More Costume, Less Drama

Le seul courage est de parler a la premiere personne

[akallabeth-joie]

Links for Brick Minutia

Absurdly Detailed Les Misérables Time Line

Absurdly Detailed Barricade Time Line

Birthday Calculations for Cosette, Eponine & Alzelma

Cosette’s Timeline

Exhaustive List of Canonical Ships

Fantine versus French History

List of Every Appearance by Les Amis in Tome 3

List of Pre-Barricade Appearances by Les Amis in Tome 4

Prices and Wages in Les Misérables

[thesweetnessofspring]

It was not until early afternoon the next day that a dreadful old car clanked up Elm Street and stopped in front of the brick house. A hatless man sprang from it and rushed up the steps. The bell was rung as it had never been rung before—vehemently, intensely. The ringer was demanding entrance, not asking it. Uncle Benjamin chuckled as he hurried to the door. Uncle Benjamin had “just dropped in” to enquire how dear Doss—Valancy was. Dear Doss—Valancy, he had been informed, was just the same. She had come down for breakfast—which she didn’t eat—gone back to her room, come down for dinner—which she didn’t eat—gone back to her room. That was all. She had not talked. And she had been let, kindly, considerately, alone. “Very good. Redfern will be here today,” said Uncle Benjamin. And now Uncle Benjamin’s reputation as a prophet was made. Redfern was here—unmistakably so. “Is my wife here?” he demanded of Uncle Benjamin without preface. Uncle Benjamin smiled expressively. “Mr. Redfern, I believe? Very glad to meet you, sir. Yes, that naughty little girl of yours is here. We have been——” “I must see her,” Barney cut Uncle Benjamin ruthlessly short.

What a start for a chapter! Barney acting with an urgency to straighten out the mess before it's too late, Uncle Benjamin suddenly respecting Valancy by even mentally correcting the name he calls her by. Poor Valancy having no appetite and no doubt continuing her rumination from the previous night.

Uncle Benjamin somehow knowing that Barney would be after Valancy that day—an optimist for how he would want the events to go or did he observe something about Valancy and Barney before that helped him see Barney's adoration of Valancy?

And finally we come back to Barney. He's officially made himself into a "wife guy" here. No, it's not if Valancy is there. It's his wife. What Tierney started has completely solidified and he isn't delaying getting things set right with her.

[ksfoxwald]

The Blue Castle - Chapter 42

I love how Barney is clearly Not Okay in this opening - a strange man (hatless!) in a dreadful car, ringing a bell vehemently. It's another moment when the narration pans away to a new angle. This isn't Barney, yet, this is just "a man" - a wild, distracted man - like he's lost his personhood in his drive to get Valancy back.

Uncle Benjamin. That fucker. I don't even know if I like him or hate him at this point. Like, as a personhe is definitely not someone I would want to have dinner with, but as a character? He's somehow completely right about everything is the wrongest way possible. "Tell her he says he won't go away until he's seen her." Uncle Benjamin would say that in a self-important way, but Barney would say that in an obsessed way. And who knows if he would actually have said it if not for Benjamin? (and then he drops another stupid misogynistic joke because Uncle Benjamin).

"You've been lying awake at three o'clock too long, that's all that's the matter with you." First of all, how dare you call me out like that, second of all, spoken like someone who knows.

I don't think that Barney needed to be Redfern's son specifically, but I do think it's important to have his backstory as "sad son of millionaire." And having Redfern's be a household name in the book (at least in Deerwood) does make the revelation have more of an impact than, say, Barney's dad showing up as some random timber baron from Montreal. I do stand by my idea that it would have been better to make him the son of John Foster (which would have made the timeline of his book publications a little different, but is probably doable).

Anyway, Barney was absolutely bisexually in love with his college friend.

"You made me believe again in the reality of friendship and love" I am going feral over this line, how he loves her but also they are friends!! "The very core of my heart" blah blah don't care. This is the line that makes me care about them.

You know, we've talked about Valancy's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, but Barney is also having A Day of it. Realizing he's in love with a woman who is going to die soon and then finding out she's probably not going to die but she left him and then having to talk to his dad on top of it?

