Nintendo Switch friends with Denny's (Yes, the restaurant. Yes, I have photo evidence. Possibly my greatest accomplishment.)
Got an ongoing "#word of the week" told in story format. Each word of the week creates a new addition to the ridiculous tale I'm slowly spinning. I'll try to get around to making a master post or something at some point so people can start at the beginning more easily if they want. If I ever do, I'll drop it here.
Currently doing a blind read-through of Les Mis. I am reading two places in the book at once, so be cautious with what you mention if you interact with my ongoing posts. Please avoid spoilers. I started simultaneously in volume 3 and 1, and have not only made it through 1.2 in the front half so far. Yes, it's a strange and backwards way to read. Yes, I'm doing it anyway. Tag for this adventure is #a brick to the head
I know you like Sailor Moon, but what other mahou shoujo anime have you watched? Have you seen Madoka?
Oh absolutely I have. Homura is my girl đ
Let's see... A good number of these I haven't seen in years so I don't remember them superbly well, but: Saint Tail, Tokyo Mew Mew, Shugo Chara, Princess Tutu, Cardcaptor Sakura, uhh boy there's definitely some others I tried out on a bored afternoon but I can't remember names now.
I've dabbled in Mermaid Melody and Pretty Cure, can't remember why I never continued either of them. Might've just picked the wrong Precure to start with, I've heard some are a lot better than others. Really oughta get around to trying Heartcatch or Splash Star or something, maybe those would be better than whichever one I tried.
The skeevy vibes got worse immediately with the chapter title: First Sketch of Two Shady Characters
It was a very poor mouse that had been caught, but the cat is happy even with a scraggy mouse.
Who were these ThĂŠnardiers?
Let us say a few words about them right now. We will complete the sketch later.
A few words = at least one chapter of several pages long minimum
Complete the sketch later = also at least one chapter of several pages long minimum
These individuals belonged to that bastard class between the so-called middle class and the so-called lower class, which is made up of crass people who have come up in the world and clever people who have gone down, and combines some of the faults of the latter with nearly all the vices of the former without having the generous impulse of the working man or the law-abiding decency of the solid citizen.
Alright that probably says everything we need to set things uâ
They were of that stunted nature that easily turns monstrous if some dark passion is by chance kindled in them. There was in the woman the essence of a bully and in the man the makings of a scoundrel. Both were most highly susceptible to the sort of hideous progress that occurs in the development of evil. There are souls like lobsters, continually retreating into the shadows, retrogressing rather than advancing through life, using experience to add to their monstrosity, becoming ever more wicked and ever more imbued with an intensifying foulness. This man and this woman were such souls.
Okay so they're actually Worseâ˘, and that's probably enough to set up their charaâ
[2 pages later]
[okay rewinding though I need to read those]
If he was to be believed, this fellow ThĂŠnardier had been a soldier, a sergeant, he said. He had probably taken part in the campaign of 1815, and had even acquitted himself quite bravely, it would seem. We shall see later what the truth of this was.
𤨠Now hold on. Now hold on a second. This skeevy guy is said to have saved Georges Pontmercy, BY Georges Pontmercy. He had to have like... Been there? Somehow? For Georges to even know his name...??? Oh boy.
for he knew how to do a little of everything, badly.
HAHA
Later, when her Romantically cascading hair began to turn grey, when out of Pamela emerged Megaera, the ThĂŠnardier woman was just a nasty fat woman with a taste for silly novels.
(spritzing Hugo with water) BAD HUGO. STOP THAT.
Ăponine and Azelma... If I'm understanding this text right, it sounds like Hugo is saying that M ThĂŠnardier is so lost in her romance(?) novels or whatever that she named her kids something kind of over the top fictional? Like kids getting named Khaleesi or Anakin.
I personally think they're both nice names, but I am not French and not from the early 19th century. Though Ăponine reminds me of Epona. Is there horse origins in that name? Azelma reminds me of a flower. Probably because Azalea.
Anyway, footnote says Ăponine is inspired by the name Eponina, aka "a woman famed for her heroic devotion to her husband Julius Sabinus, a Gaul who led a rebellion against the Romans in AD 69." There was no actual note on the name Azelma though, just the author implied to have had to do with where ThĂŠnardier got the name, so if someone has a bit more background on the character or person Azelma was taken from, I'd be kinda curious.
So Cosette or Ăponine... shall either of them be our Lanoire? I wonder... But I guess I'll find out one day.
1.4.3
Just being wicked is not enough to prosper.
Well yeah. There's a whole song about that.
