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meta-squash · 3 years

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Brick Club 1.5.10 “Outcome Of The Success”

It’s long, I’m sorry. There’s just so much in this chapter!

The chapter’s first paragraph is a description of the misery of winter weather, bookended by sentences about Fantine. It’s been nearly a year since she was fired. The bit about winter is a description of Fantine’s descent as well as the weather. Winter brings short days which means less work; Fantine’s position in society means she’s finding less work as well because she is essentially freelancing rather than working for an employer with steady jobs. “No heat, no light, no noon, evening touches morning” is such a good description of the way everything is miserable and just blurs together when you’re trying to just stay alive. All the awful stuff is sharp and dull at the same time. “Winter changes into stone the water of heaven and the heart of man.” Fantine is starting to harden here; we see her become more shameless, tougher.

Fantine wears a cap after cutting her hair “so she was still pretty.” And this disappears so rapidly in this chapter. Her beauty is so important. Fantine is the only character aside from Enjolras who is repeatedly described as beautiful in a way that seems to really matter. (Cosette is also beautiful, but that description is almost entirely through Marius’ POV, rather than from a more general POV with Fantine.) The slow destruction of Fantines beauty--the discarding of her pretty clothes for peasant ones, her frequent tears, the loss of her hair and teeth, the torn and threadbare clothing--mirrors her social destruction. She desperately clings to her beauty by wearing a cap, but she obviously gives up pretty soon.

What fascinates me here is that Hugo mentions that Fantine admired Madeleine, like everyone else, but he also implies that she didn’t hate him straight away for her dismissal. In the previous chapters, her reaction is to accept the dismissal as a “just” decision. She works up her hatred by repeatedly telling herself it was his fault. It seems as though she lands on the right conclusion in the wrong way. She blames herself first, and only through gradually convincing herself does she start to blame Madeleine. He and his crap system are the ones to blame, but she comes to that conclusion in a roundabout way that feels like she still blames herself but is trying not to. Fantine has been a scapegoat for everyone up until now; Madeleine has become her scapegoat to avoid (incorrectly) blaming herself.

“If she passed the factory when the workers were at the door, she would force herself to laugh and sing.” She’s trying so hard to make them think they haven’t gotten to her, but it just makes it so much more obvious. The laughter and singing is the “wrong” reaction, and it makes everyone notice her even more, and judge her even harder. It’s just so sad because I can understand that behavior of trying so hard to act the opposite way of how you think people will expect you to, only it backfires and makes your true feelings all the more apparent, which gives even more fuel to the cruel people.

Fantine takes a lover out of spite, “a man she did not love.” There are a few things here that contrast with the grisettes of 1.3. This lover is someone Fantine does not love, her first relationship since losing Tholomyes, who she was in love with. The man is also a street musician, which reminds me of Favourite’s actor/choir boy. The difference being that Favourite’s boy had at least some connections through his father, and Fantine’s lover is only a street musician. Fantine takes this lover in for the same reason that she sings and laughs outside the factory: to try and show that she’s unaffected, which really only serves to do the opposite. She has this affair “with rage in her heart,” which seems to be the only emotion left for her for anyone besides Cosette (and maybe Marguerite).

“She worshiped Cosette.” My only comment here is that this is something that Valjean will later echo. Both worship and adore Cosette as a point of light, something to cling to and love and care for.

Okay maybe I’m missing something here, but Fantine can read but she can’t write? This is probably my “been good at reading/writing my whole life” privilege talking, but wouldn’t she be able to write if she could read? I suppose maybe it’s like how I can look at numbers and understand the numbers but I can’t do math for shit? I don’t know. That just caught my eye.

Fantine is starting to lose her inhibitions as she begins to lose control of everything in her life. She’s laughing and singing and running and jumping around outside in public, she’s acting loud and brash and odd. Her reactions to her misfortune and the terrible things that keep happening express the “wrong” emotion. It’s an attempt to cope, and a courageous one, but it’s drastically different from the quiet Fantine who barely spoke that we were introduced to.

“Two Napoleons!” grumbled a toothless old hag who stood by. “She’s the lucky one!”

This line really struck me. We’ve been tunnel-visioned on Fantine’s misery this whole time. Suddenly the focus pulls back a little bit and we get a little bit of perspective. Fantine is not at rock bottom yet. She could still go so much lower. To this toothless old woman, she’s lucky because she’s pretty and because her teeth have worth. Fantine is poor, and cold, and worried about her kid, and most of the town laugh at or scorn her, and yet this old woman still thinks she’s the lucky one of the two of them. It’s a much more subtle commentary on the levels of poverty and abjectness that exist. Once you’ve fallen through the cracks in society to the level of homelessness, to the level of selling your teeth and hair and body, to complete aloneness, anyone who has even a scrap more than you seems “lucky.” And Fantine’s not too far from that existence.

The conversation between Marguerite and Fantine about military fever is so weird. Is Marguerite just saying stuff? This dialogue sounds like a conversation between two people who have no idea what they’re talking about. It’s like those scenes in comedies where one person pretends to be super confident about something to impress the other even though both of them are completely wrong. Oh okay wait! I just did some googling and I’ve realized that neither of them know what they’re talking about because Thenardier did his bad spelling thing! “Miliary fever” is an old medical term for an infection that causes fevers and bumpy skin rashes. (Mozart’s death is attributed to it; it seems to have fallen out of use as it became easier to pinpoint certain illnesses.) I think this isn’t just Marguerite not knowing what she’s talking about. This is a misunderstanding due to Thenardier’s misspelling (whether deliberate or not, I don’t know) and neither Marguerite nor Fantine know enough to realize it.

ETA: Okay wow I’m keeping that whole “miliary fever” thought journey in just to record my thought process but I’ve just double-checked against the Hapgood translation and the original French, and the mistake isn’t with the Thenardiers at all! It’s entirely the fault of the translators. The original French says “miliare” and Hapgood has translated it as “miliary”; Fahnestock and MacAfee clearly did not notice that the French was “miliare” and not “militaire,” and neither did their editors.

“During the night Fantine had grown ten years older.” Off the top of my head, I can only think of three instances of not-old people being blatantly described as looking old. This description here, Valjean when he returns from Arras, and Eponine. There are probably more I’m missing, but the connecting factor between these three is severe, prolonged trauma. Trauma and a difficult life can prematurely age people (I always think of that Dorothea Lange photo of the migrant mother who was only 32 but looks 50) and Hugo uses this fact to bolster his descriptions of what they go through. But Fantine and Valjean both age almost suddenly; Eponine is already old-looking the first time we meet her as a character with dialogue. Fantine’s sudden aging is another level of departure from her old life. In Paris, she was the youngest of the group, and now she looks far older than she is.

“Actually, the Thenardiers had lied to get her to get the money. Cosette was not sick at all.” As readers, we know this. We’ve seen the Thenardiers lie over and over and we see Fantine sacrifice with no idea. But this one hits harder than the others. Partly, I think, because Hugo puts it so bluntly in a sentence that has its own paragraph. But also because this is the first sacrifice that is truly unalterable. Fantine’s hair can grow back. There may have eventually been some slim chance of a job opportunity or something coming up somehow, or an influx of things needing mending or something. But she cannot regain her teeth. This is also the first sacrifice that physically disfigures her in a visible way. She can hide her lack of hair under a cap, she can hide her lack of money by using and reusing things. She cannot hide her missing teeth.