Barney: ~pours out his entire heart to Valancy~ Valancy: yeah but u don't rly mean it do u Barney: for fuck's sake! Valancy: ...oh shit fr? <3

It makes sense, though. The Stirlings don't get angry at Valancy. Disappointed, shocked, dismissive, but never angry. And seeing that someone cares enough to get angry at her - about her - is what convinces her.

...and Uncle Benjamin was listening at the keyhole the whole time. Dude. How much of that did he even understand? At least that they're back together again. And Valancy is goign to have a serious Moment when he dies and she finds out she's his sole heir, liek wtf is she going to do with that?

[starlene]

The Blue Castle Book Club: Chapters 41 & 42

"Then she thought of him inescapably. She ached for him. She wanted his arms around her—his face against hers—his whispers in her ear. She recalled all his friendly looks and quips and jests—his little compliments—his caresses."

Girl... this is the man who you're still 100% convinced does not love you and is solely motivated by pity? I'm losing my mind, and I think Valancy has already lost hers a while ago. Such a shame that Cissy had to die – I think Valancy could really use a bestie to tell her that she's being insane.

~

Valancy wants to remember everything, but she has forgotten something already: Barney's eyes were violet when we last gazed into them, but in Valancy's recollection, they're dark blue. Not to mention how they started out brown and will soon go black!

I think the likeliest explanation is that during his outdoor wanderings, Barney has encountered a fairy that has enchanted his eyes with a magical mood ring spell. Black is anger, but which moods might the other colours signify..?

~

"Redfern had not said anything of the kind, but Uncle Benjamin thought he was that sort of a fellow. Valancy knew he was. She understood that she might as well go down first as last."

Does this mean... is Uncle Benjamin, of all people, the Cupid that gives our lovers the final push they need to reach their happily ever after? Amor works in mysterious ways!

~

Three short points about Barney's backstory:

Valancy has regained her health, but in general, this book has not been kind to young women: Cissy's mom, Cissy herself, and Barney's mom have all died decades before their time.

The story of Barney's one friend feels more painful to me than his failed romance with Ethel Traverse. The fact he doesn't even say his name makes it feel like it still hurts him to remember. "Said a good idea was worth more to him than a friend, any time." Ouch. And for a college magazine?? Man. If you're going to betray a friend, at least make it count and squeeze a regular column in a large newspaper or something else actually worthwhile out of it!!

This book clearly exists on its own timeline where certain historical events did not take place... but maybe, in the realm of fanfiction and speculation, a scenario could exist where Barney actually disappeared into Yukon for years to evade the WWI draft.

~

"It’s always been a hard thing for me to tell things, Valancy—anything that went deep. And most things went deep with me."

I feel you, Barney.

I do believe that some of us get a bigger spoonful of the "knows how and when to put their feelings into words" kinda incredient poured into our baking mix than others while we're being made, but that's only the beginning of it – you need practice, too. With his history of bullying and false friends, it's no wonder telling things doesn't come easily to Barney. Wonder if, before Valancy, he has ever had a chance to truly open his heart to someone without it backfiring on him somehow?

Once he gets going, though, he's not too bad at it. Maybe writing all that so-purple-it-approaches-ultraviolet nature prose has taught him a thing or two about putting things into words... I'd say it's mainly the "go into the forest to buffer for an entire day" part that that he needs to work with, going forward.

And then Valancy just keeps insisting she can't believe he cares for her?? These two!! They're truly perfect for each other: one finds it hard to tell things, while the other has an even harder time understanding what she's being told. It's wild.

~

"Girl, you’re in the very core of my heart."

This is such a beautiful way of putting it, and I love the callback to their promise to never lie to each other – even though, momentarily, even that is not enough for Valancy! But all's well that ends well. Love wins!

Wonder who Uncle Benjamin was going to leave his fortune before deciding that actually, Valancy deserves it all?

[warrioreowynofrohan]

The Blue Castle Book Club – Chapter 42

I’m actually wondering this time whether Barney’s anger is feigned:

Barney looked at her.

“So you don’t believe me—yet?”

“I—can’t.”

“Oh—damn!” said Barney violently.

Valancy looked up startled. She had never seen this Barney. Scowling! Eyes black with anger. Sneering lips. Dead-white face.

