes full-circle: she goes from lark to daughter in Les Miserables and from a daughter to a wife and mother to a lark. The revelation that Cosette and Marius sacrifice themselves for their children and Cosette's full-circle life brings tears to my eyes. The beginning of Cosette wraps-up the ending of Les Miserables for those who haven't read the original.
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Author Information
21+ Works 768 Members
Laura Kalpakian is the award-winning author of several novels and short story collections She has won the PEN West Prize for Best Short Fiction and received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction. She lives in Washington State.
Work Relationships
Is a (non-series) sequel to
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- Cosette; Marius Pontmercy
- Epigraph
- So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth... so long as the three problems of age - the degradation of man by pov... (show all)erty, the ruin of women by starvation, the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night - are not solved ... so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.
-VICTOR HUGO
Preface to Les Misèrables
1862 - Dedication
- This book is for my sister Helen,
la lumère de la famille - First words
- They say that time and memory are shackled, forever fettered and forever out of step.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)In the west the clouds lifted, and a long ribbon of blue sky unfurled, and Cosette knew the storm would pass before she got home.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance
- DDC/MDS
- 813.54 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1945-1999
- LCC
- PS3561 .A4168 .C6 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Individual authors 1961-
Statistics
- Members
- 153
- Popularity
- 213,372
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (2.15)
- Languages
- Czech, English, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook
- ISBNs
- 9