The following month they were again in need of money. The woman took Cosetteâs clothes to Paris and pawned them for sixty francs. Once that sum was spent, the ThĂŠnardiers came to regard the little girl as no more than a child they had taken in out of charity, and treated her accordingly. As she no longer had any clothes of her own they dressed her in the little ThĂŠnardier girlsâ cast-off petticoats and chemises, that is to say, in rags. They fed her on everyoneâs scraps â a little better than the dog, a little worse than the cat. In fact the cat and the dog were her habitual dining companions. Cosette ate with them under the table, from a wooden bowl like theirs.
I'M????
Bro what the heck
At the end of the first six months the mother sent seven francs for the seventh month, and continued sending her payments quite punctually month by month. Before the year was over ThĂŠnardier said, âA fine favour sheâs doing us! How does she expect us to manage on her seven francs?â And he wrote demanding twelve francs. Led by them to believe that her child was happy âand doing wellâ, the mother submitted to the demand and sent the twelve francs.
Reloading the cannon. New target on the hit list.
Certain natures are incapable of loving on the one hand without hating on the other. Madame ThĂŠnardier loved her two daughters passionately, which meant she hated the outsider. . . . Cosette could not make a single move that did not bring down on her a hailstorm of violent and undeserved punishments. Sweet defenceless creature, to whom this world and God must have been a complete mystery, incessantly punished, scolded, ill-used and beaten, seeing beside her two little creatures just like her who lived within the glow of a kindly light!
Madame ThĂŠnardier was cruel to Cosette. Ăponine and Azelma were cruel. Children at that age are simply copies of their mother. They come in a smaller size, that is all.
Hoping they grow hoping they change hoping they improve đđđđđđđđđđđ
Meanwhile, having learned by who knows what obscure channels that the child was probably illegitimate and that the mother could not acknowledge her as her own, ThĂŠnardier demanded fifteen francs a month, saying âthe creatureâ was growing up and â eating â, and threatening to turn her out. âSheâd better not give me any trouble!â he shouted. âIâll send her brat back to her and her little secrets will blow up in her face. I must have more.â
Die Faster.
before she was even five, she became the household servant.
LEAVE HER ALOOOONE
If this mother had returned to Montfermeil at the end of those three years, she would not have recognized her child. So pretty and fresh when she first came to that house, Cosette was now thin and pale. She had an indefinably anxious look. âSly,â said the ThĂŠnardiers.
Injustice had made her resentful and misery had made her ugly. All that was left of her prettiness were those lovely eyes that were pitiful to behold because, huge as they were, the sadness that was visible in them appeared so much the greater.
Stop....
It was a heart-breaking thing to see in winter, this poor child, not yet six years old, shivering in her tattered old rags of coarse cloth, sweeping the street before daylight with an enormous broom in her tiny red hands and a teardrop in those big eyes.
Locally, they called her Alouette.* The common people, who like figurative images, had chosen to give this name to this tiny creature, no bigger than a bird, trembling, frightened and shivering, the first one awake every morning, in the house and in the village, always out on the street or in the fields before daybreak.
Only, poor Alouette never sang.
* âLâalouetteâ is the morning bird âthe larkâ.
Why is almost every description of a woman in this book so far that isn't praising her up and down for being an angel like:
"From a distance, one might have thought they were viewing a hippo. Up close, one might have become certain they were viewing a hippo. And if they stood there for a few minutes in observation, they'd realize the truth was even worse: it was a woman. A woman who was more worthless than a cow, for at least a cow could be milked and butchered."
and
"She looked like a corpse; a corpse that would have taken up the spaces of three grave sites to bury. And if excavator vehicles had been invented at this point, the grave diggers would have been begging for one in order to make it easier to dig the 15-foot-deep hole required."
and
"It was a hideous, chain smoking old man, withered like a single tall grass pushed down by brutal sun in a waterless land, except it was actually the most disgusting woman one may have ever seen."
I'm beginning to think Hugo might have invented Yo Mama jokes. Good grief.
New book! "Entrusting Sometimes Means Giving Away", with the chapter title being "One Mother Meets Another".
I would like to believe this means Fantine will meet a fellow mother who can take her under her wing, but that is probably wishful thinking.
Thénardier 𫵠the name that keeps haunting the narrative later down the line once Marius is in the picture, him and his stupid debt
Seems like it's time to finally meet them.
Hugo: There's a massive front segment of a timber-transporting trailer sitting out front, blocking the road, covered in mud and rust.
Hugo:
Why was that trailer front section standing there in the street? First, to block the street. Then, also, to rust away completely.