“You don’t want to believe it,” said Barney in the silk-smooth voice of ultimate rage. “You’re tired of me. You want to get out of it—free from me. You’re ashamed of the Pills and the Liniment, just as she was. Your Stirling pride can’t stomach them. It was all right as long as you thought you hadn’t long to live. A good lark—you could put up with me. But a lifetime with old Doc Redfern’s son is a different thing. Oh, I understand—perfectly. I’ve been very dense—but I understand, at last.”

Valancy stood up. She stared into his furious face. Then—she suddenly laughed.

“You darling!” she said. “You do mean it! You do really love me! You wouldn’t be so enraged if you didn’t.”

Barney stared at her for a moment. Then he caught her in his arms with the little low laugh of the triumphant lover.

It’s the “yet” that’s getting me, and the rapidity of the shift in and out of anger. The “yet” doesn’t suggest he’s given up, it suggests he’s changing tacks for how to convince her – and it works! And he is immediately triumphant – not relieved, triumphant. He tried something different and it works!

I know it takes away from the scene if his anger is an act, but that’s how it feels to me.

[thesweetnessofspring]

Also on the flip side of "queer Barney in love with his first real friend;" the idea of his feelings being strictly platonic but very deep and having that be upended...ugh that's just too real. I really do think there is something particularly stinging about a friendship's betrayal that is even more devastating than anything else. Like, you chose this friendship, too. We connected. I was willing to do so much for you. I asked so little from you. And that other thing was more important than our friendship.

And when you're kind of odd and lonerish like Barney was, it hurts even more because then it feels like really, there is no one who will put up with you.

[thesweetnessofspring]

But I had one friend—or thought I had. A clever, bookish chap—a bit of a writer. That was a bond between us—I had some secret aspirations along that line. He was older than I was—I looked up to him and worshipped him. For a year I was happier than I’d ever been. Then—a burlesque sketch came out in the college magazine—a mordant thing, ridiculing Dad’s remedies. The names were changed, of course, but everybody knew what and who was meant. Oh, it was clever—damnably so—and witty. McGill rocked with laughter over it. I found out he had written it.

Not to put down platonic bonds and how those breakups can rock you as bad or worse than romantic ones, but the reading of Barney as queer and in love with this friend who betrayed him (maybe not realizing the kinds of feelings he had for the other man)...it definitely IS intriguing. Especially when contextualizing it with his anger when Valancy still can't believe that he's in love with her.

[ksfoxwald]

I think it's less "dude cares so much about a guy he must be gay" and more about the parallels between this relationship and Valancy's, where it's romance and friendship all wrapped together, that makes it really bisexual. It's in his relationships with women, too - like how he's platonic friends with Cissy (do we still remember Cissy?). For bi!Barney, relationships with women aren't automatically romantically charged any more than relationships with men are (though of course both have the potential to develop that way.)

(sorry if I'm sounding a bit like a bisexual anthropologist, I'm coming at this from more of a nonbinary angle than a bi/pan identity)

[thesweetnessofspring]

The woman Barney had loved. The woman whom he still loved. Hadn’t he told her he never changed his mind?

So we have an answer to the question: Valancy, why didn't you ask Barney? And why would he want to get back with someone he broke up with eleven years ago?

Really, though, the moment was over when Dr. Redfern talked on about how Ethel was a beauty, and basically called Valancy plain. Valancy has seen how Olive can make most people want to make her the queen—except for Donald Jackson. But I doubt Valancy recalled Donald then. What she has seen is that beautiful people get what they want, Barney did love someone and she was a stunner.

As much as you want to shake Valancy for this thought...I wonder how many people in her position would really feel secure that their friend who did them a solid marrying them for one (1) year actually wanted to stay with them and not go back to a long lost love. Frustrating, but very human to find reasons to confirm our own bias.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

The Blue Castle Book Club – Chapter 39

I like that the “imp” in the back of Valancy’s mind is Valancy, underneath her shock and lack of self-worth – the same Valancy that enjoyed sassing her relatives.

I must be strange, because my thought on reading Valancy’s note was that it wasn’t bad. Cold and stiff, yes, but it makes it clear why she’s leaving and what her preoccupation is – the fear that Barney will feel trapped or tricked because when he married her they both expected she would be dead in a year. Saying anything more about her love or happiness would (in addition to being too painful fir Valancy at the moment) only be pressuring him to maintain the relationship, in her eyes.

