#lesmis365

[centrifuge-politics]

Brick Club 1.1.1

I made it here! Since I’m behind I’ll just jump right in. I am going to be reading the Charles Wilbour translation (thanks to @pilferingapples for warning me away from the Wraxall! maybe another time) but I hope I have the time to jump around translations if it looks interesting. Also my Wraxall edition has some nice little illustrations I’d like to pepper in.

I know I won’t have the patience to link previous and next posts for every chapter but i will plop the link for my post on the introduction and preface HERE.

So this chapter just introduces us to the concept that is Charles Myriel, from a wealthy/important family that suffers during early throes of French Revolution, leading him to turn towards religion. In my original reading of Hapgood I found the fact that even after getting married Myriel “created a great deal of talk” interesting. In Wilbour it’s actually that he was “an object of much attention” before Hugo goes on to describe his great physical figure and posturing. Mystery solved! Young Myriel was a snack.

Myriel’s briefly touched upon history remains a source of interest to me just because I can really feel the entirely untold story in his past and I wish we could’ve known more about him before he was like seventy years old. A young hedonist turned exile turned priest.

The good man/great man line is still very good, of course. In my wise older years I definitely see the jab behind it more. I mentioned this in my first les mis 365, but Hugo starts early to establish themes of what it means to be good or great or evil, etc. Further, the bishop’s ability to disguise what might be an insult in a compliment speaks to some inherent schism in the social values that drive class inequality. Napoleon will never see being called a great man but not a good man as a critique when he places no value in the qualities that would make him good. This plays out in more detail throughout Myriel’s chapters so I will definitely return to this idea.

Reading into it more, I want to say the bishop is asking “you may be a well-known accomplished man but what have you done for your people?” but he also sees worth in that ability to drive societal change. For all the charity the bishop gives out, the systems that necessitate that charity remain in place.

FINALLY, we see the first inklings of Hugo’s issues with women. Mme. Baptistine is aggressively desexualized because ~angelic piety~ and it’s uncomfortable; “her form was shadow-like, hardly enough body to convey the thought of sex.” I also have a lot to say on the suffering of women in Les Mis but I’ll save further discussion of that for 1.1.2 where we see this more fully fledged.

And that’ll do it for 1.1.1! My much older posts for les mis 365 are still on my blog tagged under #lesmis365 (although I only made it to 1.1.9 :/). I’ve changed A LOT since then but I found it valuable to go back and read my thoughts from way back when!

[grande-ere]

A question: What do you think how Javert taking Marius for dead influenced his decision to bring him home? It’d make it easier for sure, but would he have done it as well if Marius was obviously going to recover? Or does Javert even really think he’s dead and not just say so?

[midautumnnightdream]

Les Mis sewer chapters resources vol 1: Maps

This is a bit late, since the readalong has been safely out of the sewers for nearly a week, but I never claimed to be sensible in my timing.

First of all, a map of Valjean's escape route that originates from Paris sewer museum:

This is helpful insofar as it places Valjean in relation to city itself, but doesn't help to make any sense of all the side tunnels and whatever else he was supposed to avoid. Fortunately there are more specific maps of the same era:

(Under the cut for labeled map with specific locations mentioned in this chapter: there will be another post with more sewer museum resources.)

Disclaimer: all the labels are my best estimates based on the text and an occasional glance at street maps. I’m making no claims of Actual Research here. :p

(1)  Valjean starts off from a small side-channel under the rue de la Petit-Truanderie that connects to Montmartre sewer: there he has to decide whether to turn left (towards Seine) or take longer but safer way uphill.

"He said to himself that he was probably in the sewer des Halles; that if he were to choose the path to the left and follow the slope, he would arrive, in less than a quarter of an hour, at some mouth on the Seine between the Pont au Change and the Pont-Neuf, that is to say, he would make his appearance in broad daylight on the most densely peopled spot in Paris... He ascended the incline, and turned to the right."

Even so, he gets disoriented almost immediately, because he assumes himself to be under the rue Saint-Denis (2), which would have been easier going:

"Under the Rue Saint-Denis there is an old stone sewer which dates from Louis XIII. and which runs straight to the collecting sewer, called the Grand Sewer, with but a single elbow, on the right, on the elevation of the ancient Cour des Miracles, and a single branch, the Saint-Martin sewer, whose four arms describe a cross."

