#2.5.10

[garbagecann24601]

Which Explains How Javert Got on the Scent

Javert had been transferred to Paris after re-capturing Valjean. Later, he read in the paper that Valjean had died, and he believed it.

But then he saw a report about a little girl named Cosette, the daughter of a woman named Fantine who had recently died, who was kidnapped from Montfermeil. He investigates, but Thenardier, not wanting Javert to press too hard into his own affairs, says that the story has been exaggerated and that she was picked up by her grandfather. Javert believes him, thinking that Valjean must actually be dead.

But then Javert hears about the beggar who gives alms. Javert disguises himself as a beggar, receives alms from Valjean, and then follows him back to the hovel. The old woman tells him about her tenant, and Javert stalks Valjean a little while longer to be absolutely sure. He loses him for a moment, but then follows him across the bridge and into the maze of streets that he knows ends in a trap.

But by the time Javert gets there, Valjean has disappeared. Javert continues to search the area all night, but Valjean is nowhere to be found.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Retrobrick: 2.5.10

I am a billion years late, so here's how this is going to work. I'm gonna jump straight to the current chapter and pick up from there so that I can stay caught up, but the convent is also tied as my second favorite digression, so I'm also going to retrobrick that.

However, I didn't quite make it to the end of 2.5 before being consumed by the Finals Beast, so we pick up first with Javert!

Rereading this chapter, after all of Andrew Davies'... Opinions about Javert is, honestly, really refreshing. Javert, for all his (numerous) flaws, does his due diligence and isn't about to jump the gun by arresting the wrong person. He is unreasonably harsh on the guilty – and his definition of “the guilty” is broader than most of us, including Hugo, are comfortable with – but he is steadfast in his determination to only punish those who are guilty. Javert is Lawful Neutral to his core.

And this is not, inherently, bad. Hugo even says that Javert achieved a certain level of honor in performing his duties in Paris. Hugo, like many of us, seems conflicted about whether such a thing is possible but, if it is, then Javert is the one to do it.

So, when presented with the chance of a lifetime, Javert takes his time. He checks his sources. He follows up with the Thenardiers and does his own legwork. He makes sure. And it's here, once he's almost-but-not-quite positive, that we see the other part of him, the part that Davies has latched onto, the part that counterbalances the careful, diligent part of Javert's nature: Javert's stunningly well developed sense of narrative.

We've seen it before, of course, but it's always kind of a shock when it comes back into focus because it's so unexpected for the kind of character he is. It's like Javert knows he's in a novel, and also believes, as fervently as he believes that he is right, that he is the hero of that novel. Why doesn't he immediately arrest Jean Valjean? Diligence, yes, but also Drama. Javert doesn't want to ruin the moment. He wants to savor the chase and revel in his own success and cleverness. He wants to play cat and mouse and look Jean Valjean in the eye as he realizes that he has been outmatched.

But even in the midst of this resurgence of narrative, we're reminded of the pragmatism. Drama, yes, but also Diligence. He cannot afford to be wrong. And so both sides of Javert's nature work together to caution him to wait, to be careful, to make sure.

Only this time, both the Drama and the Diligence worked against him – he was too careful, too aware of narrative potential, and he gave Jean Valjean the chance to escape. And yes, what Jean Valjean did should not have been possible, and yes, Javert was not wrong to think him completely cornered, but escape he did, despite it all. And had Javert not taken his time relishing his victory, he might have actually been able to achieve it.

Of course, Jean Valjean is also the hero of his own story, and his narrative is the more potent of the two, but Javert doesn't know that.

And Hugo's talk of Javert the great strategist making a fatal mistake is so reminiscent of the way Hugo talked about Napoleon. Napoleon was a Great Man in a time that had moved beyond a need for Great Men. Javert is a Just Man in a time that requires something other than Justice. Napoleon is opposed by Revolution, Javert is opposed by Love. Both cannot help but fail in the face of such odds.

[umeed-e-sehr]

2.5.10

I love how the mysteries of the previous chapters were gradually resolved and now we have a chapter where the mystery of how Javert came to find Valjean would be resolved.