It’s interesting that we do not hear about Mme Victurnien here. Rather than the last chapter, this would be the one where Victurnien would be “winning.” The consequences of Victurnien’s actions have now permanently affected Fantine’s life. Except I think the reason we don’t see her here is that she wouldn’t face it. She can look out her window at Fantine walking down the street in distress with her beauty intact and feel satisfaction, but if she saw Fantine walking down the street, toothless and hairless, I don’t think she would feel satisfaction, because she wouldn’t be able to connect her actions to this Fantine. Feeling satisfaction towards this level of misery would require acknowledging her participation in causing it. It’s one thing for the townspeople to laugh at or gawk at her, but I think claiming responsibility for her condition is something else altogether that I’m not sure Mme Victurnien would do.

Fantine throwing her mirror out the window is a strange sort of contrast compared to Eponine’s reaction to a mirror. Fantine cannot face her descent. Eponine is already there, and her excitement at Marius’ mirror is a weird sort of distracted examination of herself. Fantine cannot bear to examine herself because unlike Eponine, she can remember what it was like before this. Tossing away the mirror is tossing away the thoughts of her past life and her past self; she can’t ever go back to that.

“The poor cannot go to the far end of their rooms or to the far end of their lives, except by continually bending more and more.”

God I don’t really even know what to say about this line except ouch. It’s just so poignant and intense. The older you get the harder it is to survive, to get up with each new stumble. And we can also take into account things like the cholera epidemic that will occur a few years later in the book, which mostly affected the poor. There’s so little access to any sort of help or assistance. And clearly Valjean’s few little systems of aid aren’t good enough. He may have set up a worker’s infirmary and a place for children or old workmen, but there doesn’t seem to be assistance for single, unsupported women, or the homeless and unemployed. They’re left to bend more and more under the weight of life.

“Her little rose bush dried up in the corner, forgotten.” I can’t help but read this as a parallel to the Thenardier’s treatment of Cosette. As Fantine falls apart and falls behind on her payments, Cosette is growing up which means the abuse from the Thenardiers has probably increased. It also feels like a weird sort of throwback to the spring/summertime imagery of beauty and chasteness and modesty from back in 1.3, which has now completely disappeared and dried up as Fantine loses her beauty, her modesty, and her coquetry.

I love the little detail about Fantine’s butter bell full of water and the frozen ice marks. It’s such a small detail but so evocative. It also feels like a metaphor for each of Fantine’s new hardships. Every time the butter pot freezes over, it leaves a ring of ice for a long time; each time Fantine encounters a new trauma, she hardens and becomes tougher. She keeps her dried up, long gone modesty and youth in one corner and the suffering that has hardened her in the other. On a side note, I’m wondering if there is actually butter in her butter bell or if she’s now using it only for water? I would imagine water only; butter seems like something that might be expensive. Also, would the building she’s living in have had indoor plumbing, or would she have gotten water from a well or a pump somewhere? My plumbing history knowledge is lacking.

Hugo describes Fantine’s torn and badly mended clothes. At this point she’s working as a seamstress, which means she’s at least proficient in the skills needed to sew and/or mend clothes in such a way that they stay together. This means that the repairs done for herself are likely careless and messy. I think this is partly an indication of how little time she has for herself--if she’s sewing for work for 17 hours a day, she has very little time to mend her own stuff, and definitely can’t afford better quality material--and partly an indication of the ways in which she is falling apart. She doesn’t bother mending her things properly, she goes out in dirty clothes. She doesn’t mend her stockings, she just stuffs them further down in her shoes. It seems she has only one or perhaps no good petticoats, which means she’s probably walking around in just a shift and a dress. Not only is her stuff threadbare and falling apart, she’s also probably freezing due to the lack of layers.

“A constant pain in her shoulder near the top of her left shoulder blade.” This makes me wonder if Fantine’s left-handed. If she’s sewing by hand, by candlelight, in a shitty rush chair, for seventeen hours a day, that is absolute murder on the back/shoulders/neck. Whenever I do hand-sewing I’m usually sat on the floor or my bed, and my back and upper shoulders tend to get sore if I get in the zone and I’m bent over the work for a long time. I don’t know about French dressmakers, but I know around that time the English were really big on very small, neat, almost invisible stitches. Which would hurt to do for seventeen hours a day by candlelight.

“She hated Father Madeleine profoundly, and she never complained.” The Hapgood translation of this line is better, I think. Still, I think it’s important that it’s pointed out that she never voices her opinions or her complaints. It’s only when Madeleine is in front of her that she announces them at all (despite not speaking directly to him then, either). She hates Valjean, she blames him, and yet obviously some part of her still thinks that she deserves it, or that her dismissal was right.

“She sewed seventeen hours a day, but a contractor who was using prison labor suddenly cut the price, and this reduced the day’s wages of free-laborers to nine sous.” Reading this book is always a lot because aside from the still-relevant general overarching commentary about society and poverty and mutual aid and goodness and all that, there are so many smaller details that are so painfully, strangely relevant to the present day. Even today there’s fear that employers will come up with a new policy or a new labor shortcut that means less income. Employers who pay their employees less because the workers get tipped, or outsourcing that causes layoffs. Prison labor, too (and behind that, the fact that prison labor doesn’t guarantee a job in a similar field after release if desired).

In the next two chapters, we jump ahead somewhere between a few weeks to a couple months. What happened to Marguerite in the interim? Hugo describes her as a “pious woman [...] of genuine devotion,” but I have this sad thought that maybe when Fantine made the decision to become a sex worker, Marguerite may have turned her back on her as well. As we’ve seen with Valjean, being poor but modest is Good, and being poor and desperate enough to do something improper and “immoral” is Bad. Despite Marguerite’s canonical generosity towards the poor, I wouldn’t be surprised if Fantine’s decision overstepped some moral boundaries of hers.

“But where is there a way to earn a hundred sous a day?” I’m a little stuck on this. Would she make this much money? I’m basing the following information off of Luc Sante’s The Other Paris, so the monetary info might be slightly different a for non-Parisian area. According to Sante, someone like Fantine, a poor woman working without a pimp or madame and not in a legal brothel, would basically be working for pocket change. 100 sous would equal about 5 francs. If her earnings are basically pocket change, I don’t think she’d make 5 francs a day. Just considering the fact that a loaf of bread might cost about 15 sous, which seems like pocket change, or even slightly more than pocket change. Fantine probably becomes a sex worker and finds herself in the exact same position that she was in before, not making any more money than she would have if she had continued to be a seamstress.

#les miserables #les miserables meta #brickclub #lm 1.5.10 #les mis #les mis meta

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the-disgruntled-vc · 5 years

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TVL reread part 2.5! [In which I am sad a lot because Lestat is a little birdie with broken wings and his dogs are dead. I get mad at Gabrielle for being a terrible Mother. I point out Louis’s privilege and classist themes in this series. And I call out Nicky for being DTF since the very beginning.]

* * *

“Two times in my life I’d tried to escape this life, only to be brought back with my wings broken.” - Lestat

And this quote pretty much summarizes the entirety of my feelings regarding this part of the story.

