#also regarding that last aside if it wasn't obvious before I'm not too fond of Marius OR plots that revolve around romance

[capitainecorbeau]

L’air de la Misère/The Tune of Misery

Fantine’s first solo, that was scrapped in the adaptation and replaced with the song she sings on her deathbed, which isn’t a solo anymore, and is about something completely different, but at least it’s the same melody, so, yay… ?

Though before we start, I’d like to 1)thank people leaving nice comments in the tag, I’m really glad you’re enjoying those translations/sorta analyses ! And 2) specify that no, I don’t hate the adaptation, I’m just rather disappointed that it dropped important themes and defanged the original. I’ve been pretty critical, but that’s just how I interact with stuff I’m really interested in !

Anyway ! Let’s dive in !

J’avais de si jolis défauts/I had such pretty faults J’étais rêveuse, j’étais coquette/I was a dreamer, I was coquettish Un peu naïve, mais pas trop/A bit naïve, but not to much Pour ne jamais perdre la tête/So I would never lose my head Et je me faisais fête/And I would make a party D’un chant d’oiseau, d’un jour nouveau/Of a bird song, of a new day

The song starts gently and rather lightly, but that’s not gonna last. ‘Se faire fête de’ (litt ‘to make a party of’) usually mean to eagerly wait for, to anticipate something, but in this context it didn’t feel right. It sounds more like she’s enjoying the little things in life, but y’know, translation always has a degree of subjectivity and inaccuracy, so !

‘Coquet/te’ refers to someone who puts quite a bit of care and thought into their appearence (and is more often used for women than men because of course it is), often as a mean to attract attention. Can be used somewhat interchangeably as a noun or an adjective, but only somewhat, because as a noun it can mean a woman who’s a vain seductress, because of course it does. When applied to objects or decor, it means stylish, in good taste, pretty/beautiful, and can also mean ‘important’ or ‘big’ in a more abstract context. ‘Une coquette somme’ → ‘A pretty sum’.

Also Victor Hugo is kinda obsessed with with women’s ‘coquetterie’ in the novel. Very grating. Je n’ai plus qu’une robe grise/All I have left is a grey dress Qui sert aussi de couverture/That I also use as a blanket Quand le vent glacé de l’hiver/When the icy winter wind Tourne la nuit dans ma masure/Blows aroundin my hovel at night Et plus beaucoup d’honneur/And not much honor left De dignité au fond du coeur/Or dignity, deep in my heart

And there we go. Poor Fantine. The dress bit is directly taken from the book, where Fantine’s descent into abject poverty is described, where we’re told she learned how you only really need one dress, that you can also use as bed covers. ‘Tourner’ means ‘to turn’, or to go round something (and in the context pf food, it means ‘to go bad’). La misère n’est mère de personne/Misery is the mother of no one La misère est pourtant soeur des hommes/And still misery is the sister of men Mais personne sur terre n’en veut pour fille/But no one on earth wants her as a daughter Comme bâtarde née dans un cachot de la Bastille/Asa bastard born in a cell of la Bastille

Alright si, I’ll admit I’m a little lost concerning the metaphores of this paragraph. I have some interpretations, but they feel lacking, so if anyone has any suggestions !

My idea is that misery is no one’s mother because it doesn’t nurture or raise, it only destroys, wears down, and kills ? You could argue some mother are indeed like that, but I think it’s used in reference to what is usually associated with motherhood, rather than in the strict biological sence because in the parapgraph misery does give birth to something.

It’s men’s (men as in people, not just men the gender) sister because it accompanies them all their life ? I dunno, I’m rather confused by all these family metaphors, but I might just be missing something ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The ‘bastard born in a Bastille cell’ is the part that baffles me most (here of course it’s ‘illegitimate child’ bastard not ‘asshole’ bastard). The Bastille was seen as a symbol of of the king’s unjust power, as he could send people there without judgement, and that’s partly why it was taken during the Revolution, the other part being they wanted weapons and munitions because a garrison was stationed there. But it wasn’t exactly a symbol of extreme poverty or extreme social distress, so, I’m really not sure what it’s doing here. A callback to the revolution ? A reminder of the monarchy’s responsability in the people’s distress ? Something very obvious that I’m completely missing ? I dunno !

La misère enfante la détresse/Misery gives birth to distress Bien des vices et toutes les faiblesses/Many vices, and every weakness La misère lâche la bête en l’homme/Misery releases the beast within man Et la mésange alors en chienne errante se transforme/ And the chickadee then turns into a stray dog

Oh boy was I relieved to learn there is another name for ‘mésange’ than ‘tit’. What is it with english and birds having boob names or vice versa. Anyway, this part is more clear (to me at last, again, I might just be dumb), and again refers back to some stuff in the book ! Victor Hugo talks at length about how misery and social distress creates a lot of society’s ugliness and you can’t fix the latter without adressing the former, either directly, in one of his many, many rants/essays, or slightly less so. Like when explaining how the bagne (forced labor) thoroughly traumatized and embittered Valjean, who got out of there hating everything and everyone and wanting to get back at something, someone, anyone for how much he suffered there.

‘Chienne’ is a female dog, but it’s not vulgar, nor used as popularly as an insult (or punctuation) than ‘bitch’. Like it can an insult leveled at women with roughly the same meaning, but it’s more rare, and seen as more old-fashioned. Il faut qu’on se sente survivre/One has to feel themselves survive Dans un enfant qu’on a fait vivre/In a child onegave life to Et qu’en sa source d’innocence/And in this source of innocence On noie notre désespérance/One drowns one’s despair Pour ne pas mettre fin/So as not to put an end À cette vie sans lendemain/This life without without a tomorrow/future

So, Fantine used ‘on’here, which is an impersonal third person pronoun. Usually used like a general you, but also just as a colloquial ‘we’. So it’s kinda disguised as a general statement, and it can be taken as one, but she’s mostly talking about herself.

‘Lendemain’ means ‘tomorrow’ (though more specifically it’d be ‘the following day’, or ‘the next day’, as it’s a noun. ‘Demain’ is the adverb), but is often used more broadly to mean ‘future’.

And there we go ! It’s a shame this song got scrapped, as it fits very well with the themes of the novel it’s adapted from imo ! But also I’m not surprised, the original is a story about social distress and people’s struggle, whether wmall scale and personal, or bigger, against the state. Jean Valjean is a main character, but his story doesn not take center stage. The adaptation, however, is Jean Valjean’s story, with the aforementioned themes still being present, but having more of a background rôle.

Just look at how the respective productions start ! The original one opens on the plight of factory workers, and focuses on Fantine for most of the beginning, as character who falls victim to poverty due to both personal, and societal cruelty.

The adaptation opens with Valjean, his origin story, his relationship with Javert. And while it does show the bagne as hellish, and also the stigma against Valjean as a former convict, there are steps of his journey, and not touched upon again later. So yeah, both version, while similar at a glance, are actually very different stories.

(Though I will say, Marius reprising this song later because he’s sad that he can’t be with Cosette does undermine the original theme and feels very disrespectful lol.)

Anyway ! Thanks for reading through, and next time I’ll tackle Fantine’s arrest and Javert’s introduction ! I’d like to cover the song ‘La nuit’, which became ‘Lovely ladies’, but sadly it’s not on the concept album so I can’t find the lyrics, and as most parts are sung by the ensemble I have a very hard time making out what they’re saying. If anyone has the lyrics or knows where to find them, I’d appreciate it !