HAHAHA
The centre of the chain hung quite close to the ground beneath the axle, and on that particular evening, sitting coupled in the curve of it, as on the rope of a swing, were two little girls exquisitely entwined, one about two and a half years old, the other eighteen months, the younger in the arms of the elder. A cleverly knotted neckerchief prevented them from falling off. A mother had seen this dreadful chain and said, âNow, thereâs something for my children to play on.â
Well, she's clever and savvy. Maybe she can teach Fantine a thing or two <- still hoping against all hopes
One had chestnut hair, the other, brown.
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait
Hold on (rapidly flipping virtual pages)
LANOIRE HAS CHESTNUT HAIR. WHAT YEAR IS THIS AGAIN?
Hugo went on about 1817, the trailer is from 1818, so somewhere around this time, presumably?? If we're moving on shortly after previous events, 18-19, maybe, so... let's see, Lanoire turned 15 in 1831.... 1816 ish birth year.. and... One of these girls is about 2.5 years old.
LANOIRE IS THAT YOU????
Wait wait no way hold on has Leblanc been this ThĂŠnardier guy this whole time???????? Right under Marius' nose? Did something happen to the mother? And what about her sister? Are they hiding out from something?? Marius hasn't been able to find a speck of info about em, maybe they're on the run? Undercover? Oh I have so many questions.
It's a miracle anything stuck with me from those chapters, but I remember reading chestnut hair and thinking about how I always imagine a lighter brown for some reason when it's more of a rich brown with a strong reddish tone to it.
The setting sun commingled with this joy, and there was nothing to match the charm of this capriccio of chance that had made a cherubimâs swing of a Titanâs chain.
Such funny imagery
Oh, this description.... B(
As for the mother, she was a poor and sorry sight. She was dressed like a seamstress reverting to peasant again. She was young. Was she beautiful? Maybe, but the way she was dressed it was hard to tell. Her hair looked very thick but was austerely hidden under an ugly, thick-woven, close-fitting coif tied under the chin, with one blonde lock escaping. Laughter shows off beautiful teeth if you have them, but she did not laugh. Her eyes looked as if they had not been dry for a very long time. She was pale. She seemed very weary and a little unwell. . . . A large blue handkerchief, such as war veterans use for blowing their noses, folded into a fichu, unflatteringly concealed her figure. She had weathered hands all covered with freckles, a forefinger hardened and roughened by the needle, a cloak of coarse brown woollen stuff, a calico gown and heavy shoes. It was Fantine.
I just gotta put it side by side with one of her original descriptions.
As for Fantine, she was the essence of joy. Her splendid teeth had evidently been provided by God for a purpose â laughter. She preferred to carry in her hand her little straw hat with its long white ribbons, rather than wear it on her head. Her thick blonde hair, inclined to fan out and easily falling loose, and which she had to keep pinning up again, seemed made for Galateaâs flight under the willows. . . . There was something ineffably charming and resplendent about her entire outfit. . . Fantineâs canezou, with its transparencies, its suggestiveness and its modesty, at once concealing and revealing, seemed an alluring contrivance of decency . . . Stunning to look at, with a delicate profile, eyes of deep blue, fleshy eyelids, small arched feet, beautifully turned wrists and ankles, a white complexion showing here and there the azure-tinted branching of the veins, fresh young cheeks . . . Fantine was beautiful without really being aware of it.
The way they both start with "as for" is killing me a little bit.
Ten months had elapsed since the âgreat larkâ.
What had happened in those ten months? We can guess.
After abandonment came hardship. Fantine had immediately lost contact with Favourite, ZĂŠphine and Dahlia. The bond, once broken on the menâs side, unravelled between the women. They would have been greatly astonished a fortnight later had anyone said they were friends. There was no reason to be any more.
I mean, I'm not sure they were really any good for her in the first place...
. . . she found herself totally isolated, minus the habit of work and plus the taste for pleasure. Led by her relationship with Tholomyès to disdain the modest trade she knew, she had neglected any openings. They were now closed to her. Nothing to fall back on. Fantine could hardly read and could not write. She had been taught as a child only to sign her name. She got a public letter-writer to write to Tholomyès, a first letter, then a second, then a third. Tholomyès had not replied to any of them.
One day Fantine heard some gossiping women say, while looking at her daughter, âDoes anyone take these children seriously! Everyone shrugs their shoulders at such children!â Then she thought of Tholomyès who shrugged off his child and did not take this innocent creature seriously. And her feelings darkened towards that man. But what was she to do? She was at a loss to know who to turn to now.
I need to consciously relax my jaw. I am gritting my teeth. I need to stop doing that.
Wait, if she's going back to her hometown and feels like she needs to conceal her "wrong-doing" (having a kid with no husband), then...
Looking at the book title again....
I have A Feeling about this.
