dolphin1812

[dolphin1812]

Courfeyrac, Combeferre and the Charter Debate

This is a little piece of meta about Courfeyrac and Combeferre, and their debate over the Charter of 1814 - mostly textual analysis, with a bit of discussion over translation choices, but not adding any explication to historical or intertextual references (sorry). It was written because the friendship between these two fascinates me, and I find it one of the harder Ami’s friendships to pin down - perhaps because, for the two of the big three, we don’t see them talk together all that much. Also it’s Courferre week on tumblr and, whilst this doesn’t ship them, I thought a discussion of their Brick relationship might be a nice addition? If not, tell me and I’ll take it out of the tag.  

Keep reading

[dolphin1812]

Courfeyrac, Combeferre and the Charter Debate

This is a little piece of meta about Courfeyrac and Combeferre, and their debate over the Charter of 1814 - mostly textual analysis, with a bit of discussion over translation choices, but not adding any explication to historical or intertextual references (sorry). It was written because the friendship between these two fascinates me, and I find it one of the harder Ami’s friendships to pin down - perhaps because, for the two of the big three, we don’t see them talk together all that much. Also it’s Courferre week on tumblr and, whilst this doesn’t ship them, I thought a discussion of their Brick relationship might be a nice addition? If not, tell me and I’ll take it out of the tag.  

Keep reading

[dolphin1812]

Les Misérables AU where Marius immediately breaks down after Valjean’s confession and tells Cosette her dad is a thief and she responds with “I know lmao??” because Valjean has been disappearing for weeks at a time and coming back with stacks of cash throughout her whole adolescence and it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. She has in fact been vastly overestimating his crimes and is almost disappointed to find out it was one loaf of bread almost forty years ago

[dolphin1812]

T-shirt design idea from @maip--macrothorax while reading the first les mis letters chapters.... can't wait to read 30000 pages of our main character Myriel's adventures!

[dolphin1812]

I love how Marius does All Of That to Jean Valjean and Cosette, and then takes Cosette to visit his fathers grave…he's literally just like:

“Can you imagine how cruel it is to separate a parent from their child though dishonest means? Terrible thing to do. My father died of it. Anyway don’t ask where your father is”

[dolphin1812]

Les mis predictions based on the first four chapters of @lesmisletters: this book will be about Bishop Myriel’s quest to abolish the death penalty in France! Can’t wait for 10000 pages of Myriel’s witty banter & clever bishop hijinks

[dolphin1812]

Les Mis Letters: 1.1.3

Today's reading once more made me think on the power of stories and of fables that people tell themselves and their community. Instead of berating the villagers for their faults, M Myriel uses the myth of a more prosperous, kinder village to make his point.

I also think it's interesting the place - or lack of place - that the law has in these mythical villages. Hugo describes them as "like a republic" and says

Neither judge nor bailiff is known there. The mayor does everything. He allots the imposts, taxes each person conscientiously, judges quarrels for nothing, divides inheritances without charge, pronounces sentences gratuitously; and he is obeyed, because he is a just man among simple men.

Of course, there is still the mediator of the mayor - which dips into a paternalism that feels very carried over from the Ancien Regime. Nevertheless the rhetoric is interesting, both neoclassical and deeply steep in the rhetoric of the French Revolution.

(Also shoutout to M Myriel's puns, literally never grow old)

[dolphin1812]

"Charles Myriel emigrated to Italy at the very beginning of the Revolution." This is important! Emigrating at the very beginning, in 1789, is a signal of far-right politics. That's when the Comte d'Artois (future Charles X) emigrated, for example. These are people for whom any compromise with the Estates General was intolerable. So emigrating in 1789 sends a very different message than, say, emigrating after the September Massacres of 1792 would.

more David Montgomery posting from the Les Mis Letters discord!

[dolphin1812]

M Myriel pretty directly states it, but it was interesting to read this:

"“In case of epidemics,—we have had the typhus fever this year; we had the sweating sickness two years ago, and a hundred patients at times,—we know not what to do.”

“That is the thought which occurred to me.”

“What would you have, Monseigneur?” said the director. “One must resign one’s self.”

