#augh marius

[pilferingapples]

Super awesome things to tell your sweetheart: 

“Oh, one day in the Luxembourg Gardens I felt like finishing off a disabled veteran!” 

Marius Pontmercy you petticoat-melter 

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Les Mis 365, 3.5.5

This chapter. This frigging chapter. 

On the one hand, I don’t buy, like, 90 percent of what Hugo’s saying about Marius here. Yeah, Marius may be relatively mature and settled for Marius, but he seems like a far cry from the Philosopher Hero that Hugo’s trying to make him out to be. And I know Hugo likes to do the thing with juxtaposing description and obvious action , and I LOVE that Thing, but I ..don’t think it’s really happening here?  Marius seems like a socially awkward nerd. And clearly I am not opposed to socially awkward nerds! But he just keeps totally not attaining the demigodhood Hugo seems intent on forcing me to believe. 

THAT SAID, this chapter does have what I consider to really be Marius’ crowning moment of awesome:  paying off the neighbors’ rent.  And I don’t see it talked about much!   But it’s really the thing that gives me hope for his ultimate post-canon self through all of the MARIUS NO moments that are coming (spoilers: there are a lot and they are intense. Oh gad.) . Marius loans out or gives money a lot-- unsurprisingly, given his background, it’s one of his main ways of interacting with the world-- and  it’s for variously good reasons with variously useful results.  But most of it has to do with his own sense of honor and obligation, and comes from being directly asked-- by friends, by his father, by Eponine, and so on. 

But this? NO ONE is expecting him to step up and pay for his neighbors. His landlady is venting, that’s all. He’s under zero obligation, he hasn’t been asked, and the money involved at this point represents a serious sacrifice-- of security, at least, even if he’s not going to immediately suffer material privation.  And he just does it, automatically, without even blinking. AND he makes sure he does it in way that won’t cause any sense of debt for his neighbors (if they hadn’t been Thenardier, and had been inclined to feel that way).  It’s an incredibly kind deed, and he doesn’t think even once about it, except to make sure he can cover the whole cost for them. 

And as much as this is a solid good mark in Marius’ book (seriously WHAT A GOOD MOVE, wow, I am genuinely impressed with the whole thing! ) I feel like there’s a point there, too, about how Marius still really isn’t the great philosopher Hugo first suggests him as--at least not yet. because he really does seem unaware of just HOW much of a Good this is, how significant this moment of involvement is. We don’t ever see him building on it; he’ll criticize himself for that later, but overall-- I think Marius has a real problem knowing exactly where duty, for him, lies, and is still focused on some very specific and peculiar ideas about that. He’s got some solid impulses under it all, but he’s learned some spectacularly bad habits. 

...But to talk about that I’m really gonna have to catch up on this whole section. Augh. 

Anyway. Yeah. Way to end the chapter on a high note, Marius! 

[pilferingapples]

Is Javert secretly a recruiter for the revolutionary cause because come on 

it’s such a setup 

Marius: *tries to address social ills through the currently approved and officially supported system, is immediately called on to endanger his life, loses his main connections to information on the great hope of his life, ends up homeless and armed*

Marius:  *is immediately given shelter and a long-term no-interest no-questions loan by a representative of the revolutionary cause without being asked to do anything except maybe come home at a decent hour* 

Marius: *shows up at the barricade, supports the revolution*

Javert: Kids these days, no respect for authority, I don’t know why they think they have a  better idea, *yells at stars*

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Like Marius does EXACTLY what he’s supposed to do from the moment he finds out about the Gorbeau Plot

he goes right to the police with REALLY DETAILED information 

and the officer on duty, who we are told is one of the most competent people on the force, asks a very young man “ you think you’re a bad enough dude to save Monsieur Ursule”  and like OF COURSE MARIUS SAYS YES that is either blatant manipulation or a nigh-calamitous failure to understand basic behavior, like people used to JOKE about that with all the antidrug messages, “Hey young person, are you SURE you can do this thing? Only super cool very mature people can handle it, you know” so just?!? 

and then Javert says OKAY KID CANNONS AHOY   and ARMS SOMEONE HE HAS NEVER MET BEFORE

Javert you are literally the reason the barricade doesn’t fall on the first charge you are the actual cause, you gave Marius his darn guns, you ARMED SOMEONE in a time of massive civil unrest without knowing anything about them except that they weren’t happy about having a kidnapping go down right next door

YOU ARE THE ACTUAL PROBLEM IN SO MANY RIDICULOUS WAYS

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also, that post about trios, the "if you're talking Amis" one: Marius is 100% an Ami. however, he is not a lieutenant. sorry, it was bugging me, people keep leaving him out :)