Instead he gets stuck with Montmartre sewer, which "is one of the most labyrinthine of the ancient network".

By moving away from the Seine he manages to avoid the network under Les Halles (3)

"The sewer of the markets whose geometrical plan presents the appearance of a multitude of parrots' roosts piled on top of each other" 

but there is still a risk of being confused by:

(4) "The vast sewer of the Plâtrière, a sort of Chinese puzzle, thrusting out and entangling its chaos of Ts and Zs under the Post-Office and under the rotunda of the Wheat Market, as far as the Seine, where it terminates in a Y

(5) “on his right, the curving corridor of the Rue du Cadran with its three teeth, which are also blind courts”

(6) "on his left, the branch of the Mail, complicated, almost at its inception, with a sort of fork, and proceeding from zig-zag to zig-zag until it ends in the grand crypt of the outlet of the Louvre, truncated and ramified in every direction"

(7) the blind alley of a passage of the Rue des Jeûneurs

The policemen who almost catch Valjean come out from (5):

"This patrol had just visited the curving gallery and the three blind alleys which lie beneath the Rue du Cadran. While they were passing their lantern through the depths of these blind alleys, Jean Valjean had encountered on his path the entrance to the gallery, had perceived that it was narrower than the principal passage and had not penetrated thither. He had passed on. The police, on emerging from the gallery du Cadran, had fancied that they heard the sound of footsteps in the direction of the belt sewer."

Valjean reaches the belt sewer/le grand égout about "three hours past midday":

"He was, at first, astonished at this sudden widening. He found himself, all at once, in a gallery where his outstretched hands could not reach the two walls, and beneath a vault which his head did not touch. The Grand Sewer is, in fact, eight feet wide and seven feet high.

At the point where the Montmartre sewer joins the Grand Sewer, two other subterranean galleries, that of the Rue de Provence, and that of the Abattoir, form a square. Between these four ways, a less sagacious man would have remained undecided. Jean Valjean selected the broadest, that is to say, the belt-sewer."

Valjean has to decide once again whether to go left or right, but between his own exhaustion and Marius being super nearly dead, he decides to go downhill (left). This, as Hugo points out, is just as well, since he would have had hell of a time getting out from the other end:

"It is an error to suppose that the belt-sewer has two outlets... and that it is, as its name indicates, the subterranean girdle of the Paris on the right bank. The Grand Sewer... terminates... at the foot of the knoll of Ménilmontant(9). There is no direct communication with the branch... which falls into the Seine through the Amelot sewer above the ancient Isle Louviers... If Jean Valjean had ascended the gallery he would have arrived, after a thousand efforts, and broken down with fatigue, and in an expiring condition, in the gloom, at a wall. He would have been lost.

In case of necessity, by retracing his steps a little way, and entering the passage of the Filles-du-Calvaire (10), on condition that he did not hesitate at the subterranean crossing of the Carrefour Boucherat, and by taking the corridor Saint-Louis, then the Saint-Gilles gut on the left, then turning to the right and avoiding the Saint-Sebastian gallery, he might have reached the Amelot sewer, and thence, provided that he did not go astray in the sort of F which lies under the Bastille (11), he might have attained the outlet on the Seine near the Arsenal. But in order to do this, he must have been thoroughly familiar with the enormous madrepore of the sewer in all its ramifications and in all its openings. Now, we must again insist that he knew nothing of that frightful drain which he was traversing; and had any one asked him in what he was, he would have answered: "In the night."

So Valjean goes left and walks a bit before stopping to  rest "probably" right after Madeleine branch, "probably" under Rue d'Anjou (12).

"A little beyond an affluent, which was, probably, the Madeleine branch, he halted... A passably large air-hole, probably the man-hole in the Rue d'Anjou, furnished a light that was almost vivid."

He eats some sewery bread (ewww), continues on and nearly drowns in sewer muck at unspecified location: what we do know is that he walked only hundred paces after that before seeing light ahead, so he must have been pretty close to the outlet near Pont d'Alma (13), where Thenardier was waiting.

[pilferingapples]

LesMis365: 4.12.8 Le Cabuc and Saint Merry and the closing of doors

Ah, and here’s one of those moments when all the research and nerdery comes back to kick me in the teeth: 

Enjolras and the barricade are largely built around Charles Jeanne and his account of the battle (not entirely, but it’s a VERY obvious inspiration). 

