#5.3.12

[lesmisletters]

December 6th

Today was the end of Vol 5; Book 3!

340 chapters read, 25 chapters left

93.15% thru the brick!

[centrifuge-politics]

Brick Club 5.3.10, 5.3.11, 5.3.12

Javert, for someone who hasn’t even bothered to check a pulse, is very certain that Marius is dead or on death’s door, doubling down on this insistence very insensitively, “He has been to the barricade, and here he is…there will be a funeral here to-morrow.” Again, I will remind you, “a spy of the first quality, who had observed everything.” Are we sure?

Marius has made it over eight hours with his injuries all while being dragged roughly through the sewers. He’s definitely in danger of a fatal infection or twenty, but his wounds hardly seem deadly.

Awkward Carriage Ride 2: Electric Boogaloo. I honestly have no words for whatever face Javert is making. It’s his self-reflection mode kicking in.

Some gentle foreshadowing, “Suicide, that mysterious assault upon the unknown, which may contain, in a certain measure, the death of the soul, was impossible to Jean Valjean.” Javert has not shown himself to be particularly religious in the book so far, certainly not on the level of Valjean, which is pretty sharply contrasted to his motivations in the musical. I don’t want to get too deep into breaking down his motivations and decisions here because there’s a good long chapter on that, but there are some questions raised here. How concerned is Javert for his ‘immortal soul?’ Does his need for repentance or absolution go so far that he believes he needs to sacrifice his soul to attain it? Or is he not thinking of more spiritual things at all and his main drive is purely an inability to reconcile conflicting social and moral views? In which case the question of his soul may not factor in at all. I’m not going to speculate because I’m sure it will all come up in 5.4.1, but this is a pretty pointed remark from Hugo.

Everyone is having deep thoughts and reflections and the fiacre driver is just like “my new velvet upholstery…”

I don’t know enough about medical care to say if anything is wrong here, but I bet something is, because I’ve been listening to Sawbones nonstop while reading this and if I’ve learned anything it’s that practicing internal medicine was functionally useless until the 1940s. Marius has a broken clavicule, which Wilbour and FMA tell me is the shoulder-blade, but Wraxall, Hapgood, Rose, Denny, and my knowledge of the word ‘clavicle’ insist is the collar-bone. I know the musical always likes to give Marius a crutch post-barricade and it’s a good storytelling shortcut, but maybe a sling and one of those around the head bandages would be more accurate. Not as good a prop to act with though so I understand.

If Marius had truly been bleeding for eight hours to the point where they’re packing his wounds to stop it just now, he’s certainly dead several times over. Also, no one has said a thing about cleaning anything and I’m shuddering.

Gillenormand takes this moment to make everything about him. Certainly, Marius must have gone to get himself killed to spite you personally out of anger, not because you offered so little support and love that he felt there was no possible future in which he could be happy. “He knew very well that he only had to come back,” why couldn’t he just swallow his pride, beliefs, and dignity and be exactly who you wanted him to be? Then he’d still be alive! My bullshit meter is overworked. “I spoke to him in my gruff voice, I frightened him with my cane, but he knew very well it was for fun…you can’t defend yourself against these brats.” I’m seething. Did he know though? Can we please keep Marius and Cosette and their presumed children away from this man? Can we stop returning to him like he’s a touchstone to this story or to any character? Who is supposed to be depicted in this last illustration?

[garbagecann24601]

The Grandfather

The doctor comes and examines Marius.  The wound from the bullet that hit his chest is not too serious. His collarbone was broken and badly dislocated from the journey underground, and his body and head are covered in cuts.

While the doctor is cleaning Marius’s wounds, Gillenormand appears. When he sees Marius, he thinks that he is dead. He opens a window and begins monologuing to the night, saying that Marius went off and got killed just to spite him. Then the doctor goes over to him, and Gillenormand starts telling him about when Marius was a little boy. Then, at last, Gillenormand goes over to Marius and addresses him, telling him that he has killed him, too. 

Marius opens his eyes.

[akallabeth-joie]

Brickclub Les Mis 5.3.12

In which everyone in the Gillenormand household is agitated.

I still don’t like them, but I feel for them. Also want to point out to Grandpa that 1) Marius didn’t actually go fight at the barricade to spite your royalist loyalties, 2) there is, in fact, a girl. Remember how you quashed that? The day before yesterday? 

I know he’s upset and rambling a bit, but it strikes me again that Gillenormand and Grantaire have a certain similarity in their reasoning and loquaciousness. And that they’d hate eachother.

Gillenormand uses ‘vous’ to the doctor.

[akallabeth-joie]

Brickclub 5.3.12

Argh, Gillenormand.

He's basically continuing his earlier tirades (AFAICT), and is also patently wrong about his own behavior. 'If only Marius had come home...'? Well, he did. Two whole days ago. And you didn't give him the welcome you say you would have. "If only there'd been a girl* he liked better than revolution'? Remember the part where he came to talk to you about the girl he liked and you said they couldn't marry. ?!?! 