Overall, I was pretty emotional reading about Lestat’s home life. It just brought up a lot of memories about my time in foster care. My opinion has changed a over the years in regards to Lestat. I found myself really empathizing with him in this chapter.

I actually cried during the wolf fight scene.

I’m embarrassed to admit this but Lestat describes how he witnesses all his dogs get killed then later how he has to put down his horse whom was severely injured. Then this:

What had happened in that one single moment was irreparable, and the next thing I knew I was lying alone in my room. I didn’t have the dogs in bed with me as always in winter because the dogs were dead, and though there was no fire lighted, I climbed, filthy and bloody, under the bed covers and went into deep sleep.

For days I stayed in my room.

Maybe a week passed. When I could stand having other dogs near me, I went down to my kennel and brought up two pups, already big animals, and they kept me company. At night I slept between them.

I was so sad over these fictional pets. What is wrong with me? 😂

We’re only ever told that Lestat’s brothers mistreated him because they were assholes.

But I wonder if the brothers treatment of him worsened since he was obviously favored by Gabrielle and she spent her limited wealth on him.

Lestat mentions he “put the fear of God into the servants”.

I thought this pretty interesting just because I only ever really remembered Louis and Pandora having servants. Maybe Marius did too, i hardly remember B&G. Sybelle at one point “owned” Benji. Lots of classism in this series and it’s always always made me super uncomfortable.

I think it’s pretty shitty of Gabrielle to never have bothered to teach any of her children how to read.

Lestat himself resented her for this, although she did fight for him to be able to go to the monastery. He was obviously self-conscious about being illiterate.

All my life I’d watched her read her Italian books and scribble letters to people in Naples, where she had grown up, yet she had no patience even to teach me or my brothers the alphabet. And nothing had changed after I came back from the monastery. I was twenty and I couldn’t read or write more than a few prayers and my name. I hated the sight of her books; I hated her absorption in them.

That last sentence in particular makes me think this is why Lestat has always been resentful of Louis’s reading habits.

And also it explains why Lestat constantly made snide remarks in Interview about Louis’s wealth. He was obviously jealous and more than a bit resentful about his bourgeois lifestyle because he never had such things growing up and ---wow, that’s fucking sad. I’m sad.

I understand why Lestat feels resentful. I grew up really poor and it’s hard when you see people that are able to afford to get into nice schools, participate in activities that you can’t just because their parents have money and provided those things for them. I had friends whose parents paid for them to take music or art lessons during their free time or sent them to private school and summer camps. And I was always incredibly envious because I was a really good student and got better grades then some of these kids I knew, but that ultimately didn’t matter.

I’m not saying Louis is some entitled rich boy, because he ran the plantation on his own and definitely wasn’t lazy...but he was incredibly privileged (and I fucking love Louis so don’t come at me because will @ back). And Lestat sees that so he acts like a dick to him without maybe being conscious of his own feel of inadequacy that make him act that way. *sigh* This makes me sad and feel a little bit more empathetic towards his characterization in IWTV.

Lestat and Gabrielle bond over mutual thoughts of killing their entire family. ….Yay? 😅

This entire conversation about Nicolas between Lestat and Gabrielle is incredibly foreshadowing about future events and I just can’t get over it:

“And so Nicolas has no violin now?”

“He has a violin. He promptly ran away to Clermont and sold his watch to buy another. He’s impossible all right, and the worst part of it is that he plays rather well.”

“You’ve heard him?”

She knew good music. She grew up with it in Naples. All I’d ever heard were the church choir, the players at the fairs.

“I heard him Sunday when I went to mass,” she said. “He was playing in the upstairs bedroom over the shop. Everyone could hear him, and his father was threatening to break his hands.”

I gave a little gasp at the cruelty of it. I was powerfully fascinated! I think I loved him already, doing what he wanted like that.

“Of course he’ll never be anything,” she went on.

“Why not?”

“He’s too old. You can’t take up the violin when you’re twenty. But what do I know? He plays magically in his own way. And maybe he can sell his soul to the devil.”

I laughed a little uneasily. It sounded tragic.

HE REALLY DID BECOME ALL OF THOSE THINGS. 😱 I’m sad again.

Lestat is a bottom/switch y’all IDC what you say.

Lestat is trying to ask Nicolas questions about Paris and Nicky’s just like “let’s go somewhere more private. I have a room upstairs” And biiiitch even at fifteen I understood the subtext and people that still believe they’re “just friends” are fucking delusional.

^ Gay. If you don’t think so you are wrong. 👀

I’m gonna end this here but I feel like I may jump over Lestat and Nicky’s time in Paris. Because I already summarized how I felt about that in this post. Nicky pisses me off and I would just rather skip to my son Armand’s introduction.

#The Vampire Chronicles #vampire chronicles #The Vampire Lestat #TVL reread #VC reread #Lestat De Lioncourt #VC Quotes #lestat quotes #nicolas de lenfent #gabrielle de lioncourt #Louis de Pointe du Lac #Anne Rice #i didn't have time to proofread #I mean I did but i always finish these at weird hours of the morning and im way overdue in this and just want it out #procrastination is bad okay?

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sophiethetheatregirl · 5 years

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Les Miserables (2018) Review/Thoughts (SPOILERS)

Okay, let’s get this straight: I don’t hate this series. It’s just that a lot of things really annoy me. First, let’s just quickly talk about the positives before unpacking...everything else.

It was really nice to see plot points adhering a little closer to the book, such as Waterloo, Valjean robbing Petit Gervais, Fantine’s relationship with Felix, etc.

The cast is also quite good - then again, it’s the BBC, they usually get pretty competent actors. Still a little salty that it seems Fantine will always have brown hair in adaptations, but I’ve kind of become resigned to that. Lily Collins isn’t my ultimate Fantine, but she did well with what she was given with. Despite the decisions made for her character, Erin Kellyman was also a great Eponine (when she died, I saw the bullethole on her hand, kudos for details). In a better adaptation, I’m sure she would have been straight up amazing. Also I’m glad they showed you that Fantine was being tricked by the Thenardiers, whereas in the musical you didn’t see that at all. Enjolras and Grantaire’s deaths sadly didn’t involve the “Do you permit it” line, but I thought it was still rather beautiful.

And Derek Jacobi was a great Bishop. He can do no wrong.

Okay, onto the bad. *cracks knuckles*

I find it incredible how even though Andrew Davies stated the series would be closer to the novel, he got many characterizations way off, especially Valjean. You know you have a problem when your main character is doing stuff even fans who’ve only seen the musical know he’d never do. Like, why the hell did he have to be the one who fired Fantine? Valjean is far too understanding, too kind to kick out a person for having a secret kid. It’s ridiculous. Making it even worse, his relationship with adult Cosette is awful. He’s overprotective for sure, but the series makes him look utterly possessive, and that’s just gross.

Poor Cosette can never catch a break when it comes to adaptation. I was so hyped up to see a girl who was sassy and clever and kind, but nope! She has even less personality than her musical version, which is saying something. Funny how Andrew Davies said that he didn’t like how weak Victor Hugo’s female characters were (a bullshit statement if he actually read the book), but if he had such a problem with them, he didn’t...you know, make them people with real agency. You’re a writer for god’s sake, Mr. Davies!