We shall have no further occasion to speak of Monsieur FÊlix Tholomyès.
You liar. 3.4 says otherwise.
All we wish to say is that twenty years later, under King Louis-Philippe, he was a well established provincial lawyer, wealthy and influential, a sound voter and a very severe magistrate; still a man of pleasure.
WHY DO YOU WISH TO SAY THAT? I DO NOT WISH TO KNOW OF HIS SUCCESS. ONLY HIS FAILURE AND DEMISE AND IF THAT DOES NOT EXIST, TELL ME NOTHING SO I MAY DREAM.
Being very tall and built like a walking colossus such as you might expect to find in a fairground, this woman, who was squatting down, had she stood upright might perhaps have scared the traveller from the outset, undermined her trustfulness and forestalled what we have to relate. Someone sitting instead of standing â destinies hang on this.
(looks at the camera flatly)
Hugo be normal about the appearance of a woman if her appearance is at all described challenge: impossible
What the grave-digger does becomes amusing when done by a child.
HAHA he just says the most off the wall things sometimes.
Squints. Cosette is the same age as the eldest ThĂŠnardier.... What color is her hair... Hey what color was Lanoire's eyes....
(more page flipping)
BLUE
Okay now we've got two contenders, two girls, both of the right age group to be Marius' Lanoire, one with the matching blue eyes description, one with the matching chestnut hair description. I wonder if I'll find out of either of them has The Other Telling Trait (though perhaps Hugo just likes blue-eyed, chestnut-haired characters. Lanoire could be unrelated even still.)
Oh, here it is....
. . . And then it wonât be long before I return. Will you look after my child for me?â
Why do I feel like she's going to go off and die and leave Cosette motherless. And what are these folk supposed to do if she can't pay em every month anymore?? I mean, they're not Myriel. I'm not going to expect them to keep paying for an extra mouth. Urghhh in the words of Star Wars [insert character here], I have a bad feeling about this.
Dang Madame ThÊnardier is good at mental math. And her husband is good at increasing the price 𤨠I suppose that's why she's good at math. Has to keep calculating new prices all the time.
Iâll earn some money there, and as soon as I have a little Iâll come back to fetch my little angel.â
She might as well just start wearing her hair in a side braid. Forget it. Death flags everywhere. (head in hands)
. . . and set out the following morning, intending to return soon.
STOP!! STOP REMARKING UPON HOW SHE INTENDS TO RETURN SOON!!! She's already doomed leave her alooooone
When Cosetteâs mother had gone the man said to the woman, âThatâll pay off my debt for a hundred and ten francs that falls due tomorrow. I was fifty francs short. You know, Iâd have had the bailiff on to me with a warrant? That was a clever mouse-trap you laid there with your babes.â
âWithout realizing it,â said the woman.
From 1830 to 1835 a gang of four ruffians, Claquesous, Gueulemer, Babet and Montparnasse, ruled Parisâs third level down.
Here we meet our new cast. Gonna be fun trying to remember these new names.
Being of such a sculptural build, Gueulemer might have subdued monsters â but had found it more expedient to be one.
HAHA oh man. Hugo and his clever lines.
[Babet] had been a clown with Bobèche and a mountebank with Bobino.
Hey @littleblueclown
He was a man with designs, a fine talker, who underlined his smiles and put quotation marks around his gestures.
I'm not 100% sure what meaning Hugo intended hereâmy guess is that he got people to focus on his charms ("a fine talker, who underlined his smiles") but... the quotation marks thing is what throws me.... Maybe it's just about exaggerating his gestures? I'm going to phone a friend with multiple translations. Hold on.
"He was an affected man, a great talker, who italicized his smiles, and quoted his gestures." - Wilbour
"He was a man of purpose, a fine talker, who underlined his smiles and accentuated his gestures." - Hapgood
I'll settle for exaggeratedly charming. Which, for somebody who was a clown and then later a vaudeville actor, it's no wonder he's got that theater kid in him.
He had been married and had children. He did not know what had become of his wife and offspring. He had lost them the way a person loses a handkerchief.
Hugo sure has a way with analogies.
What was Claquesous? He was night. He would wait until the sky had painted itself black before making an appearance.
Okay Marius' green coat
In the pitch dark, he spoke to his accomplices only with his back turned to them. Was his name Claquesous? No. He would say, âMy name is Not-at-all.â If a candle was produced he put on a mask. He was a ventriloquist. Babet used to say, âClaquesous is a nocturne for two voices.â
What a fascinating character. A fascinating cast in general so far. Something about them all is reminding me of Count Olaf's squad. The bizarre, dark, and criminal combined.