This conversation took place in the gallery dining-room on the ground floor."

The distribution of space, as M Myriel points out, defies logic, but it's socially expected because of class differences: the bishop has a mansion for himself and two others while the hospital is overcrowded. It's true that the director couldn't ask Myriel for this space and that Myriel's offer mainly showcases his charitable nature and true commitment to helping his community, even at a personal cost. At the same time, I found the mention of "resignation" fascinating. Myriel isn't only noticing that keeping this much space for himself that he doesn't need when others do and he's responsible for serving them is unjust; he's refusing to accept a problem as unsolvable and to resign himself to the existing system. Myriel, then, is not only distinguished by his charity. He's also hopeful and persistent.

Of course, he can't solve every problem individually (Hugo himself points that out in this chapter). He also isn't calling for systemic change, exactly. For instance, while he indirectly critiques the luxury in which some churchmen live while supposedly serving the poor when switching out his mansion for the hospital, we don't see him directly criticize anyone else here. He's only focusing on his immediate community and his own actions. His charity is also in line with the expected role of a bishop, even if he's especially zealous in fulfilling his duties. Despite that, it's interesting to note that Myriel's hopefulness and persistence in the face of these social issues -- his mindset -- set him apart as much as his values. Although the title of the book leaves a certain impression (as do many of its sadder sections), it's ultimately a hopeful work (we saw this in the preface as well! The novel is needed "so long as" these social problems exist, implying that they could disappear one day). Myriel starts us off by showing the difference that a real commitment to improving the lives of others can have when paired with that hope and willingness to question social norms.

[dolphin1812]

Javert would be the best MLM girly.

[dolphin1812]

Les Mis Letters: 1.1.1

I want to start by shouting out Guy Rosa and Nicole Savy for their amazing footnotes, and actually highlight part of their footnote for the first chapter:

La dernière phrase du chapitre suivant dénonce ironiquement l'illusion réaliste autent qu'elle la fortifie ... le portrait relève d'une authenticité qui transgresse l'exactitude.

The last sentence of the next chapter both undermines and fortifies the illusion of realism [...] the portrait reveals an authenticity which supersedes an exact replica.

This is talking about how M Myriel is taken from the figure of Charles-Francois Bievenu de Miollis (1753 - 1843). In basing it off a real person, Hugo points to a very concrete example of his ideals for a clergyman. Yet, by taking artistic liberty, the ideas and themes of the novel are freed from a debt to authenticity and through anachronism Hugo's points about M Myriel are strengthened. Myriel must partially be fantasy, because in many ways he is distinct from the vast majority, if not the entirety, of the Catholic church.

But the footnotes go further. Zooming out, Savy and Rosa point out that this meshing of reality and principle. Les Mis is "occupé non pas à dire le réel mais à l'accomplir ... la rèalité n'est que la réalité: l'idéal est la vérité" [is occupied not just in depiction but in accomplishment [...] reality is only reality: the ideal is the truth]. I don't have much to add on except a rousing yes but I really do think this is something to keep in mind throughout the book.

This also makes me think about how Hugo frames what we are supposed to know about M Myriel. We don't know how he became a priest, all biographical information is the result of whispers and perhaps suspect. It's possible that everything we know about M Myriel besides his actions is fiction. And I think this is interesting because it draws attention to not only the mythologizing of the good (which both the general population and the author himself do in M Myriel's case), but also in the fact that M Myriel's backstory both does and does not matter.

After all, what M Myriel does in story is most important, no? And yet, why is it necessary for the villagers to make up this story abotu a dissipated noble who then became essentially a living saint? What does this say about narratives of redemption? About narratives of goodness, class, rank? I don't have an answer for these questions per se, but I think they're interesting to ponder.

And that's it for now.

[dolphin1812]

While it is very funny to have this line:

"Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very moment when he arrived in the diocese."

Pop up right at the beginning of a book famous for digressions and details, what follows is just as interesting and relevant to the rest of the novel:

"True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do."

Much of this, of course, directly applies to Myriel. Whether because of a lack of documentation (or, what is more likely in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the flight and/or death of the aristocrats who knew him and could speak to the rumors about his youth), his factual past is a mystery, and the emotions and experiences that led him to change so drastically are known only to himself.