Javert might not be my favourite character, but I do find him very fascinating. It was fingerbitingly irritating to see him focus on nothing but arresting Valjean. The fandom does make jokes about him being like that, but we know there’s more to him than just a desire to arrest a guy who stole a loaf of bread. Also, I just facepalmed when he said he valued arresting Valjean over the revolution in the streets. People are dying, you dolt! I thought you devoted your life to protecting the public. Not to mention him thinking Valjean would be leading the revolution was just really weird. I’m honestly rather sad to see him reduced to that, because I frankly really like David Oyelowo as an actor.

The Les Amis were almost a complete disappointment. They were just so boring. Which is not something I want to say about a group of revolutionaries! Enjolras doesn’t give a speech until mere hours before his death, so I wasn’t sold on him being a charismatic leader. Also...he was brunette. And had a pornstache. All right, it’s fine if he’s not blond (Ramin Karimloo comes to mind as an awesome not blond Enjolras), but you’d think if they were going to be loyal to the book, they’d make sure to add the detail that Enjolras is basically Apollo with how many times Victor Hugo mentioned him being blond. Also, they cut the group completely in half. I missed my precious Joly and Combeferre (sob). At least Courfeyrac was adorable as he always is. Grantaire is okay - at least there was a hint he loved Enjolras. I still say George Blagden and Hadley Fraser are the quintessential Grantaires, though.

Marius. It was so uncomfortable seeing him acting so smooth. Marius Pontmercy is a quirky and awkward Napoleonic Democrat and that’s how I like him. That’s why I loved Eddie Redmayne so much - his singing voice wasn’t Tony material, but he was perfectly awkward and adorably heartsick. Also that freaking wet dream sequence - what the flying fuck was that?! Marius is a romantic idiot, not a horny one.

And finally, my biggest problem of all, Andrew Davies himself. I really don’t understand why his writing was so lame here when he also wrote for the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, which I thought was really good. Even War and Peace, despite its flaws, had genuinely beautiful moments. Also, like everybody else, I was pretty annoyed when he called the musical a “travesty” and his version was going to “save” Hugo’s novel. Yeah, shit over the millions of people who were introduced to the story through the musical (like me). The show is nearly forty years old, of course people are going to compare the series to the musical.

And speaking of the musical...does anyone else find it really odd that many shots looked like they were straight up ripped off from the 2012 film, which was of course a musical? Talk about ironic. Wonder what Tom Hooper would say about that.

The last shot to end the series also pissed me off for some reason, showing Gavroche’s little brothers sitting on the street without him begging to passerby, who ignore them. Les Miserables is a story about hope for Pete’s sake, you’d think it’d end on a better high than that. Essentially, it’s like they’re giving a giant middle finger to everyone watching. I know this was also in the Brick and Victor Hugo meant to send a different message, but the one we got looked irritatingly cynical. The message the series tells us is that the revolution failed, and nothing is going to get better - a message that directly contradicts what Victor Hugo was trying to say with the whole damn story. (This scene also serves as a lesson to anyone not familiar with the adaptation process: Just because it works on the page doesn’t mean it can work onscreen.)

Come on BBC, you make amazing shows. You can do better than this.

#i just had a lot of feelings so i figured i'd put them here #les mis bbc #victor hugo #Les Misérables #les mis #les miserables #anything's possible if queue have enough nerve

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ayliffe · 6 years

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Hey Hugh, you have this giant list of books you read don't you? Well I was interested, if you could summarize in a few words how each of those books spoke to you? What made you pick them up, what kept you reading and what's the lasting thoughts on them? You don't have to do like every book but i'd be very interested to see how some have impacted you!

i sure do! honestly, the reasoning for most of the books on this list is either “i’d been meaning to read it for ages so why not” or “loads of people have recommended this so why not”, but here are my thoughts on them all!

july 1: les miserablesthis is what started off the whole month. i’d been meaning to read it for ages, and was told by a ton of my friends to sit down and do it, so i did. hugo’s style was less annoying than i was worried it would be, but the constant detouring did get a bit wearing. loved grantaire, naturally, and also marius. what a lad.

july 2: hamletanother one i’d been meaning to read but just hadn’t got around to. we read a surprisingly small amount of shakespeare at school, despite living in the uk, and i was pleasantly surprised. hamlet walking around wearing black and flailing about ineffectually was pretty damn relatable.

july 3: the odysseyfun fact: emily wilson’s translation, which is the one i read here, is the first time i’ve ever managed to get through the odyssey. it’s strange, because the plot isn’t boring or anything, but the translations are often fairly dry. wilson’s was brilliant, though – poetic and fresh. beautiful book, too.july 4: the eyre affairoh god, this one first went on my list about a decade ago. i wanted to like it a lot more than i did – not to say that it was bad, but i wasn’t a huge fan of how fforde wrote. i loved the concept, though, and the idea is still fascinating.july 5: the picture of dorian grayanother one i’d been meaning to read for ages! i got about halfway through years ago but just didn’t pick it back up for whatever reason. anyway, i thought i preferred wilde’s more comedic stuff, and perhaps i still do, but i really loved the aesthetic of tpodg. plus basil was a sweetheart.july 6: nauseaUUUUUGGGGHGHHH. sartre’s philosophy is sound but my god antoine is a prick. finished it because i really hate putting books down once i’ve started them.

july 7: catch-22yet another i’d been meaning to read for ages. it took me a while to realise exactly what was going on, but once i did i was into it. loved the ending, too – surprisingly hopeful for how dark the rest of the book was.

july 9: vile bodies; the ballad of reading gaolvile bodies was excellent – waugh’s style was wonderful and even though the whole thing ended up bloody miserable, it was a great read. the ballad of reading gaol just made me sad :(july 10: frankensteinvictor was hot. it was also really interesting to see the progression of the monster – adam? – though. i felt really fucking bad for him around the bit where he’s trying to help that family. doesn’t really excuse all the murders but you can sort of sympathise with him.

july 11: orlandoi read this because it was supposed to be, like, a Trans Masterpiece but honestly i didn’t enjoy it too much? woolf’s style was a bit dry for me, and i got anxious when orlando changes sexes because i’m. the other way around u feel?

july 12: the liari recommended this when someone asked for book recs ages ago and i thought i’d read it again just to make sure i agreed with myself. it was good when stephen fry wasn’t wanking over how witty he was, which was unfortunately a lot of the time. still in love with the setting and the concept though.july 13: crushi’m not huge on poetry, to be honest, but the fragments i’d seen of this made me want to give it a look. unfortunately, i think a lot of it went over my head but siken really has a way with words and i’m into it.

july 14: interview with the vampireahahaha, i almost didn’t read this just because of left-over snobbery from when i was about 13. as it is, though, i’m glad i did. loved lestat. it was frothy trash and it did exactly what i wanted to. i liked it a lot.july 15: animal farmi was hungover and i wanted something short, plus i’d read 1984 and i wanted to see how this compared. shit was chilling. boxer was my fave and i am very sad about it all :(july 16: candidein all my 24 years of life, i had never read any voltaire. i was into all the weird-ass names he made up + his keeping the tone light despite all these objectively awful things happening to everyone. candide was such a dumbass. bless him.