Paris is a character throughout and here too Paris is known for hiding fugitives and therefore Javert had to be summoned there to hunt down one of them. His relations with M. Chabouilet are amusing since Javert is so much in awe and respect of authority at all times.

@orestesdreams-pyladesloves mentioned that Javert does not care about Valjean per se and he's not obsessed with Valjean which is true because he forgets about him so often.

What I find particularly annoying about Javert is that he watches everything yet does not care about people, to him they are meaningless, sure he knows Fantine has a child, but she was a criminal in his eyes therefore her child does not matter, he’s not concerned with justice which should be the goal of any law. He does not care at all what happens to Cosette, so long as he has his prey, even so long as he can use her to get to Valjean, he would.

I like the idea of politics of the day also having an effect on the chase and capture, Javert being a royalist read the paper on the same day that Jean Valjean was reported dead. It’s interesting that he’s a royalist particularly but has lived through several regime changes without making too much of a fuss. I also really liked that the republican newspapers made Javert’s job much harder because they would have been quick to decry any unjust arrests and all that public scrutiny made him much more cautious than he normally would be, and we are told throughout this chapter how cautious Javert is. Javert’s downfall in this chapter is because he respects authority too much. He would not arrest a respectable man without proof.

I also love the fact that Javert is compared to Napoleon and other great leaders who were conquerors and his description too contains the words, ‘he was a great strategist, but he made precious mistakes which cost him the battle’.

He’s also a tiger hunting for his prey and a spider laying down the trap. In the end he loses like the fox – cunning crafty animal, loses from a stork, a bird that symbolises a nurturing, caring nature and is a symbol of luck, I like the comparison between Valjean and Javert to the stork and the fox.

Even the animal imagery makes him out to be cold and ruthless and what’s more he’s actually enjoying the process of the cat and mouse chase, never mind that Valjean and Cosette’s lives are on the line.

While Javert is trying to avoid embarrassment, he really could just let the matter rest, it’s where his overzealousness comes in play. What can the law achieve by putting behind bars a child and a man who has tried to be respectable for so long and who is believed dead by the law? We are told that Javert had the taste of an artist and wanted success and the fanfare that comes with the surprise. We are also told that if they knew that Valjean was back from the dead, they would assign their best on the case and not someone new to Paris like Javert.

It is evident that he’s doing it for personal motives, of having caught this criminal finally and seeing him get the punishment that he thinks Valjean deserves and to get his own success. A new cop to Paris, catches a dangerous prisoner long believed to be dead, would make the headlines and lead to his quick promotions. Which is why he is compared to Great Men, he thinks he can lead and win his own battle and achieve glory. We know from Waterloo that this model does not work, this model of not caring about the lives of ordinary people and pursuing glory at their expense is something Hugo is against.  

This also puts me in mind of the success bit from the Bishop Myriel chapters and how success itself was frowned upon in those chapters. Javert is pursuing that hedonistic model of glory and success for himself at the expense of an old man and a young child.

I like that the light has now taken on a good appearance. The Thenardiers also want to hide to hide from the light and the scrutiny, whereas Javert also finds things obscure and full of shadows instead of illuminated as it was for Valjean in the previous chapter and it is good that the more he searches, he’s still uncertain, the obscurity is because of the nature of his evil intentions. Which is why I like that Javert being too focused on the chase was so intent on following one of the clues that, that became his undoing.

Javert while being obscured in the chase, also like doing the obscuring. It seems from these chapters while the light and dark are there, it also really depends on the characters and what they make of it. Thenardier uses it to hide his shady business, while Valjean used it to hide himself and Cosette from Javert and being confined to an abyss. I always find the way Hugo uses the light/dark imagery to reveal aspects of the different characters to be very fascinating.

[intj-greenwords]

Anatole

Tolstoy on Anatole:

All he cared about was gaiety and women, and as according to his ideas there was nothing dishonorable in these tastes, and he was incapable of considering what the gratification of his tastes entailed for others, he honestly considered himself irreproachable, sincerely despised rogues and bad people, and with a tranquil conscience carried his head high.

Anatole on himself:

He was convinced that, as a duck is so made that it must live in water, so God had made him such that he must spend thirty thousand rubles a year and always occupy a prominent position in society.