Montparnasse was a child, not twenty years of age, with an attractive face, lips like cherries, splendid black hair, the brightness of spring in his eyes. . . . He was good-looking, effeminate, graceful, strong, languid, ferocious.
Ah, an evil Enjolras
Montparnasse was a fashion-plate, living in poverty and committing murder. The cause of all this adolescentâs crimes was the desire to be well dressed.
Or perhaps an evil Courfeyrac
Few prowlers were so dreaded as Montparnasse. At eighteen he already had several killings behind him.
Yikes
Curled, pomaded, nipped in at the waist, with a womanâs hips, the chest and shoulders of a Prussian officer, murmured admiration from the boulevard trollops around him, cravat deftly knotted, a cudgel in his pocket, a flower in his buttonhole â such was this death-dealing dandy.
An evil ThĂŠoduleâ (Kidding. Just thinking about ThĂŠo's "girl's waist" and this guy's "woman's hips")
I am probably more charmed by the description of a death-dealing dandy than I should be. I've always enjoyed alliteration, but it's also fun to have two things combined that don't quite suit each other too.
I'm quite charmed in general by this entire group. Character-wise, they sound like an interesting bunch to explore.
Back to my savior, "The Lowest Depths". It's nice being able to enjoy some pros about the sewers of society after having to endure everything with Marius and Tholomyès. I don't know how long it will last but I'm determined to enjoy it while I can.
They are brutally voracious, that is to say, ravenous, not tyrant-like but tiger-like.
This is a really neat comparison. Tyrants are in positions of power, or else there's nothing for them to be a tyrant over. They are noticeable, and they are often times aware of the law, but above the law because of the power they wield. Tigers, well, there is no law to a tiger. You can try to catch a tiger that's roaming a city and lock it up because it's a danger to others, but the tiger has no sense of right and wrong. No morals. A tiger is a tiger and it will attack and eat whenever it feels like it. And you certainly won't know there's a tiger stalking you down until it's already upon you. No overt, controlling power being exercised, just a silent threat that could come at you at any given moment if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We have just seen, in Book Four, one of the chambers of the upper mine, of the great political, revolutionary and philosophical tunnel. There, as we have just said, everything is noble, honourable, admirable, honest. There, certainly, mistakes might be made, mistakes are made, but so much heroism is involved, any erring is to be respected. All the work done there has a name: Progress.
The moment has come to take a glimpse at other depths, hideous depths.
Ooh are we about to get the antithesis to the Amis?
I wonder for what reason we have departed from Marius and are going to investigate the criminal underworld. It is probably going to be a surprise tool that will help us later so to speak, but I wonder for what. I feel like it would be odd for us not to return to Marius and his love story after we're done here, even though I would love to hope otherwise, so I'm assuming this relates back to that in some way. Unless we go to the Amis after this, and then circle back to Marius after that? Since those in this third level, so to speak, have been pretty much directly compared to the Amis as being their opposites, this could be setting the stage for some sort of conflict between the two groups. Alternatively, since Marius had his dealings with the Amis, perhaps he'll next have his dealings with the antithesis group. He sort of rejected the Amis... I can't really foresee him accepting the offerings of terrible criminals, but also... He's dumb sometimes. He might get tricked by them or something. Or maybe Lanoire gets accosted by bad guys, and the idiot stops lurking around and does something and that's how they actually properly come to interact.
There's a variety of ways this could go. Could very well be a secret nth option I'm not even aware of.
Someone stick a sock in his mouth. Who named this chapter "Tholomyès Wisdom"?? I'm not sure that second word is completely applicable.
âO ZĂŠphine, O JosĂŠphine, with your more than unconventional prettiness youâd be attractive if you werenât crumpled. You look like a pretty face that someone has sat on by mistake.
This was so uncalled for
sugar is a salt
O wise one, yes this is. So very most definitely true. Definitely.
Gentlemen, make conquests. Steal your darlings from each other without remorse. Change partners. There are no friends in matters of love. Wherever thereâs a pretty woman thereâs open hostility. No quarter given, all-out war! A pretty woman is a casus belli. A pretty woman is flagrant provocation. All the invasions of history have been brought about by petticoats. Woman is manâs entitlement.
x100
Kiss me, Fantine!â He got the wrong girl, and kissed Favourite.
I cannot stand this man I cannot stand this man I cannot stand this man I cannot stand this man
1.3.8
Horse mention 𫵠"Death of a Horse" maybe this is the horse that haunts me
Fantine, I plead with you to leave this man behind. Why are you in love with him when he talks about other women all the time.
Why.... Why do I feel like these guys all just left. Like. Permanently. "Here's the surprise! It's a disappearing act."