And Charles Jeanne (and a few other fighters) survived the battle when they made a Desperate Last Charge at the Guard* and people in the neighboring houses took them in  

and that option is closed off for the Rue de Chanvrerie barricade because of  le Cabuc/ Claquesous  Because of the agents of order and their violence  killing noncombatants; because the police and the agents of the law are murderers and spies, and controlling people through fear and violence, the houses are closed 

Le Cabuc signals the end of the Saint Merry option, that slim chance of survival for anyone, that otherwise might be expected by anyone familiar with the history. THIS is why Patron-Minette are the worst of the worst.  It’s not because they’re a bunch of burglars and pickpockets, it’s because they do wetwork for the shadiest side of the government, they are assassins.  

And the barricade fighters are judges and oh, no, nothing is ever going to be all right again in this whole book, ever. 

(Oh, and that Desperate Last Stand? It was a ten man charge.  And I do not believe for a MINUTE that Hugo didn’t know that numerically  the Amis+Marius, set up early,  would be obvious to readers who cared as the right sort of number, to build up the sense of what  COULD happen if not for Le Cabuc and his orders. Ten men could survive, they’re SUPPOSED to survive, and another take on the story might even try to make the post-battle survival brighter. But Hugo says and says and says it won’t happen, that these men are doomed and entering their last hours. And when Cabuc pulls the trigger, we see why.) 

[aporeticelenchus]

Les Mis 365 - 4.2.1

I don’t think I can make the chat today (though I’ll try), but I can leave a few chapter comments!

The name of this book is Eponine, and the first chapter title is “The Field of the Lark” (“Le Champ de l'Alouette”). There’s an immediate juxtaposition of Eponine and Cosette even without either of them being present for it.

“I HAVE COME TO SLEEP WITH YOU” hahaha never gets old.

Marius looks like a girl. It’s not too late for him and Enjolras to form a club.

I’ve been thinking about Marius attitude towards Thenardier and his reaction to Jean Valjean’s past in volume 5, but I don’t want to get too ahead of myself. Mentally bookmarking those five francs.

So much light symbolism! Last chapter I got to ramble about faith and love, but this time I get to do a different duo of theological virtues: love and hope. (Reminder that the three theological virtues are faith, hope, and love/charity, while the four cardinal virtues are justice, prudence, courage and temperance.)

Heart-rending distress; Marius bore a passion in his heart, and night over his eyes. He was thrust onward, he was drawn, and he could not stir. All had vanished, save love. Of love itself he had lost the instincts and the sudden illuminations. Ordinarily, this flame which burns us lights us also a little, and casts some useful gleams without. But Marius no longer even heard these mute counsels of passion. He never said to himself: "What if I were to go to such a place? What if I were to try such and such a thing?" The girl whom he could no longer call Ursule was evidently somewhere; nothing warned Marius in what direction he should seek her. His whole life was now summed up in two words; absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog. To see her once again; he still aspired to this, but he no longer expected it.

We know from many many chapters worth of light symbolism that light and love are connected, often identical. Hugo reiterates this here: love usually provides a light that illuminates the world. But for Marius, who currently only has love, it provides no light. He is in darkness and night and fog, despite being filled with love. Why? As best I can tell, it is because he is without hope. The last line of the above quote in French is, “La revoir, elle; il y aspirait toujours, il ne l'espérait plus.” I only have Hapgood on me right now becaue I’m travelling, but I know other translators render the “espérait” as “hoped” rather than “expected,” and with my extremely rudimentary French knowledge that seems better to me. Marius lacks any hope, and it seems likely to me that this is the symbolic root of his lightless love. This is reinforced by a later quote, after Marius has been wondering whether his thoughts of love might reach Cosette:

This illusion, at which he shook his head a moment later, was sufficient, nevertheless, to throw beams, which at times resembled hope, into his soul. (“Cette illusion, dont il hochait la tête le moment d'après, réussissait pourtant à lui jeter dans l'âme des rayons qui ressemblaient parfois à de l'espérance.”)

Love without hope: no light. Love with an illusion of hope: beams of hope-like light in his soul.

Another symptom of Marius’ lack of hope is his dreamlike and unproductive state. Without hope, he has no goal, despite the presence of love.

