#4.15.3

[centrifuge-politics]

Brick Club 4.15.2, 4.15.3, 4.15.4

Valjean, opening other people’s mail is a federal crime…

The number of fortuitous occurrences that have to happen in this scene alone to ensure the letter ends up in Valjean’s hands…untenable.

The symbolism of Gavroche breaking lamps on a bourgeoisie street is either symbolism so blatantly obvious that I don’t really need to say anything or so complexly layered that I don’t even want to try.

“In violent emotions, we do not read, we prostrate the paper which we hold…we run to the end, we leap to the beginning; the attention has a fever…it seizes a point, and all the rest disappears.” This is me reading all the barricade scenes even thought I know what happens. I can and will strangle this brick.

“I only have to let things take their course. That man cannot escape. If he is not dead yet, it is certain he will die. What happiness!” The spectre of Champmathieu rises again. Would you have an innocent man die for your own security, Valjean?

This is the French 19th century version of Mambo No. 5. Wilbour is a coward because he tries to abridge the repeating lyrics of the song for formatting purposes. Like we’re really concerned about page economy at this point!

“His face, an inexhaustible repertory of masks, made more convulsive and more fantastic grimaces than the mouths of a torn cloth in a heavy wind.” This is an absolutely ghastly image that reminds me of a favorite painting of mine by Léon Cogniet. The savage, transformative glory of revolution.

Tune in this week for Gavroche’s devastating roast of a National Guard. I need to find a decent translation of his song posthaste because I’m sensing a rather abrupt political turn in its last verses. “Gavroche’s adventure...is one of the most terrible reminiscences of the old bourgeois of the Marais, and is entitled in their memory: Nocturnal attack on the post of the Imprimerie Royal.” He indeed fights like twenty armies.

[garbagecann24601]

While Cosette and Toussaint are Asleep

Valjean goes back into the house, shaking so badly that he can hardly light the lamp to read the letter. His eyes skip ahead to the line:

“I die. When thou readest this, my soul will be near thee.”

Valjean rejoices. This stranger he has hated is going to die. All he has to do is keep the note to himself, and Cosette will never know what happened to the stranger. 

An hour later, Valjean leaves dressed in his National Guard uniform, complete with a gun and a box full of cartridges.

[akallabeth-joie]

Brickclub Les Mis 4.15.3

JVJ reads Marius’ note to Cosette (well, a critical line...and the reader learns the proper Romantic way of melodramatically clutching at a letter). Refusing the temptation to do what is easy, JVJ (again) opts instead for a nigh-suicidal rescue attempt for a stranger.

I know he’s a hero and saves people at considerable risk to himself (the children in the fire, Fauchelevent under the cart, the sailor in the rigging...), but I will take the moment to criticize JVJ for not making any provisions for Cosette and Toussaint. No note to say where he’s going or why, no information they might need if he shouldn’t return. If JVJ had died at the barricade or in the sewers or in the confusion of a street at war... how would Cosette know? The absence of his uniform would at least suggest that he’d gone out to the fighting, but no one from his unit will have seen him or know what become of him. Furthermore, the women don’t know where the money is hidden (or that it exists as a buried treasure instead of, say, rents, or an annuity, or a bank account): if JVJ dies suddenly, Toussaint is out of a job and Cosette left without any means of supporting herself. There’s an unhappy AU idea. 

Marius uses ‘tu’ to Cosette in the letter, as is their habit. 

[akallabeth-joie]

Brickclub 4.15.3

Sometimes, JVJ, we feel like we have committed theft, because we have committed (mail) theft.

Note that he has trouble lighting a candle in the wake of this action, but eventually succeeds.

And then wrestles with a decision between taking an easy but selfish action (conceal note from Cosette) or a less selfish action (give note to Cosette), and decides to go with option c (sacrifice own happiness and risk death to save Cosette's melodramatic boyfriend).

Is anyone else wondering where the porter acquired JVJ's weapon and ammunition in the middle of the night, during an insurrection? I guess we could read those sentences a few ways, but unless Toussaint threw the ammo in with his uniform, it sounds like he had the clothes and the porter found the arms.

[amour-de-tous]

Brick!club 4.15.3 ~ While Cosette and Toussaint Sleep

[musingsbydrea]

Brick!Club 4.15.2-3 Awesome Gavroche and the problems of a Conscience

4.15.2

It's unfair really what Hugo is doing here. He's making me adore Gavrcoche and I know what's going to happen and it's going to be painful and Hugo is being horrid by rubbing in his evilness with this look of see how precocious and sassy and wonderful this gamin is and he's heading back to the barricade so we know what could happen... and even if I hadn't seen the musical  I have read Bleak House and it means I don't trust authors of works making social points to not kill off characters to make a point of some sort... poor Jo.... poor poor Jo.... *tries not to think of Richard and Ada and what was never to be as that is the evilness of Dickens that Hugo hasn't yet resorted to.* Anyhow I digress... alot.

I'll leave the discussion of Valjean to others as I'd rather concentrate on being bemused by the interaction between him and Gavroche.

Gavroche and the lamp. And the suggestion of building another barricade. It makes me smile...

And when Valjean gives him the money and Valjean says he can still break lamps... I love it.

And then messing up his mysterious exit with breaking another lamp.

No analysis here. Just enjoying the loveliness of a fairly not sad chapter while I can.

4.15.3

"Pleased with the darkness like an owl that holds his prey." Wha...? I am somewhat confused by this analogy... I think a more a propos thing to say would be a quote of some 13 dwarves "We like the dark. Dark for dark business." and reading some one elses note and being kind of glad that the writer will die so you and Cosette will be together is dark business.

I'm getting though this delightful mental image of Valjean marching out of his house kind of stuffily with this sorta annoyed expression of "you know having a conscience really sucks sometimes." I could be reading into things a bit but the fact that he's gloomy after considering "Hey he'll die and my problems will be over!" really suggests that his innate goodness is getting to him and he can't act selfishly even if he wants to. Hence my current mental image of a pouting annoyed Valjean marching to possibly go help.

[bodhimcbodeface]

Brick!Club 4.15.2-4.15-3

Yesterday's chapter was Super Symbolic and had a ton going on that I'd love to talk about. But a lot of that was Macaroni to me, so I'll leave it to those more qualified. Right now I want to talk about Valjean. 

See, first he felt this deep and instinctual hatred of Marius. And I can't blame him for that, it was beyond his control. But instead of acknowledging it and fighting it off, he reacted with anger, said it wasn't fair that he should feel this way, because he's worked all his life to be a good person and he should be above such petty things. Then he went outside and sat there, doing nothing, thinking nothing, feeling nothing. Asa pointed out that it hearkens back to the Champmathieu decision, but while that was so active, this one's quite the opposite. Last time he was trying, this time he's retreating because he doesn't understand why he still has to try. He should be done with all of this, above it. The truth is, we're never done. Until the day we die we're growing and changing and moving forward, not hiding in "stagnant oblivion". Until the day we die there are going to be parts of ourselves that we hate, parts of ourselves to resist and overcome. But he can't bear to accept this, so instead he gives into it. He gives into it and lets himself hate this boy, and wish him dead, and be genuinely happy at the thought that this might happen. Until the day we die we're going to fall.

But until the day we die, we're going to get back up again.