Pierre and Anatole:

Pierre received him unwillingly at first, but got used to him after a while, sometimes even accompanied him on his carousals, and gave him money under the guise of loans.

Natasha and Anatole:

Natásha did not understand what he was saying any more than he did himself, but she felt that his incomprehensible words had an improper intention. She did not know what to say and turned away as if she had not heard his remark. But as soon as she had turned away she felt that he was there, behind, so close behind her.

Anatole is so CREEPY!

[intj-greenwords]

word of the day

entr’acte

interval

[lesmisletters]

April 28th

Today was the end of Vol 2; Book 5!

118 chapter read, 247 chapters left

32.33% thru the brick!

[akallabeth-joie]

Brickclub Les Mis 2.5.10

In which we catch up with Javert's actions of the past year. While this could feel redundant (we're already heard the story as regards JVJ), Hugo manages to keep it sufficiently succinct and add enough new perspective that the narrative doesn't drag. I'm still not sold on the whole sequence that goes 'a person heard a coin fall on the floor in another room and extrapolated from it that their neighbor was about to bolt from the cops',  but otherwise, it works. Right down to Hugo's justifications for why Javert was reading the newspaper on a specific day, and how he got transferred to Paris.

If I count it right, we have three different animal analogies here (dog, wolf, and tiger). 

But, most importantly, Hugs get two decent burns on the police. That it's unusual to call their service 'useful', and that they were 'cramped by a free press' [and by implication were not so restricted at the time of writing. Vicky's getting saucy.]

Javert addresses the toll-collector with "vous". 

[akallabeth-joie]

Brickclub 2.5.10

That’s a lot of disparate information that Javert puts together.  Hugo (Vicky Bigs!) does a good job presenting it as a series of coincidences/Javert being very meticulous (and now I want to pull out my Information Behavior textbooks to analyze this), but still.  His train of thought goes something like:

*JVJ is dead (and we needed a political coincidence to even get him this info)

*A kid disappeared in the area where a kid JVJ was once interested in lived

*False alarm, that kid’s with relatives

*A poorly-dressed guy is giving out money in Paris

*It turns out that guy’s ward is a kid from the same town as the one who disappeared-but-not-really [Are there so few children from Montfermil that it’s likely to be the same one? Or it is a place no one ever leaves?]

I mean, the first hypothesis I’d reach (if I even took all of these as related) is that the grandpa is living in Paris with his grandchild, and he chooses not to spend a lot of money on clothing. Or that these are different children. Or that dressing badly while being generous isn’t a crime and maybe I should be focusing on crime rather than mildly eccentric people.  [How many children go missing in Paris and its environs? Is Javert focusing unusually on Montfermil because of a guy whom he believes to be safely in prison and/or dead? Is he doing the same with other JVJ-associated sites, ie, Montreuil-sur-Mer or Faverolles? Seriously, where was this level of official scrutiny when Cosette was being neglected?]

Like, from the point where Javert recognizes JVJ, I’ll concede. But...it’s still a bit of a stretch that he’s acquired enough information at this point that the best use of his time is borrowing clothing to stake out a guy who gives money to beggars.

Short version: Javert is right, but the information he’s putting together is very fragmentary, and he has no concrete reason to be focusing on a dead guy and an apparently safe child.

Called it on the bridge-keeper remembering JVJ & Cosette.

Comparing Javert to great generals: a straight-played comparison to stress just how good/tenacious an officer Javert is, or Vicky Hugs throwing shade on his own character?

[Additional hypotheses for Javert beside “JVJ faked his own death and escaped from prison to kidnap a child and quietly raise her in Paris while giving money to the poor”: JVJ is dead, but entrusted money to a friend or agent to retrieve and care for Cosette; someone who knew Madeleine (or got money after his disappearance) decided to finish his work/honor his ideals by caring for the kid; the news of Madeleine/JVJ’s arrest brought the story of Fantine/Cosette to the attention of a relative who has consequently taken Cosette; ditto, but with a friendly benefactor unrelated to the child (and Thenardier being confused); ditto, but with a malevolent person hoping to use Cosette to some purpose (and Thenardier either deceived or complicit); that these are unrelated coincidences and JVJ has nothing to do with anything].