1.3.9
Can everyone stop dragging Fantine for being naive please, guys, c'mon. I don't think they actually like her that much, with how they keep making jokes at her expense.
The waiter replied, âItâs a note those gentlemen left for you ladies.â
âWhy didnât you bring it straight away?â
âBecause,â said the waiter, âthe gentlemen told me not to deliver it to you ladies before an hour had gone by.â
Oh boy
O loving mistresses!
We would have you know that we have parents. Parents are not something you are very familiar with. In the civil code for respectable children, they are called fathers and mothers.
I've had it up to (my hand raises up into the sun) here with these guys
Now, these parents are complaining, these old folk are appealing to us, these good men and women are calling us prodigal sons, they want us to come home, and are offering to kill calves for us. Being dutiful, we are obeying them. By the time you read this, five spirited horses will be taking us back to our papas and mamas. We are decamping, as Bossuet puts it. We are leaving. We have left. We are fleeing in the arms of Laffitte and on the wings of Caillard. The Toulouse stage-coach wrests us from the abyss, and the abyss is you, O our beautiful darlings! We are returning to order, to duty, to society, at a brisk pace, at the speed of eight miles an hour. It is important for the country that like everyone else we should be prefects, family men, rural police officers and state councillors. Respect us. We are sacrificing ourselves. Lament us briefly and replace us rapidly. If this letter distresses you, tear it to pieces. Farewell.
For nearly two years we have made you happy. Do not hold it against us.
Signed:
Blachevelle.
Fameuil.
Listolier.
FÊlix Tholomyès.
P.S. The meal is paid for.
This is worse than breaking up with someone over a text. And since it was Tholomyès idea specifically, the man who is so into Spanishâ
Favourite was the first to break the silence. âWell, anyway,â she exclaimed, âitâs a good joke!â
Guys... no..........
Fantine laughed with them.
An hour later, back in her room, she wept. He was, as we said, her first love â she had given herself to this Tholomyès as to a husband. And the poor girl had a child.
Even the chapter titles suck. Last one was "In Despair", and now we've got "The Deep and the Dark".
Man overboard! So what? The ship does not stop. . . . The man disappears, then reappears, he sinks and rises to the surface again, he calls for help, his arms reach out. No one hears. . . . the crew and the passengers do not even see the man in the water. His pathetic head is but a speck in the enormity of the waves.
Starting off strong... đŤ
He, this puny force, immediately exhausted, combats the inexhaustible. . . . He is a dying witness to the immense frenzy of the sea.
Okay I won't lie though, these lines are so good. Honestly, the prose in this entire chapter is really good.
Of men there are none. Where is God?
He shouts. Someone! Someone! He keeps on shouting. Nothing on the horizon. Nothing in the heavens.
He implores the expanse, the waves, the seaweed, the rocks. They are deaf. He beseeches the tempest. The insensate tempest obeys only the infinite.
I mean, dang. Bravo Hugo.
The sea is the inexorable social darkness into which the penal system casts its damned. The sea is immense wretchedness.
The soul cut adrift in these fathomless deeps may become a corpse. Who will resuscitate it?
Napoleon was on St Helena, and as England refused to provide him with green cloth he was having his old coats turned.
There is something here about Marius and his green coat, I'm sure of it
Fifty footnotes later...
1.3.2
The names of these particular Oscars were FÊlix Tholomyès
Hey it's the guy everyone seems to hate that Courfeyrac gets compared to
Or at least the last name is the same
Tholomyès had Fantine
HEY IT'S THE LADY THE VOLUME IS NAMED AFTER
Oh wow Favourite's mother sucks B/
She loved Tholomyès. A conquest for him, for her the love of her life.
I can already see where this is going and I already hate this guy for it. Now I better understand where Courfeyrac diverges and I haven't even reached what this scoundrel does.
One day Tholomyès took the other three aside, made sure he had their full attention and said, âFantine, Dahlia, ZĂŠphine and Favourite have been asking us for nearly a year to give them a surprise. Weâve made a solemn promise to do so. . . . At the same time our parents keep writing to us. Attacked on both sides. I think the time has come. Letâs talk.â
At this point Tholomyès lowered his voice and mysteriously described something so amusing that a huge enthusiastic guffaw emerged simultaneously from the mouths of all four of them and Blachevelle cried, âThatâs a great idea!â
I don't know what the plan is but I already don't like it. Just based on the description given to Tholomyès, I don't trust his plans. (On that note, I didn't expect him to be depicted as so ugly HAHA)
1.3.3
Oh, no matter who you may be, donât you remember? Have you walked through the bushes, holding aside the branches for the pretty face following behind you?
