A: He's a rather minor character in Les Misérables, the most ponderous of several novels by Victor Hugo.
Q: Tell me more.
A: Well, you had a brief introduction on the main page. In more complete form, Hugo's description reads:
"Among all these passionate hearts and all these undoubting minds there was one skeptic. How did he happen to be there? from juxtaposition. The name of this skeptic was Grantaire, and he usually signed with the rebus: R. Grantaire was a man who took good care not to believe anything. He was, moreover, one of the students who had learned most during their course in Paris; ...[he] knew the good places for everything; furthermore, boxing, tennis, a few dances, and he was a profound cudgel-player. A great drinker to boot. He was frightfully ugly; the prettiest shoe-binder of that period, Irma Boissy, revolting at his ugliness, had uttered this sentence: "Grantaire is impossible," but Grantaire's self-conceit was not disconcerted. He looked tenderly and fixedly upon every woman, appearing to say of them all: 'if I only would'; and trying to make his comrades believe that he was in general demand. All these words: rights of the people, rights of man, social contract, French Revolution, republic, democracy, humanity, civilization, religion, progress, were, to Grantaire, very nearly meaningless. He smiled at them. Skepticism... had not left one entire idea in his mind. He lived in irony. This was his axiom: There is only one certainty, my full glass. He ridiculed all devotion, under all circumstances... He said of the cross: "There is a gibbet which has made a success." A rover, a gambler, a libertine, and often drunk... Still, this skeptic had a fanaticism. This fanaticism was neither an idea, nor a dogma, nor an art, nor a science; it was a man: Enjolras. ...Grantaire, a true satellite of Enjolras, lived in this circle of young people; he dwelt in it; he took pleasure only in it; he followed them everywhere. His delight was to see these forms coming and going in the fumes of the wine. He was tolerated for his good-humour."
Q: Okay, so who's Enjolras?
A: Another, less minor character, a revolutionary who ultimately gets himself and his friends killed. He means well, but he has no use for Grantaire.
Q: Where exactly does Grantaire show up in the book?
A: Introduced in "A Group Which Nearly Became Historic" (Marius, Book Fourth, Chapter I); rants in "The Back Room of the Cafe Musain" (Marius, Book Fourth, Chapter IV); brief appearance in Marius, Book Eighth, Chapter I; featured in "Enjolras and His Lieutenants" (St. Denis, Book First, Chapter VI); mentioned in passing in "History of Corinth from its Foundation" (St. Denis, Book Twelfth, Chapter I), and appears in the following two chapters, "Preliminary Gaiety" and "Night Begins to Gather Over Grantaire"; and finally in "Orestes Fasting and Pylades Drunk" (Jean Valjean, Book First, Chapter XXIII).
Q: I haven't read the book, but my mom took me to see the musical, is he in that?
A: Yeah, he's the guy who was being obnoxious in the cafe in the middle of the first act. ;) Go look at the picture gallery and see if that jogs your memory.
Q: What's this "R" business?
A: It's one of Hugo's patented silly French puns.
Q: Why do you like this loser?
A: For a multitude of reasons.
Q: Okay, I'm hooked. Can I join you?
A: If you're fond of the lad, to be sure. Go here.
Q: Do I have to have a website to join?
A: It's helpful, since then you can display your nifty banner, but it's not required.