Sorry, gotta disagree!  It’s not like a “he’s not good enough” thing; the Amis are specifically a radical political group, one Marius *chooses* not to join because he disagrees with their goals and their tactics. It’s not just the term for the guys when they’re hanging out, it’s a specific identity. And:

“ Because of that liking he had for remaining outside of everything, and also because he had been far too disconcerted by it, he had decidedly not joined the group presided over by Enjolras.” (3.5.3, Donougher translation)

“The group” being Les Amis, not just the inner circle of lieutenants. They’ve got oaths of loyalty, a very specific political goal that Marius isn’t really in agreement with (remember that he is satisfied with the results of 1830!) , meetings, the works, and Marius isn’t part of it. 

He IS a friend of theirs; but it’s not the same thing. By *his* choice, he’s not one of the club (which, btw, I think is totally fair. Radical Overthrow of the Regime is not something everyone’s up for. I think it’s actually kind of a useful point about the story that Marius *isn’t*  in the group proper, and has his differing views, but still supports his friends as his friends and doesn’t turn them in or anything, but that’s another topic.) 

Of course, the musical is a different story-- I think he’s absolutely set up as a full member of the group there-- but if Bahorel’s in the count, then we’re talking Brick setting. :P  So I’m leaving him out of the group, as per his own canonical choice! Marius is just Marius. Isn’t that enough? 

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L?

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves (chars you’re neutral on are fair game, as are chars you dislike)

OH WOW, uh. In LM the characters are pretty much divided between, like, 90 percent DARLINGS WHO DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER and 10 percent  THE ACTUAL WORST. Characters I am just ambivalent about are pretty few! 

...So, Marius then! Uh- I actually think he handled the Gorbeau robbery affair pretty well! Once he actually got moving. He came up with an inventive solution that not only didn’t force him to choose between loyalties, but actually helped Valjean more than directly alerting the police might have. And like of ALL POINTS IN HIS STORY that one would have been a totally legit place to choke! Most people are not prepared for Sudden Violent Crime In My Building!  So good job, kid, you did okay! 

...Javert, man, I STILL don’t know what you were thinking. 

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Brick!club 4/4/14 Les Miserables 5.9.4(retrobricking)

Trying to postpone the inevitable, me? No, noooo.... ..Maybe a little. But here it is: Sooner or later, I GOTTA DEAL WITH MARIUS.

I'M SO HAPPY WE GET ONE MORE DIGRESSION. Seriously, we could finish this book with just a series of Digressions I WOULD BE FINE WITH THAT.

And seriously, the Changer is a fascinating idea? I'm sure SOMEone like him was around, probably a lot of someones, and not at all sure how accurate an image of that someone this would be -- I have a sneaking suspicion that Hugo's idea of How Criminal Society Works is not that far in terms of accuracy from his ideas of How Women Work-- but what a great character! I also sort of like that he's Jewish just by-the-way, as it were, not like WHOO JEWS SCARY AND SHIFTY. I mean, it would be NICE if there were any other Jewish people in the whole book, maybe like, NOT CRIMINALS, but hey! For 19C White Dude lit --for Victor Africa-and-Asia- have -no-history Hugo-- this is surprisingly chill.

...I'm avoiding talking about Marius REALLY HARD, huh.. ANYWAY. It seems almost redundant to dwell on the disguised/revealed self-as-theme here, it having been delivered in so many ways in this section of the novel, and SwutolSangScopes once more covering the idea better than I could. And I feel like FizzyGingr has pretty well gone into the whole facet of Marius being fixated on what  Valjean's behavior means to HIM, Marius, above all else, showing that  Marius still being basically self-centered, and how awful it is that Marius is throwing ENORMOUS sums of COSETTE'S MONEY, of VALJEAN'S money, at this man who abused and tortured Cosette for YEARS when she was her weakest, who murdered Fantine by proxy--for money, with money.

Actually I think I'm gonna talk about that part, because apparently the effects of money-as-social-capital are my sudden special interest in these last chapters.:P

Because Marius is doing here what Valjean has tried to do so many times-- buy his way out of spiritual debt with actual money (they really are a  lot alike in some awful awful ways). And it DOES NOT WORK AND NEVER CAN.  The Bishop pretty well spelled it out way back in those dim days of Book 1, when he laughed about the rich man buying a pennyworth of paradise.  (And I think it's, what, the Bible? The New or Old Testament I don't know -- that spells it out TOO.) It's NOT A BIG MORAL DEAL for a rich man to throw money at a problem. Marius isn't paying anything back.  He of course doesn't OWE anything, not really, but to the extent he believes he does, this CANNOT expunge the debt. Thenardier, even unwittingly saving Georges, risked attack and criminal penalty; Marius, throwing (COSETTE'S INHERITANCE) money at Thenardier, risks NOTHING. He's not involving himself in a situation to help another, he's dismissing another human being-- an AWFUL human being, but a human nonetheless-- to make his own life easier.