Oh get out of here with this "No matter who you may be" type nonsense again đ
Blondeau mention 𫵠may he rest in peace
1.3.4
Okay, I am becoming increasingly baffled by the fact that Tholomyès is even with Fantine. He seems Like the sort that would prefer to have a lady who is fine with him doing whatever the heck he wants with her, but Fantine won't even get on the swing or accept kisses throughout the day like the other girls.
Maybe it comes back around to the conquest thing. She's pretty and if he can say that he was the one who..... (face of disgust) conquered her... It's like some kind of bragging right. "Yeah I managed to get with the chaste Fantine, that's how suave and impressive I am" kind of mentality. He wants the challenge? Ugh.
"on Sundays tiredness has the day off" oh if only
1.3.5
Horse mention đ
1.3.6
This prompted Blachevelle to ask, âWhat would you do, Favourite, if I stopped loving you?â
âWhat would I do!â cried Favourite. âOh, donât say that even as a joke! If you stopped loving me, Iâd come after you, Iâd scratch and claw you, Iâd throw water over you, Iâd have you arrested.â
Blachevelle smiled with the voluptuous self-conceit of a man whose vanity is flattered.
. . .
As she ate, Dahlia said quietly to Favourite amid the uproar, âSo you really worship your Blachevelle, do you?â
âI detest him,â replied Favourite in a similar undertone, picking up her fork again. âHeâs stingy. Itâs the lad who lives opposite me I love.
HAHA DANG
All the same, I tell Blachevelle I adore him. What a liar I am! Eh? What a liar!â
Favourite paused, then went on, âYou see, Dahlia, I feel miserable. Itâs done nothing but rain all summer, the windâs always blowing, it gets on my nerves, Blachevelleâs very tight-fisted, there are hardly any peas in the market, you donât know what to eat. Iâm down in the dumps, as the English say, butterâs so expensive, and look, here we are eating in a room with a bed in it. Itâs disgusting! It makes me fed up with life.â
... Dang.
You say you love actors, but girl you could be one.
Here's to hoping this one is less painful. Chapter title is "Mines and Miners", which I would like to think does not somehow get applied to Marius. We will see.
Beneath the structure of society, that complicated marvel of a ramshackle edifice, are all sorts of excavations. There is the religious mine, the philosophical mine, the economic mine, the revolutionary mine. One person digs with an idea, another with numbers, another with anger. People call out and answer each other from one catacomb to another. Utopias make their way underground through these conduits. They branch out in all directions. They sometimes run into each other and make common cause.
Fun analogy going on here. All those on the surface, living their lives, easily capable of being unaware or at least ignoring, if they want, what's going on "beneath them".
The deeper down, the more mysterious the workers. Down to a level the social philosopher can identify, the work is good. Beyond that level it is dubious and variable. Lower still, it becomes terrible. At a certain depth the excavations become impenetrable to the spirit of civilization, the bounds of manâs breathable environment have been exceeded. This may be the beginning of monsters.
Oh, VERY much like how this bit is written. The straightforwardness of that last sentence is kind of chilling. Thinking about how the deeper you go in the ocean, the more alien things start to look....
There is a point where delving deeper means entombment, and light is quenched.
Beneath all these mines we have just described, beneath all these galleries, beneath this whole vast vein-like subterranean network of progress and Utopia, much further down in the earth, deeper than Marat, deeper than Babeuf, deeper, much deeper, and without any connection with the upper levels, is the last tunnel. A terrible place. This is what we have called the third level down. It is the pit of darkness. It is the cavern of the blind. Inferi.
It connects directly with the abyss.
YEAHHHH OH WE'RE BACK BABY!!!! Back to sentences that actually draw me in instead of making me want to shut my eyes!!!! Sentences I want to devour instead of spit out!!!!
Guzzling down this chapter like the most refreshing lemonade on the hottest of days. Not a single "Ugh" was felt, not a single sigh breathed.
To know that her name was Ursule was already a great deal. But it was not very much. In three or four weeks Marius had consumed this blessing. He wanted another. He wanted to know where she lived.
Oh no
He followed âUrsuleâ.
From that moment on, Marius added to his happiness of seeing her at the Luxembourg the happiness of following her home. His hunger increased. He knew her name, her first name at least, a lovely name, a truly feminine name. He knew where she lived. He wanted to know who she was.
One evening after he had followed them home and seen them disappear through the carriage gateway he went in after them and said pluckily to the porter, âWas that the gentleman on the first floor that just came in?â
âNo,â replied the porter. âThat was the gentleman on the third floor.â
Another advance made. This success emboldened Marius.
âAt the front?â he asked.
âGood lord!â said the porter. âThe house doesnât go back any further, it all faces the street.â
âAnd what does the gentleman do for a living?â Marius went on.