july 17: if we were villainsi’d been told this was basically a tsh ripoff but still pretty good, and so it is. i liked the narration and i loved the twist, but i imagine someone smarter than me probably could have worked it out before it happened.july 18: dr faustus; inferno/purgatorioi got dr faustus as a christmas present a few years back and i still hadn’t read it, so i did. i was into it! the ending felt very… appropriate? like, yeah buddy you can repent out of fear all you like but you don’t actually mean it though do you. sorry, that’s the catholicism leaking in. as for inferno/purgatorio, i thought it was interesting that as dante rose through the spheres, everything got a lot more dry? inferno was easy enough (+ the salt over his various contemporaries was delicious) but legit the further i got through purgatorio, the more difficult i found it. though that may have been because i was exhausted because:july 19: paradiso; bacchaeparadiso was a lot easier to read than purgatorio was. it was pretty great reading about all the spheres of heaven (they’re in space! how cool is that!) and the angels and all. the bacchae was because i fancied having a night in with dionysus and it was even better than i remembered.july 20: the devil’s dictionaryyet another gift. bierce’s sense of humour is extremely cynical, not at all out of place in the 21st century.july 21: a single man; the symposiumthe ending of a single man really struck me by surprise. i really liked the whole thing, though – i’ll have to watch the film next. the symposium was another one i’d read before but hadn’t got back to, and it was great to see people other than socrates talk about anything. it’s plato, so obviously everyone has a boner for socrates, but at least he was only there for part of it.july 23: mauriceagain, i’d started this one a while back, then dropped it, then about a year back i watched the film and low-key wigged out. the book was significantly better than the film, at least partially because it’s made a lot clearer that maurice actually invites alec down to london, and in general it just felt calming, you know? like a nice cup of tea.

july 24: good omensi remembered it being alright and other than being vaguely excited for the amazon show, i hadn’t really thought about it much. but rereading it was a whole new experience. the whole idea is just wonderful and i adore how it’s written.july 25: like a third of capote’s worksi’m afraid i sort of blazed through these. i liked how capote wrote but none of the stories really left a lasting impression on me except the one with that girl who just followed that woman around everywhere. that was mad creepy.july 26: a study in scarleti enjoyed this! conan doyle’s writing style is easy to sink into, and his holmes is a darling (unlike certain adaptations). loved the bit with the mormons too. classic artie.july 27: the foxhole courti wanted to see what the fuss was about – i’d been seeing content on my dash for years, but just never got around to it. it was okay. didn’t really see why everyone likes the minyards so much to be honest.july 28: rosencrantz and guildenstern are deadthis was by far the best one i read all month. as with the eyre affair, i liked the idea of metafiction, i guess? but of course i’d have had to read hamlet first to understand any of it. i love the dialogue, i love the characters, and i love how stoppard took the play and made it his own. what a great fucking play.july 29: the amoresOH OVID. i adore the man but once again, i hadn’t read nearly enough of his work. i still want to read his medea, but that’s probably been lost to the sands of time. regardless, i’d managed to forget how fucking weird the man was. it’s all very playful and tongue-in-cheek, which pretty much describes all his work (up until the tristia, at least).july 30: neverwhereit’s london and it features personifications of things! what’s not to like? very little! i thought i’d probably like this because of the above and also because gaiman co-wrote good omens, and i was right. once again, the twist was great – i think i might’ve been aware of it but i forgot? and the ending was wonderful. so bittersweet and then just. sweetjuly 31: the secret historyit was time. basically, on a second read, i found it all slightly silly but it still emotionally affected me a lot more than i was prepared for, considering the fact i found it all slightly silly. and it didn’t want to make me kill myself this time!

#anonymous #answered #this is just me vomiting my thoughts as they come onto the screen but i hope you enjoy it regardless!#thank you for asking me this -- it was a great distraction both from ThoughtsTM and from work ;)

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unhookingstarswithoutpermission · 7 years

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once upon a dream

Sometimes there are faded images slipping into their dreams, like really old photos, memories from another time. Even though they have a painter's eyes, they aren't able to distinguish lines from silhouettes from people. They do catch some bits of this nebulous picture, though. At times, it's splattered red against the frame; then it's gold, glistening against the rising light; then it's oil, or powder, or wood, and then it's black, like the nightmares that used to haunt them when they were a child.

Sometimes, in dreams, they can almost feel a phantom pain near their lungs, like the air has been punched out of them, like there's fire scorching the way to their guts. It's a feeling so similar to the one alcohol gives them, yet so different: alcohol works on them like fire and snow in succession, burning then cooling. Instead, this fire just keeps on burning, hurting, like its one purpose is to consume everything that's in its path.

What they can remember once they wake, they try to capture in paint. Mostly, they fail: dreams are slippery things made of shapes that don't quite make sense and noises that can't quite be heard. They're just human, they can't fight it.

Sometimes – somehow – he paints in streaks, red and blue and white, or red and gold, or black and gray. There seems to be no place for other colours in his mind.

Usually, he doesn't do sleep. It's just not his thing: the world isn't waiting for him, no, the world is running and he has to chase it if he doesn't want to see it tumble down at his feet.

(Usually, Combeferre retrieves him from their living room and forces him to bed and says, “The world won't fall over night”. Which is just an assumption, really, but Combeferre is also really strong and resilient and not to be messed up with if he hasn't had a full night of sleep out of worrying over his best friend.)

When he sleeps, though, he's so tired that he just collapses on his bed and falls into a coma-like state until Courfeyrac barges into his room and opens the shutters and starts singing at the top of his lungs.

Enjolras should really move out soon.

There are nights when he's particularly tired – after a successful meeting, or when he's gone out dancing and drinking with the whole squad – and he falls into bed and somehow gets a full eight hours of sleep. Those are the very few nights he gets dreams, and he's not sure if he loves them or hates them.

Some nights, he dreams of them all. He dreams of being with them, chatting or shouting, leading them in riots. When he doesn't dream that, he imagines his parents being proud of him, his younger sister smiling at him from the other end of the table.

There are also times when he dreams the end of a gun, the smell of blood, the weight of an hand in his, the sound of a gunshot. It's quick, frustratingly so, yet so, so very bright. It feels so real that he wakes in a pool of sweat, clutching the sheets in his hands, his ears ringing from the noise, and he doesn't manage to sleep any more.

Talking comes natural to Grantaire, especially after they've had a few glasses of whatever Jehan orders for all of them – “yes, it means you have to drink too, Marius” – which somehow always ends up being very alcoholic.

They are not a reserved person by nature, but they still feel that something so weird should only be said to people who won't judge them. That's how they end up narrating their dream to the whole table, which means Joly, Bossuet, Musichetta, 'Ponine and Jehan. They are all religiously silent while they paint a picture they can't really capture but with their words.

Grantaire still knows how to put walls up: that's why they talk only when they're all various levels of hynebriated, and that's how they end up being left alone with Jehan, since the others seem to think that Grantaire must have daydreamed all of it.

Jehan approaches them carefully until they end up sitting on their lap even though there are so many vacant sits because hey, they crave contact and them and Grantaire are close enough that this isn't awkward.