It must not be supposed that his reason was deranged. Quite the contrary. He had lost the faculty of working and of moving firmly towards any fixed goal, but he was endowed with more clear-sightedness and rectitude than ever. Marius surveyed by a calm and real, although peculiar light, what passed before his eyes, even the most indifferent deeds and men; he pronounced a just criticism on everything with a sort of honest dejection and candid disinterestedness. His judgment, which was almost wholly disassociated from hope, held itself aloof and soared on high.

So if Faith and Love are the engines of progress, Hope is – what – its map? Its grounding? Marius can see some things clearly, but not his own future or path. He can judge others, but find no way forward in his own life. The light here is not the bright and warm light of love, but something else that only shines in a narrow and impersonal sphere.

[theonkilljoy]

Les Misérables 365

Est-ce qu’il y en a d’entre vous quelques-uns qui raconte mon essai désastreux de compléter le défi de Les misérables 365 l’année passée? J’ai fait deux billets et j’ai lu huit chapitres.

Bien, je recommence cette année. Je ne ferai pas un billet chaque journée - peut-être que je ne les ferai pas de tout - mais je veux quand même relire Les misérables pour améliorer mon français. (C’est pas mal désastreux à ce moment.)

So, blacklist #lesmis365 and #sarah reads if you don’t want to watch me attempt this ridiculous challenge again.

Joyeux jour de l’an, tout le monde :)

[eirenical]

wow i'm using your meta tag as evidence for my les mis essay (theme of love) and theres sO MUCH HELP I DONT HAVE TIME TO PROCRASTINATE READING ALL THIS META BUT ITS SO INTERSTING anyway yeah i already have two pages of evidence just from stuff youve reblogged to that tag so thank you :')

i just got to the les mis 365 meta. help

just to clarify im LOVING THIS but there’s SO MUCH i want to write it all in my essay but it won’t all fit innnnnnnn  

oooooh wait i could ask you couldnt i!! what would you write about if you were doing an essay on love in les mis? if anything?

Oh wow, nonny!  That is a massive, massive undertaking, indeed!  Both going through my meta tag (since I’m definitely a meta magpie!) and writing an essay about love in Les Mis.  OOF.

I suppose the thing that I would be most interested in writing about in the theme of love in Les Miserables is the fact that there are so many different types of love that are important and it isn’t always romantic love that we’re focused on.

You have the Bishop’s love of G-d and love of the poor.

You have Valjean’s love for his family and Fantine’s for Cosette, and their willingness to sacrifice everything for them so they might live.

You have Valjean’s love of Cosette – again with that filial/familial love being key to his ultimate redemption.

You have Marius’ love of Cosette, the real first example of positive romantic love that you find (WE DON’T COUNT FANTINE AND THOLOMYES.  THOLOMYES CAN BURN.)

You have Enjolras’ patriotic love of France and freedom and Feuilly’s love of the people as a whole.  You have Courfeyrac and Bossuet’s love of their friends.

There are SO MANY different kinds of love portrayed in Les Mis and no one type is portrayed as more important than the others.  So, I guess if I were going to approach an essay on love in Les Mis, that’s probably how I’d go about it?

I’m not sure if that helps… but I hope so?  I’ll be happy to talk more about it, but I’m actually about to run off to class myself.  You can message me or come off anon if you’d like and in the meantime I’ll toss this out to my blog and see if anyone else has any input for you.  Good luck!  :D

So… anyone have any thoughts?

(ETA: And you’re welcome, BTW!  I’m glad that you’ve been finding my meta tag helpful.  ^_^)

[amelancholycharm]

Les Mis 365 3.7.3-3.7.4

Lots of amazing things already said about Patron-Minette so I don’t have much to add..

except that I actually think Babet is somehow the scariest of the group? I mean, come on, nineteenth-century dentistry must have been TERRIFYING. Also maybe the fact that at one point he was dragging his family along with him? Although I DO like the creepy dark humor of “take advantage of this bargain” - ie have as many teeth pulled out as possible.

Montparnasse - there was a post somewhere about Patron-Minette as a theatrical troupe (goes along with Claquesous as mimes) with Montparnasse as the ingenue figure - so maybe that’s where the “spring in his eyes” stuff comes in.