âHeâs a man of independent means, monsieur. A very kind man, and though not rich heâs good to the poor.â
âWhatâs his name?â resumed Marius.
The porter looked up and said, âIs monsieur a police spy?â
Thank you for quitting while you were behind, porter. I suppose back then there was not the same understanding of caution when a stranger comes around asking questions about a specific person, but at least he caught on eventually that this was Weird.
On arriving at the carriage entrance Monsieur Leblanc let his daughter go on ahead of him, then before stepping through himself he stopped, turned, and stared intently at Marius.
GET HIM. SCARE HIM OFF. PLEASE. I AM CONCERNED ABOUT THE SAFETY OF YOUR DAUGHTER. AND YOU FOR THAT MATTER.
The next day they did not come to the Luxembourg. Marius waited in vain all day long. At nightfall he went to Rue de lâOuest and saw light shining from the third-floor windows. He walked about below those windows until the light went out.
The next day, no one at the gardens. Marius waited all day, then went to do his evening stint beneath the windows.
He's literally not learning. He's literally not connecting any dots. The dots didn't even enter his brain.
On the eighth day, when he arrived beneath the windows there was no light in them.
I hope they moved. Heck, I hope they moved out of the country.
Marius knocked at the carriage entrance, went in, and said to the porter, âThe gentleman on the third floor?â
âMoved out,â replied the porter.
Marius reeled and said weakly, âHow long ago?â
âYesterday.â
âWhereâs he living now?â
âIâve no idea.â
âSo he didnât leave his new address?â
âNo.â
And looking up, the porter recognized Marius. âWell, well!â he said. âItâs you again! So you really are a police sleuth then?â
He might be worse than a police sleuth actually.
I feel obliged to leave a copy of some messages I sent on Discord two days ago regarding Marius' behavior, because they seem quite apt now:
He already knows their garden schedule typically, but of course it is only downhill from here. So you know. Eventually he'll probably start following them around when they go, not even knowing where his feet take him, standing behind light poles that he's extremely visible from when they glance back. He'll spawn in right outside their house and start kissing the door.
Hiding behind things to stare at people are how restraining orders begin, you know
Except those probably don't exist yet
The obsession over a handkerchief is another point against him. I am worried for her
If he's capable of thinking the birds are laughing at him, that she's going "you're taking too long! I will come to you!" and being all modest about him making out with "her" handkerchief in front of her, well. I'm sure he's capable of him interpreting her blinking when dust flies into her eyes as a sign that she's seducing him, to which he will steal her away. He is delusional. We are five fragile steps away from that delusion being legitimately harmful*. He is SUCH an extreme guy that I genuinely would not put it past him to advance in creepy behavior, and for it to be painted as romantic. Heck, you know how much media today still injects the idea of a domineering, forceful guy as being the ideal hottie? Yeah, let's trap a girl against a wall and threaten her to behave. Let's make her feel scared. That's exactly how a relationship should be. And this is MODERN times, when people should know better (but you know, how good and useful and wonderful it is to brainwash ladies into thinking toxic behavior is a green flag, but that's another matter entirely)
Point is, in an era like this, I don't doubt there's a high chance of him being More Horrible and that being painted as Charming and Good. What he's doing right now would already be raising a million alarm bells for a lady who values her safety and knows what to watch for. This is surely just the start. Idk this girl, really, but I wanna tell her and her dad to get the heck out of France before things get worse.
*"Legitimately harmful" as in it permanently affecting her life by putting her in danger or "ruining" her as a woman as was a whole big deal back in ye old day (and I assume was similar in France). This kind of behavior, at least today, could already be legitimately harmful just by making a girl feel scared and uncomfortable. Could make her scared to leave the house for goodness sake. Granted, this is a different era, but even so. Don't want someone thinking I don't consider this harmful, at the very least, in today's time.
Though honestly even if it was normal to this time, which I have since confirmed it is Not, I don't like it all the same. It's still harmful just in the fact that it is a thing, even if people were made to believe it was usual behavior (being made to believe it's okay or whatever is its own problem). Yes yes it's painted as comedic bumbling stupidity but like. Ugh. Ughhhhhhhh.
Can't believe people were defending his behavior, even more so now that I know they knew THIS escalated creepy behavior was in the the near future
Like okay, defend the way Hugo is trying to portray it, sure, explain Hugo's intent and whatnot, okay, that's one thing
But surely we can all still acknowledge that Marius' methods are Not Okay. We can explain and reason but still say But It's Wrong. You can like a character and admit they do Wrong Things sometimes, regardless of the character's or author's reasons or intent