“You know”, they whisper, which makes them nearly inaudible over the crowd, “I have dreams like that too. Dreams I can't quite catch, no matter how hard I try. I hear gunshots, mostly.”

They shrug and leave Grantaire there.

Enjolras isn't much of a talker, really. If he gets very passionate he can talk quite a lot, of course; but when it comes to personal matters, he's as closed off and guarded as can be.

When the nightmares begin, he doesn't even give them enough attention to be worried. When the nightmares get worse, he tells himself he'll just have to suck it up and plan out his sleeping schedule. Combeferre is the only one who knows, since he's a very light sleeper and he has found Enjolras wondering through their apartment at 5 am way too many times for it to be a coincidence, but he's sworn never to tell a soul.

When he looks at himself in the mirror in the mornings, he pulls his hair back and spends minutes studying his ever growing eyebags. They aren't so noticeable, but they are there: he can see a difference, even if sometimes he wonders if he's just tricked himself into seeing it, since so many of his friend don't notice. Maybe that has to do with the fact he doesn't act any different when he hasn't slept, but there's no way to really be sure.

The thing is: maybe no one notices, or maybe no one says anything because they all know how prickly he can get at times.

The thing is: maybe no one notices, but Grantaire does. They are so very close but not kissing yet, and Enjolras is just basking in the feeling of being loved and shivering from their fingers tracing the lines of his face. Then Grantaire's fingertips catch on the dark bags under his eyes and they don't have to talk, because somehow Enjolras knows.

With time, it's like the dreams start to make sense. It's like finally everything adds up: there was red because there was blood, and there was golden because there was hair, and there was powder because there were guns. Grantaire can't still catch up with it enough to turn it into an image, and they've been chasing it long enough that they get kinda bored and kinda hopeless, until they stop. It's not like they dream of that still memory so often anyway, and even if they did, they still find it a bit creepy, a bit fascinating but still very much a dream.

They haven't told anyone but Jehan, because somehow the description they had given while sober catches up with some of it. Yes, Jehan dreams of blood and guns, dreams of flags and flower. They don't dream of golden locks, but they do picture tall piles of wood. “Almost like barricades”, they say, but then they shake their head. “But it's just a dream.”

There's a moment Grantaire believes them. They overlook the coincidences, they overlook the nagging feeling that there's something they are forgetting or ignoring. But then Jehan, receptive as only they can be, asks in a whisper, “Is it?”.

Grantaire decides to ignore the matter as long as they'll lack a better answer.

Now, when Enjolras dreams, voices haunt him. They're murmurs; sometimes, he can't even understand what they're saying; yet, he knows the voices. He hears them every morning when he wakes and every night when he goes to sleep, and they are just as lovely as they are sad, so very sad that he feels he's going to go crazy just from hearing them.

When he first hears the voices of his friend in the background of his dreams he wakes up frozen, almost like his nightmares have gained the faculty to stretch out into reality. He doesn't understand the words, but he understands the suffering; deep down he knows – he's certain of it as he's certain that the sun rises in the east – that it's him who has caused it. He just wants it all to stop, yet it seems to be everlasting, stretching into an unending echo.

He doesn't remember the first time he's woke up screaming: he just knows he's glad that no one seems to hear him, not even Combeferre, and that he has the presence of mind to muffle his voice in his pillow. This doesn't work, though, when he first sleeps at Grantaire's. In his dream, it's them who appear in front of him and accuse him of killing them, and Enjolras feels so useless, because their corpse is lying just at his feet and even though he wasn't the one who pulled the trigger, guilt claws at his chest.

He wakes screaming for them, and they are quickly coaxing his trembling body into a hug. He gives no other explanation than, “I had a nightmare”, and Grantaire presses their lips against his shoulders and doesn't reply.

Painting is fairly useless and inconclusive, but at least it's therapeutic. Grantaire's hands ache for their brush as soon as they wake up at 3 in the morning and realise they aren't going back to sleep any time soon. If there's something they hate it's lying in bed, struggling with insomnia, and if they were alone they would already be up and working.

There's a beautiful, deeply asleep Enjolras using their arm as a pillow though, and Grantaire's heart breaks at the thought alone of waking him up accidentally when he's sleeping so peacefully that he almost looks like an angel. But there's also an itch in their limbs and they know too damn well that they'll get restless if they stay still any longer, so they rise from the bed as softly as they can and pad their way to the living room.

An half-finished canvas stares back at them from a corner of the room, but they aren't feeling like ruining what could be an almost acceptable portrait. They retrieve their sketchbook and sit cross-legged under the only lit lamp.

They don't know how long it's been when Enjolras sits in front of him, but it's still dark and he hasn't even turned on the light, and that's what gives them the courage to put away their work and search for Enjolras's body. Enjolras moves willingly until he's sat between the v of their legs, and doesn't stop until he's resting his head on their chest, almost like he's searching for their heartbeat.

“Bed was cold”, Enjolras says. Grantaire's heart bursts; they don't know if he feels it, and a voice in the back of their head suggests that of course the bed was cold, they're like a damn heather, but maybe Enjolras didn't mean it that way and that maybe makes their insides flutter.

“Why are you awake?”, they ask, tired and yet so content to have this moment.

Enjolras's face is still hidden, but Grantaire can feel him press closer to their chest. “Nightmare”, he mumbles.

“You want to tell me?”

And Enjolras is silent, so still Grantaire fears they've fucked up or he's fallen asleep. They don't break the silence, though; and it's minutes before Enjolras musters the courage to talk.

Once he starts, there's no stopping him. He tells of guns and he tells of bodies, of corpses and of ghosts, of flags and of bayonets, of devils and of hell and of everything he's guilty of.

And there's something, like a light, flashing brightly on Grantaire's memories. Enjolras, his warm body and his frail voice, they're familiar like they've never been before. Suddenly, Grantaire remembers another body and yet the same voice, but they don't understand; then they feel the taste of absinthe burning their throat, and unyielding lips rough against theirs, and the arms holding them turn broader and stronger, yet so soft.

They don't know what Enjolras remember, of if he remembers anything at all; maybe he had all figured it out before, and he didn't tell them because they would have thought him insane. For the briefest moment, Grantaire fears rejection once again. They think they will be miserable because they knew no other way to be, and they know they will be alone because that scorching loneliness is still buried deep in their body.

And that's when Enjolras probably hears their worries because of how loud they're thinking, and he collects them in his arms and kisses them in the gentlest of ways. Grantaire might not remember everything – of course they don't, they still feel like most of the memories don't make sense, aren't they lucky – but they know, deep down, that them and Enjolras never had this. They can almost sense how scared Enjolras is of losing this, even if they haven't yet agreed on what this exactly is, but the words to define it are always been there, since they first laid eyes on him.

This world isn't kind; it's still the world that killed them, both of them, along with all their friends – and if Grantaire wasn't crying before, they sure are now – but they hadn't this, then, if not in the last moments. Maybe this is why they get a second chance, or maybe it's just because their fight isn't over. Maybe it's just because; the world doesn't have to make sense.

In the morning, there will be a lot of questions; there will be a careful collecting of puzzle pieces and a dangerous stitching them together. But the sun isn't risen yet, and Enjolras might be crying just a bit – he has hidden his face in their chest again.