Spoilers below:

Yet Myriel is not the one most vulnerable to rumor throughout the novel. Fantine loses her job (and thus is plunged into poverty) because of rumors. True, the rumors are confirmed, but the suspicion around her condemns her just as much as the truth itself. Valjean is an even more telling example. Although he condemns himself at the end of the novel with his isolation, what Marius believes about him is based on rumors and misunderstandings that create an outside enforcer of his self-inflicted punishments. While, again, there is some truth to what Marius believes - Valjean is an ex-convict - the rumors about his dangerousness and Marius' belief that he killed Javert are false. And in spite of that, neither one of these characters escapes these rumors before being condemned to death by them.

The image of these characters also determines their "destinies" in that class and gender stereotypes fix their position in society unless they manage to create new rumors and images (like Valjean did with Fauchelevent).

And, just as we see with Myriel's transformation, so much of his life is internal and unknowable to others beyond what he wishes to share. Of course, since this is a novel, we are permitted glimpses into the minds of many characters and therefore can't consider them unknowable in the way they are to each other (or that real people are to us), but it's another point against stereotyping.

On a different note, beginning with what the people around the bishop say about him automatically centers community in the novel. Although this community is not always positive (gossip and rumors are generally harmful in the context of Les Misérables), it is important. Even starting with a character who is not the main one demands of us to consider Valjean's world and his relations to others before we consider Valjean himself. Again, the judgment that comes with this is destructive, but there's also an element of care in it. The bishop deeply cares for those gossiping about him in his community, and his kindness was transformative for Jean Valjean. I don't know that I have fully coherent thoughts on this, but it's fascinating that we begin with all that is good about connecting with others in a meaningful way and the challenges in existing in a community in a book that largely revolves around a very isolated man who is that way because of these issues and who is also defined by his connections to others (Myriel inspiring him with his kindness, Cosette being his main source of joy and his purpose, etc).

[dolphin1812]

Poll to celebrate the end of the latest Les Mis Letters readalong!

I’m only including digressions longer than one chapter, and that we typically call “digressions.” These are the options I put in the Les Mis Letters Discord poll. The only difference is that I have the Discord poll set to allow more than one answer, which I don’t think I can do on tumblr.

If you’re on the Letters Discord, the poll is pinned in the “end of book reflection extravaganza” channel!

[dolphin1812]

The way Thenardier’s early rant about the Père-Lachaise cemetery foreshadows Valjean’s final resting place…. ;-;

Thenardier:

“The idea that there is no equality, even when you are dead! Just look at Père-Lachaise! The great, those who are rich, are up above, in the acacia alley, which is paved. They can reach it in a carriage. The little people, the poor, the unhappy, well, what of them? they are put down below, where the mud is up to your knees, in the damp places. They are put there so that they will decay the sooner! You cannot go to see them without sinking into the earth.”

Jean Valjean’s grave :

In the cemetery of Père-Lachaise, in the vicinity of the common grave, far from the elegant quarter of that city of sepulchres, far from all the tombs of fancy which display in the presence of eternity all the hideous fashions of death, in a deserted corner, beside an old wall, beneath a great yew tree over which climbs the wild convolvulus, amid dandelions and mosses, there lies a stone. That stone is no more exempt than others from the leprosy of time, of dampness, of the lichens and from the defilement of the birds. The water turns it green, the air blackens it. It is not near any path, and people are not fond of walking in that direction, because the grass is high and their feet are immediately wet. When there is a little sunshine, the lizards come thither. All around there is a quivering of weeds. In the spring, linnets warble in the trees.

[dolphin1812]

Now, as we have Les Misérables musical covering the plot, why don’t we have another one, covering all the digressions?

[dolphin1812]

Post-Seine Javert be like

[dolphin1812]

Every time I read Les mis I’m stunned by Grantaire’s accurate representation of “the kind of person who goes to art college then realizes they don’t actually want to pursue art as a career and becomes an aimless pretentious bundle of media-related information.” It’s so spot-on. That Type Of Guy is just timeless and has not changed since the 19th century