I’m sad about how CLEAR Hugo makes it that Montparnasse=one of the possible futures for the gamin (”the gamin turned lout, and the lout turned murderous robber).  (of course the other options are just as depressing.)   Especially since the ending to 3.7.4 (”What is needed to make these noxious spirits disappear?  Light.  Floods of light” ) is essentially a callback to Ecce Paris, Ecce Homo and the idea of light curing the “sickness” of the gamin.

[threephasebird]

3.6.7 - Adventures of the letter ‘U’ open to conjecture

I...just feel so much second-hand embarrassment right now. Marius. No. Why would you do that? Does anyone remember this illustrated children’s book featuring Marius following Cosette in various disguises? I thought it was an exaggeration, but apparently, it was pretty accurate. Oh dear. What’s making me uncomfortable about this chapter (besides the fact that Marius literally makes eye-contact with Cosette while hiding behind a tree and sniffing at her father’s handkerchief) is the comparison drawn between Marius’s love for/crush on Cosette and his phase trying to connect to his father. Hugo practically says, “Marius’s old obession had faded, so he found himself a new one and fell in love”, and this doesn’t sound like a good basis to me at all. The earnestness with which he persues his “wooing” feels weird and not really like spontaneous “dorkiness” perceived through rose-coloured glasses. Marius plans his visits to the Luxembourg gardens out, makes them part of his routine, and to me it just feels like he is too earnest and too convicted in the whole matter to not feel a bit creepy.

[grande-ere]

In other news, I’m stuck with the mental image of Jean Valjean singing “Javert, that’s aaaaall I aaaask of yooooou” to the Phantom of the Opera tune.

[midautumnnightdream]

heeh okay, is there going to be a chat happening? @pilferingapples @amelancholycharm @darkhorse-javert @stupidromanticus @shell-collectors , anyone else? I’ll be hanging around skype anyway just in case - I go by Autumn Dreams there.

[lesmisreadalong15]

Group chat’s in about thirty minutes, right? 4.10, Where Are They Going?

[pilferingapples]

Les Mis 365: 4.12.1 History of Corinthe

Okay, first off, I love the way Hugo acts like this TOTALLY MADE UP BARRICADE is as famous and known to the reader as the one at Saint Merry-- or as Waterloo. 

 "The reader will remember all that has been said about the barricade built on this spot, actually eclipsed by the barricade of Saint-Merry." 

Totally! The reader definitely will! ...Except not, of course, because Hugo is making this up. Still, he promises to "shed some light" on this little barricade, now "lost in obscurity"-- and I need  to go into some post and have Emotions about history, because it's pretty damn definite that the light shed on Hugo's FICTIONAL barricade is actually one of the main things that's saved Saint-Merry and the rest of the 1832 uprising from falling into obscurity. 

but that's going to have to wait, because there are major important in-text themes arcing back around here:

"Permit us to return, for the sake of clarity, to the simple means already used for Waterloo." 

SEE  THIS IS WHY THE DIGRESSIONS AREN’T DIGRESSIONS 

because this chapter ALSO opens with Napoleon--a near-literal strawman, a Napoleon made out of willow,  Napoleon now marking the site of the heroic café the way a café marks the site of Napoleon's last battle way back in 2.1.1

And for all that people joke about Hugo dropping anvils, and for all that he definitely DID drop anvils, this is something that people keep missing despite him basically standing on a table and screaming it here:  WATERLOO AND THE BARRICADE ARE MIRRORS OF THE SAME GREAT MOVEMENT, they're both sacrifices paid to bring in the dawning of a better and more human world, a world that won't need superhuman heroics and Great Men, where the bravest of every generation won't be fed directly into the dirt for one man's glory. But the barricade is that sacrifice made willingly, with that end goal in mind, and is by that made more noble and braver and better worth remembering than the "glory" of Waterloo. 

okay I think I just 

I'm gonna have to break down the similarities quote by quote in another post.

Right now it's hopefully enough to pull out these bits: 

Corinthe: 

Persons who wish to picture to themselves in a tolerably exact manner the constitution of the houses which stood at that epoch near the Pointe Saint-Eustache, at the northeast angle of the Halles of Paris, where to-day lies the embouchure of the Rue Rambuteau, have only to imagine an N.

Waterloo: 

Those persons who wish to gain a clear idea of the battle of Waterloo have only to place, mentally, on the ground, a capital A.