Grantaire loves him even more than they had loved him before, so they take it upon themselves to cradle him and kiss away the doubt and the fear and the blood.

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meta-squash · 3 years

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Brick Club 1.5.13 “Solution of Some Questions of The Municipal Police”

Oh man. This one got long.

The spectacle continues. Fantine and Javert do not walk to the precinct alone; they’re followed by all the jeering spectators that were watching the fight. They are still yelling, laughing, genuinely finding amusement in Fantine’s humiliation. Fantine has returned to the mechanical lack of self she had before the fight. In the course of this chapter we’ll see her continuously oscillate between outbursts of presence and self-assertive distress, and moments of frightened distance and emotional shut-down.

“Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour.” Hugo keeps reiterating this. One of the worst things, aside from being an actual antagonist, aside from being an actual actor in the ruin of a person, is to be a bystander, a rubbernecker. There are no innocent bystanders, and by standing there, watching, finding glee and entertainment in the suffering of others, you are part of the problem. Curiosity is good, when it’s curiosity in pursuit of a solution or an answer in order to help someone. Curiosity is bad when the interest is purely voyeuristic. (I want to know why Hugo decided to use “to see” (voir) rather than “to watch” (regarder) in this sentence.)

Hugo’s discussion of the relationship between sex workers and cops is so sharp. The police have complete control over what happens to sex workers, who they choose to let go and who they bring in, how they are punished and for how long. I imagine, in cases that don’t include Javert, there’s a lot of “I won’t detain you if you sleep with me etc” type behavior from other cops. (Perhaps this is why Javert is so scary; he can’t be bribed or convinced and doesn’t use his status as leverage like that.) The police can “confiscate at will those two sad things they call their industry and their liberty.” This line just gets to me. The only thing people as poor as Fantine feel they have left is their way of making a living, and their freedom to be alive. Everything is else is on loan or in debt. And the cops can take those last two things at any moment. Not only that, but their industry and their liberty are both intrinsically connected to their bodies. Their industry isn’t something they can leave at the end of the day; they are always existing within the body that is also the main component of their livelihood.

I don’t know enough about legal proceedings of the era, but Javert is judge and jury here, condemning Fantine all by himself to six months in prison. On the other hand, Valjean (and Champmathieu) must go to court at Arras in order to be sentenced. Is this Hugo doing his Artistic Liberties handwavy thing, or could this have actually been done? It seems odd that some people could be sentenced by a random policeman and others have to go to court in front of a jury.

“It was one of those moments in which he exercised without restraint, but with all the scruples of a strict conscience, his formidable discretionary power.” Javert is extremely aware of his role in all of this. What’s fascinating to me about Javert is that he isn’t going around convicting people willy nilly, randomly making up crimes and things to fit a quota the way cops do in present day. With Fantine (and later, with Valjean, and even with the Thenardiers) he sits and he considers and he thinks about what he’s witnessed until he’s sure he’s seen a crime. The problem is, his morals and opinions are so rigid and unchanging that he could probably find crime almost anywhere, because he’s completely inflexible about what things are good or bad. Also, this arrest of Fantine is apparently a “great” (grande, as in big) thing, which I find interesting. Prostitution is essentially legal, so perhaps for him it’s a big thing because he finally has a reason to arrest someone whose legal profession he morally disagrees with? Or perhaps Fantine isn’t registered while most others are? Or maybe it’s big because it’s not just an arrest of a sex worker, but of a sex worker who has committed violence against a well-to-do gentleman? I don’t know.

“He was conducting a trial.” Nearly every time Hugo uses this phrase, when an individual character is conducting a trial of someone or something else, the resulting judgement is incorrect or too extreme. This happened with Valjean’s trial against religion, Javert is doing it here and will do it again at the end of the novel, Marius sort of does it to Valjean after the wedding. Each time a person’s worth is judged by a single person, the judgement falls short.

Fantine is terrified of prison, but part of her fear isn’t prison itself, but the wages. She’s more worried about the welfare of Cosette than herself. This makes sense to me. To her, prison itself probably doesn’t feel like it would be too much more miserable than her current state. The only increase in her misery would be her worry for Cosette and her inability to pay for her daughter’s care.

“Without getting to her feet, she dragged herself along the floor, dirtied by the muddy feet of all these men, clasping her hands, on her knees.” What an intense image. This is the condition of poor women: forced to beg for mercy from men who have power over them, while crawling through all the problems caused by those men’s uncaring and manipulative actions, dirtied by the utter lack of assistance from anyone with the actual power to help, and scoffed at when they clasp their hands and kiss the coattails of their oppressors.

Fantine’s monologue to Javert makes me so sad because she goes back and forth between “I did nothing wrong” and “maybe I was wrong to react the way I did,” when her reaction was so completely right. She asks, “Do they have the right to throw snow down our backs when we are going along quietly without harming anybody?” and I feel as though, in Javert’s eyes, they kind of do, because he disapproves of her profession in the first place. Fantine also brings up her illness here and in her other monologues, never as an excuse or even as an attempt to elicit pity, simply as an explanation. She also says “I wasn’t immodest with him, I didn’t speak with him. That was when he put the snow on me.” She literally tells Javert that she wasn’t trying to engage with Bamatabois in any way, that she was completely ignoring him even as he tried to incite her. The last chapter doesn’t mention how long he was mocking her for, only that her pacing brought her back to his spot “every five minutes,” which means he must have been out there harassing her for quite some time before he shoved snow down her back and she snapped. And yet, here she talks herself in a circle, suddenly turning around and saying “Perhaps I was wrong to get mad.” It’s just so sad that she’s completely in the right and yet she doubts even that.

And Javert doesn’t hear a word of her explanation or her pleas. She realizes this, and instead tries to use Cosette. But this isn’t her using Cosette to save herself, this is using Cosette to save Cosette. She realizes that if she goes to prison she won’t be able to pay for Cosette. She tries to use her “poor starved child,” tries to ask for pity for Cosette. If Javert won’t pity her, a sex worker, maybe he’ll pity her as the mother of a little girl. But considering Javert’s childhood, he probably sees Cosette as equally as bad as her mother, because she’s the child of a prostitute, born out of wedlock, living in poverty with some random innkeepers two hundred miles away.

“I’m not a bad woman at heart. It’s not laziness and greed that have brought me to this; I’ve drunk brandy but it was from misery.” God, this line. I don’t even know who would think something like greed or laziness (but especially greed) could bring someone into this line of work. Maybe if she was, like, a well-known professional sex worker in a Paris brothel she could make good money, but as a random woman walking the streets in a garrisoned town? She clearly makes practically nothing. And poverty like this isn’t lazy at all. Every second not spent sleeping is spent trying to make money, worrying about being able to pay rent or debts or to find food or some way to keep warm or whatever. I hate that even today people still think poverty comes from laziness.

“Great grief is a divine and terrible thing that transfigures the wretched. At that instant Fantine had again become beautiful.” I don’t really know what to do with this line. It feels like a weird fetishization of poverty and suffering?

“She would have softened a heart of granite; but you cannot soften a heart of wood.” Why can’t you soften a heart of wood? Because wood only rots when it gets soft. I do find it interesting that Hugo calls Javert’s heart wooden, but uses statue imagery for him for the rest of the chapter.