The overwhelming emphasis of the note is two things: that she told Barney the truth as she knew it and does not want this relationship to be an unwanted hold on him, and that she does not want him to think ill of her. There’s nothing indicating that she’s leaving because she’s unhappy (though Barney with his hang-ups could read something into the postscript). As communication goes it’s a long way ahead of Barney just disappearing into the woods.

But she’s doing a terrible job of recognizing the obvious signs throughout the relationship – including the phenomenally expensive necklace! including Barney risking his secrets for her! – that yes, clearly Barney cares about her!

The John Foster reveal is so funnily obvious in retrosospect, even though I didn’t pick it up on my first read.

[ksfoxwald]

Blue Castle Book Club - Chapter 41

The description of the room from the beginning comes back to haunt us. I feel like a lot of the parts that seem overly descriptive do this - they set things up for later, so it's not just obligatory set-dressing, it's load-bearing mood-setting. To me it's a bit like coming back to your parents' house after college for the first time and being hit with the visceral weight of memories in your childhood bedroom, and the shock of realizing just how small that life was that was once your entire world.

I like how defiant Valancy is bout her memories, things that Ethel Traverse will never have. She got her dust-pile in the end; a mere dust-pile it may be, but completely hers nonetheless.

That said, you could probably replace this chapter with a gif of a sad wet cat captioned "Valancy."

[tomatotext]

and, look, I’m not complaining, not at all, but this is why it’s very important to be abundantly clear and specific with your Etsy witch.

[oatmealnebraska]

Blue Castle Book Club: Chapter 38

"His poor mother died when he was only two years old. I’d just begun to make money with my Hair Vigor. I’d dreamed the formula for it, you see. Some dream that. The cash rolled in. Bernie had everything he wanted. I sent him to the best schools—private schools. I meant to make a gentleman of him. Never had any chance myself. Meant he should have every chance."

If we're thinking TBC takes place 1925ish, and Barney says he's 35, then he was born around 1890 and Doc Redfern really started making money around 1892.

Given that TBC name-checks real schools like Havergal and McGill, I was wondering which private school young Barney might have gone to. Some of the prestigious older private schools in Quebec were founded just a bit too late for young Barney to attend, so it looks like the likely candidate is Bishop's College School? (I would include a picture, but the school wouldn't have been on its modern grounds at that time.)

The Wikipedia article for BCS notes that "the school catered to the sons of the Protestant elites in the United Empire Loyalists and the residents of the Montreal Golden Square Mile." Would Doc Redfern have bought property in the Golden Square Mile, or would he have been too nouveau riche for that?

From the 1890s into the Edwardian era the city enjoyed a gilded age. Stephen Leacock recalled, "the rich in Montreal enjoyed a prestige in that era that not even the rich deserve". The men of the CPR retired in the 1890s, having created "the world's greatest transportation system," [...] and by exploiting the mineral resources included in their land grants, they and their shareholders would see their net earnings grow year on year to $46 million in 1913. Unprecedented amounts of capital now flowed in from Britain to build Western Canada, and Montreal, where every major company had its headquarters, was once again at the centre of this latest web of prosperity - "those who thought that the government of Canada was in Ottawa were mistaken, it was here". [...] The wealth inherited and managed by the next generation of Square Milers continued to grow, but while many were successful as businessmen they were less entrepreneurial. [...] there was a new and hungrier generation of anglophones coming to Montreal [...] who were not as readily accepted by the older generation, which jealously guarded over the dominance of their cornerstones, the CPR and the Bank of Montreal.

[ri5k]

the replacement of websites with apps sounds so backwards when you actually describe it. like hmm you have to download an entire program onto your device each time you want access to a portal, where it takes up storage indefinitely. somebody should invent an app where you can "browse" any portal just by typing in its address... 🥴

[archipithecus]

xkcd 1367: Installing

[oilan]

Could really use a crab rave right about now

[oilan]

[oilan]

Not the crab rave I was expecting but I'll take it

[pilferingapples]

Demi-Liard; A racialised ‘Other’?

Despite only featuring as a minor character in Les Misérables, Demi-Liard is undeniably portrayed by Victor Hugo in a prejudiced manner — bo

[captain-price-returns]

SENATOR DOWN!!!!

[jayalaw]