STFU, Gillenormand.

*Well, Hugo's using the word "drôlesse", which is apparently not how one describes a girl one is intent on marrying. So, G isn't totally wrong, but he's still very much projecting his own life onto Marius, who didn't want a mistress before and wasn't looking for one.

And then I stopped being annoyed at Gillenormand and just went back to being sad, because the things he's saying here about Marius being dead is true(ish) about his friends. Because they are dead.  :'(

Gillenormand calls Marius tu, the doctor vous, no one really gets a word in edgewise. (Basque calls his employer 'Monsieur').

[amour-de-tous]

Brick!club retrobricking 5.3.12 ~ The Grandfather

[musingsbydrea]

Brick!Club 5.3.12 Dramatic Grandfather's and Medical Stuff

So on one hand... I'm amused by Gillenormand's hysterics because he is being a wee bit over the top about it. If I were the doctor I would have called to Basque to physically remove this grandfather from the premises because whether he loved he grandson or not his passionate distraught speechifying is not helping anyone and I'd find it distracting. On the other hand, I do feel bad for the guy. He obviously feels some grandfatherly affection to his grandson and is actually distraught. When he sent Marius away and said he couldn't marry the girl he like he probably wasn't expecting his grandson to go "romantically" suicidal. Gillenormand does appear to be having his eyes opened about his behavior. I still have mixed feelings about this guy, mostly negative, and this doesn't change that. Also his fainting seems like a perfect reaction and perfectly fits his slight dramatics. And on a completely unrelated note but still relating to the chapter... is it bad I find  Hapgood/Hugo's medical descriptions here slightly amusing? (I haven't yet checked my FMA for it's version.) I admit it's serious times and business etc.... but referring to the "hairy cuticle" and "made the tour of his ribs" and "A grave symptom was that they had caused a swoon, and that people do not always recover from such swoons." The wording is just hitting me oddly. I like that the pocket book saved him... it's like Roosevelt and the assassination attempt... always carry a book or speech in your pocket. Sounds like a plan. Also is having his head lower that the rest of his body a sound plan? It says the doctor "he had [Marius] placed flat on the bed, without a pillow, with his head on the same level as his body, and even a trifle lower, and with his bust bare in order to facilitate respiration" Wouldn't that mean all the blood would be rushing to his head? I think about these things sometimes... And tomorrow back to Javert.

[pilferingapples]

Brick!club 3/5/14 Les Miserables 5.3.12 The Grandfather

"And to think there's not one little hussy in Paris who wouldn't have been glad to make the wretch happy! A rascal who, instead of amusing himself and enjoying life, went to fight and got himself riddled like a brute! And for whom? For what? For the Republic! Instead of going to dance at the Chaumiére, as young people should! It is well worth being twenty years old. The Republic is a deuced fine folly. Poor mothers, raise up your pretty boys then. He is dead."

And in both cases it's pretty much the same cry:"I don't understand your politics, and you're probably going to die for them, and I can't help thinking it's a lousy reason to die, for these ideals that make no sense to me, and I don't WANT you to die, and shut up, you're not crying, I'm crying." Except: Grantaire actually SAYS his speech TO HIS FRIENDS, at least to a couple of them, to people who are of his peer group and totally able to tell him to shut it, and despite his own seriously impressive levels of Fail at emotional clarity. He manages to be at least that honest; and he manages to respect that they're doing this thing, stupid and hopeless as it may appear to him , on their own line and for their own reasons, and that he doesn't  actually get to control them. It's not the BEST as an argument or a farewell, but it's at least getting the gold You Tried star. Gillenormand, though- AUGH.  He NEVER said these things TO MARIUS. Oh, he mocked the kid's political convictions, but he never ever said:  this revolution stuff, it's gonna kill you, maybe please don't?? He talked about the INCONVENIENCE revolutions bring to people like himself.  Every other flippin' line around his speech is: He's doing it to spite me, he knew it would hurt me, me me me me. He tosses in his fond declarations of love with fond memories about shouting at  Marius AS A TODDLER AND THREATENING HIM WITH HIS CANE. He gets ion the way of the effort being made to save Marius' life-- HE  TELLS THE DOCTOR TO STOP TREATING MARIUS, even. Because hey, Marius is dead! Of course! Stop interfering with Grampa's big scene!  Gillenormand's display is all a child throwing a tantrum over the loss of a toy-- how dare it, it was MINE-- and about ZERO actual concern for Marius or awareness of his own responsibility. Gillenormand, you are an awful AWFUL person, and I WILL NEVER BE YOUR FRIEND.

Sigh.

Other bits of note: Ouch, Mlle. Gillenormand is so afraid of...whatever scandal she thinks might be possible, that she has to hide from her INJURED NEPHEW'S CHEST and count her rosary. There's some seriously grim backstory there. But hey, let's just mock her some more!

Also, HERCULES SIGHTING. Although of course Marius didn't INTERACT with the stature, he became a draw away from it. HUH. I'm gonna have to think about that one.