Javert declaring that "The Eternal Father in person couldn’t help you now” is a heavy line. The law is above even god here. If god appeared right now and told him to free Fantine, Javert is saying he wouldn’t do it. A page later we see him reluctantly stand down to Valjean, which negates this statement, but it’s interesting that at this instant, he says wouldn’t even be moved to mercy by god. And it’s true, he’s not moved to mercy, ever. At no point is it ever his decision to let Fantine go. He does not bow to pleas for mercy, but he will bow to authority, even if he questioned it a moment before.

Valjean enters without being noticed and watches the exchange. I feel like this is a weird reversal of Hugo’s “to see is to devour” from earlier in the chapter. Valjean is watching, but not out of voyeuristic curiosity. He intends to actually act, to do something about what has happened and help someone who needs help.

Throughout the last few chapters, Fantine has grown rougher with each loss. Her speech and personality has changed, she drinks, she is louder, less polite, and more childish. She’s lost her “modesty” and with that any pretense. There’s no more masking. She’s not trying to fit in, because that’s not happening anymore.

Somehow I’ve glossed over this line each time I’ve read the book, but when Fantine spits in Madeleine’s face, Hugo seems to imply that it reminds Javert of his suspicions re: Madeleine’s true identity. Javert sees this action and makes the connection between convict-Valjean and Fantine, and instead of seeing the sacrilege of a prostitute spitting on a mayor, for a moment he sees an interaction between two outlaws of society: a convict and a prostitute.

I’ve noticed that Fantine talks to herself in reaction to being freed in the same way that Valjean talked to himself when Myriel was first kind to him/when the bishop told the gendarmes to set him free, and the same way Eponine talks to herself. There’s a marked difference between moments when characters “talk to themselves” but it’s obvious that it’s a narrative mechanic of them thinking in their heads, and when they actually talk to themselves while other people are present. For Fantine and Valjean, it’s in moments when they are in great emotional shock/distress that they speak aloud to themselves while other people are present. (I’m not sure what to make of that in terms of Eponine, who always seems to be speaking mostly to herself.)

Fantine starts out this monologue talking to herself, but then she turns it into talking to Javert. It’s interesting that her utter rejection of Valjean means that she’s actually turning to Javert to speak, despite being absolutely terrified of him only moments ago.

Fantine announces that she’s not afraid of Valjean. Of course she’s not; in her eyes he’s done everything to her that he can. He has caused all her suffering and doesn’t have the power to cause anything more. She’s still afraid of Javert because he still has the power to hurt and ruin her. He can fine her or send her to prison, and condemn her for as long as he likes. She doesn’t know anything about Valjean, except that she assumes he doesn’t care. What she knows about Javert is that he does care, only that care is on the side of punishment, not one of mercy. It’s interesting then that she continues to try and appeal to his better nature (one which he does not possess) or to his pity (which he also does not possess). She also continues to try and convince herself that it is Javert who has decided to let her go, not Madeleine. It’s almost as though she thinks that if she can convince herself that he’s the one letting her go, she can also convince him to actually do it.

Fantine’s monologues keep coming back to wages. She specifically criticizes the way that the prison contractors do wrong to poor people by paying them so little for so much labor. Her discussion of her own expenses is also still applicable to modern day. She still owes money to the Thenardiers, but she’s up to date on her rent. This is still the experience of the poor: you deal with more immediate expenses first, and debts come second, even as they continue to rack up.

Both Fantine and Javert are thrown off balance by Madeleine’s declaration. Fantine spends her entire monologue before attempting to leave trying convince herself that it is Javert that has let her go. It is only when she hears Madeleine confirm that he was the one who declared it that she is thrown off-kilter, having to reconcile her opinion of Madeleine with his (perceived) actions. Javert is thrown by someone in an authority position acting the way that Madeleine is; this is the first time we see him actually question authority and refuse to act on an order.

“...that order, law, morality, government, society itself, were personified in him, Javert?” This is the only time, I think, where Hugo implies that a character is consciously becoming a Symbol. The fact that Hugo even suggests the potential for Javert to see himself as the embodiment of law, morality, society, etc is unique, because no other character sees themselves as the embodiment of such big concepts. The closest might be Valjean seeing himself as a Bad Person Forever, but even that is a much smaller concept, in that Valjean is looking at his past self, not at himself as the entire concept of Criminals Everywhere. But Hugo only gives two choices when it comes to Javert: either he is questioning authority for the first time in his life, or he is consciously becoming a Symbol. It turns out to be the former, but both of these things are really extremely significant.To become a conscious symbol, or even to have the potential of becoming a conscious symbol, is a unique level of conceptual engagement for a character, almost like starting to break the fourth wall. And questioning authority is a First for Javert here, significant because it starts the ball rolling and he continues to question Madeleine’s authority from here on out, even if it’s only to himself and not to his face.

“The insult does not belong to him, but to justice.” Okay so Hapgood translates this line a little differently, but WOW I love this FMA version a lot. Just the idea that something as small as an insult doesn’t even get to belong to the person it was directed at, but instead can be entirely claimed by the law. Now, I know that this line is supposed to mean that Fantine’s insult to Madeleine was by default also an insult to justice due to Madeleine’s authority position, but I always read it as the law taking this insult for its own use. Like, “This societal outcast insulted someone, so now we can arrest her, because any sort of social indiscretion from someone like that belongs to the law” or “this insult, because it was made in the presence of police by someone in custody, now belongs to the law rather than her or her target.” (It also reminds me of modern day cops, who arrest or threaten to arrest people simply for hurting their little baby feelings despite doing nothing illegal.)

Fantine goes through a parallel struggle to Valjean here. The man she hated so much (Madeleine) was her savior, just as the religion Valjean doubted and hated had been his. I mean, literally they have the same “two paths, one of light and one of darkness” symbolism, the same angel/demon symbolism, the same conflict about whether or not they must change their whole soul and beliefs, the same absolute terror, and then the final feeling of hope and gratitude. She kneels in front of Valjean the same way Valjean knelt in front of Myriel’s door.

This is also the first time we see Valjean’s benevolence in speech, action, and monetary terms. He rescued Fauchelevent, but we don’t seem him speak to Fauchelevent after that despite the purchase of his horse and cart and getting him a new job. We never see him speak to anyone else that he helps, especially since his usual mode is Reverse Robbery (thank you Mellow for that term btw) rather than in-person benevolence. But we do get him not only rescuing Fantine from prison, but speaking to her, offering her monetary help, offering her pretty much any assistance towards happiness. I wonder if the difference between Valjean’s interaction here with Fantine, and his interaction with Fauchelevent or any other person he gives money to or helps, is that this is the first instance that he feels guilty or personally responsible. Every other act of charity, including Fauchelevent is just that, selfless charity just because. But this, Fantine, is Valjean righting a wrong that has been done. Even though it was without his knowledge, he still seems to feel responsible.

Once again, we have a moment of hope for Fantine that is immediately dashed. Fantine is free, she’s going to get her daughter back, she can leave her miserable life for something better, her debts will be paid, she can be happy. Only she faints, and she spends the rest of her time in hospital until her death.

#les miserables #les miserables meta #brickclub #lm 1.5.13 #les mis #les mis meta

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