There are so many other echoes-- tunnels, detours, skeletons in drinking-places-- that other bits of scenery mentioned in the building have to echo even when NOT doing a close comparison.   A spiral staircase, whitewashed walls, cheerful insults between teasing friends, a countrywoman's reminiscences-- all these are brighter, happier images of something seen before,  in the aftermath of horror. 

There are other echoes here too-- we saw a fat, winded countrywoman and a pale, delicate woman serving others together before, long ago, in a very different household.  Matelote and Gibelotte may be serving people in a very different line than Magloire and Baptistine, but they, too, are serving people people--men,  because this is a Hugo novel and it's the 19th century--who are undertaking a greater work and serving a high ideal in their turn. 

..And like Baptistine and Magloire, their lives depend more on those men than a better, fairer society would require. Courfeyrac, Grantaire and the other Amis are pretty clearly the living support for the Corinthe since Hucheloupe died.  They eat there from what Bossuet (a very different Bossuet than the first we read about, just as these are very different women)  calls " piety",  and given the very parental, familiar attitude of Mere and Pere Hucheloupe, it's a clear echo of FILIAL piety,in particular--but given the Amis'  service to their own ideal, I think it's a bit of a nod to the other sort, too.  This is, after all, a café that has served and will serve as support for those trying to enact an ideal. 

But it's also just a café , and they're also just students, rough and goofy and prone to impropriety and insults--as, it seems, were Pere and Mere Houcheloupe, and I think that's important to keep in mind. This is a rough, mishmashed, not elegant or refined or perfectly-spoken sort of family, here, and this will be a rougher sort of service for the ideal,in turn. But Hugo's made it perfectly clear that what we're about to see is still as much linked with the absolute and ideal as any work in the book, and just as grand and epic as the battles of Emperors. And if it's common, a little coarse, and a bit improper, then that if anything raises it still higher. 

[aporeticelenchus]

Les Mis 365 - 4.1.6

A very overdue Enjolras and His Lieutenants post! I’ve been putting off this chapter because there’s so much going on and it’s intimidating to write about – there’s especially a lot of Grantaire characterization, which is something I think about a lot and find very hard to articulate – but I’m going to try to put down something, even if it’s not complete or brilliant.

Ok, so back in 3.4.1 I argued that Hugo introduces Enjolras and Grantaire by framing them with the concepts of faith and love respectively. Faith and love have been huge themes in the novel thus far, and for Hugo they appear to be deeply interconnected – perhaps inseparable. (This is why Hugo says it’s a “profound contradiction” for Grantaire to love without having faith: “for an affection is a conviction.”) Back in the convent chapters, Hugo described faith and love as “the twin engines of progress.”* Hugo went out of his way to present Enjolras as someone uninterested in love and Grantaire as someone without faith, each of them having only one of those two engine to move them. Of course, I also said that Hugo was going to complicate this picture for each of them, and we get some of that in this chapter!

To start, we get our first “faith” declaration from Grantaire: “I believe in you.” This is in response to Enjolras claim that Grantaire believes in nothing; exactly the claim Hugo has been setting up as plausible for Grantaire. Likewise, we get a strong sense of personal affection and love from Enjolras as he considers the talents of each of his friends! In otherwords, each has symbolic inroads on the half of the love/faith dichotomy he was initially framed as lacking.

However, it’s also important to notice that Grantaire’s statement of faith is still fully gounded in the context of personal and concrete love. Grantaire only has faith in that very limited context; he loves Enjolras, so he has faith in him. An affection is a conviction. One he leaves Enjolras and the other friends he loves, evidence of that faith disappears and he falls into more familiar patters. Love and faith are interconnected, but Grantaire still shows a strong imbalance – one side of the whole is still entirely dependent on the other in a way that leaves it stunted (but developing?)

Likewise, I think Enjolras’ love – though very real! – is presented as grounded in his faith and cause in a parallel way. When Enjolras reflects warmly on his friends (personal individuals!) he does so by considering their usefulness to the cause he believes in. He isn’t reflecting on their contributions to his personal life as friends, but to his public life as a leader of a revolutionary movement. Again, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t value them as individuals and truly love them, but Hugo is framing Enjolras’ love here as something connected to his goals and beliefs, just as Grantaire’s belief was framed in terms of his love. It’s something new we haven’t explicitly seen before in the text, but it’s coming out of what we have seen before. And obviously there is more to come!

There’s also an interesting parallel in how they treat abstract big picture ideals vs. concrete individuals. As I mentioned before, Grantaire’s love is all for concrete individuals, and that’s where his interest lies. But in this chapter, he’s invited to speak of principles and ideals, and he asserts that he can! And indeed, I have no doubt that he has the learning, skills, and intellectual capacity to do so – however, symbolically he is still too strongly focused on the personal and concrete without the universal and abstract.

I would say that Enjolras, on the other hand, is most conceptually at home in the world of the universal, abstract, and ideal. However, his reflections on his friends are charmingly concrete and personal. He can see what each of them is best suited to and to give him tasks (except perhaps in the case of Grantaire, but this one if controversial), by recognizing universal traits in the concrete person. But again, he ties it back to how they can serve the big picture goal, not how they matter to him personally. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Hugo seems to care very much about the connectedness of the personal and the political, the individual and the universal, the concrete and the ideal, and I think that’s part of the progression we’re going to see in how Enjolras talks about the people he loves.

Argh, this is getting long. I’m going to post this and make a short follow up post with some characterization thoughts.

*”For our part, adjourning the development of our thought to another occasion, we will confine ourselves to saying that we neither understand man as a point of departure nor progress as an end, without those two forces which are their two motors: faith and love.”

[eirenical]

Les Mis Weeks

Les Mis Weeks

As requested, pilferingapples, an update to the calendar with the readthrough start/restart dates as well.  ^_^  Enjoy!

In the interest of making this more accessible, I thought I would create a page to host the calendar. I’ll do my best to keep it updated. For those who would like to go straight to the calendar, you can find it here. For those who would like to download the calendar into your phone calendar, you can find that here: [ical version] and for those who would like the RSS feed version, you can find it here: [xml version]. (Also, I can’t post multiple timezones on one calendar, and I’m in EST, so the dates will all be posted in EST. So, you’ll want to check with any moderators to verify timezones and actual hourly due dates.)

This probably goes without saying, but apart from publishing the initial asks that are sent to claim a week, I probably won’t be doing any promoting for individual weeks on this blog. (Unless I decide to run one or participate in one, of course. ^_~) So, when you send me the dates, please also include the tag you’ll be using so I can tag that ask appropriately. Thanks!

Upcoming Weeks: (Mods: I’m going to link to the main tumblr for your week here if I can find it and to the mod who e-mails me the week if I can’t.  If I’ve got the wrong contact address, or if the dates of your week/event change, please let me know?  Thanks!)

September 2015: Aug 27-Sep10: Les Mis Holiday Exchange ( lesmisholidays -- Halloween Edition) – sign-ups 1: brickbookclub begins their 1 volume a month readthrough with Volume 1: Fantine 7: lesmis365 (a.k.a. the slower version ( lesmisreadalong15 for those of us who needed a break) picks back up with 3.5.1 7-14 Courfeyrac & Marius Week (run by: @bootspersonal ; tag: #courfeyracmariusweek) 13: Les Mis Holiday Exchange (Halloween Edition) –Assignments sent

October 2015: 4-10: Feuilly Appreciation Week (run by eirenical; tag: #feuilly week, blog: feuillyweek) 17-24: Logic and Philosophy (Enjolras/Combeferre) Week (run by oilan; tag: #logic and philosophy week) 26: Les Mis Holiday Exchange (Halloween Edition) – Posting Deadline 30: Les Mis Holiday Exchange (Halloween Edition) – Gifts Go Live 31: Les Mis Holiday Exchange (Halloween Edition) – Reveals

[amelancholycharm]

Les Mis 365 - 3.6.7

Cackling forever at Marius’ ridiculous and transparent creeping being referred to as “Machiavellian” here - he just thinks he’s SO clever.  It actually reminds me of the moment right after he finds out about his father where he lies to Gillenormand, maybe for the first time.  I think I talked at that time about the relationship between developing an inner life and developing the desire (need) to deceive. 

But he’s not any better at it now than he was then:)

Also the strategic standing behind trees & statues so that (supposedly) Cosette can see him but Valjean can’t makes me think of poor Georges, the original creeper, trying to hide while watching little Marius at Mass.  And now I’ve made myself sad. (Also like father, like son - there’s evidence that Georges was just as bad at this as Marius is:)

Although, please, Marius - you honestly think you’re gonna outfox Valjean? You clearly have no idea who you’re dealing with here.