And oh, in the process he's forgetting the debts he owes to still others-- to Eponine, who both endangered and saved him; to Gavroche, who was his comrade in arms. They had a sister, who Marius seems to know still lives, who he KNOWS was hungry, cold, abused, neglected, who Eponine, in some measure, cared for. He SAW Azelma. But he asks nothing about Azelma. He asks for no assurances of behavior from Thenardier. He makes no arrangement that might make his money a condition of reform, (hard as that would, seriously, be); he just bourgeois the HECK OUT  and PHYSICALLY THROWS MONEY AT THE PROBLEM.

And so, the result:  Thenardier goes to the Americas, and he becomes a slave trader. And we're told, offhandedly, it's a good deed put to bad uses. But it's NOT a good deed. It's a SELFISH deed, a deed that lets Marius off his own internal hook with the least external involvement, a deed that demands NO work from Marius AT ALL.  Yes, anything else would have been REALLY FRIGGING HARD. It would have dangerous, morally risky even, mentally and emotionally exhausting, to involve himself with Thenardier, and try to actually help him in a way that wouldn't hurt others. It would have been dangerous, exhausting, possibly unsuccessful to try and save Azelma from him. That's sort of the POINT. That's WHY these sort of deeds are rated as moral; because they are hard, because they require sacrifice,  because they require ACTUALLY CARING. THAT is the sort of deed Marius has turned from again and again, however comfortable he himself is or isn't. And here he does it again-- his debt is settled, his internalized rule system gratified, and his own path made easier.

There he is, Baron Marius Pontmercy, buying 20,000 francs worth of Paradise. What does he care what else it buys?

(and of course no one he knows now would ever tell him this gesture was flawed. Of COURSE. The only person who might have corrected him on the subject was never allowed to know. And now he is dead? Very well. AAAAAUGH.)

And wow,there is SO MUCH to be said there about the problems with Charity vs. actual involvement,  about aid from absentee benefactors and its effects in a community, and the complexities of money in making social improvements, but there's SO much I really don't think I can even begin addressing it in a  post. So MOVING ON TO CHARACTER-LEVEL DISCISSION:  Yeah, I'm not impressed with Marius right now-- even aside from his sponsorship of slavery, he's just found out Valjean is not the monster that...uh..that MArius sort of arbitrarily decided he was ( seriously the Gillenormand Spycraft Force is not strong in this one), he knows he's been unfair, and his only thought  is that HE'S an unhappy man, HE is in distress, he must have the chance to make things right! Even when he calls Cosette to him, even when she is visibly delighted at the thought of seeing her father again, even when she says she had NOT DARED TO TALK TO MARIUS ABOUT THIS , that something so important and painful to her had been hidden from him-- Marius is still only concerned with explaining how his convictions have changed and it's totally all right. He doesn't hear her distress or respond to her revealed sadness, except to correct HER for sauying " Monsieur Jean" , as though it was COSETTE'S idea.  Marius, you got a long way to go and two chapters to go it.

[pilferingapples]

Brick!club 4/1/2014 Les Miserable 5.9.1 Pity for the Unhappy, but Indulgence For the Happy

"We must say, however, that it would be unjust to blame Marius."

.... Really, Hugo? MUST we say that? Because I think I could sway a jury on that subject about now.

But all right: "Marius did what he deemed necessary and just" - like Javert! And we all know how totally right and never ever wrong HE was! Speaking of Javert: Marius can look up Deep Dark Seekrits about the house of Madeleine (sort of-- a career in spywork is not exactly looming), but he can't be bothered to look up the official report of the death of an OFFICER OF THE LAW? I know not every death had a report at that point, but it should be pretty easy to learn about the death of a cop IN THE LINE OF DUTY, according to what Marius thinks happened. But of course, Marius isn't even LOOKING , because he's decided what he wants to believe. It would be DIFFICULT to understand how a good man can be a convict! So he's just not gonna do that, he's going to embrace the HECK out of his prejudice and find every scrap of knowledge he can to support it. It's just so much EASIER that way. If Valjean has to suffer for Marius' peace of mind, if Cosette has to be taken from her only family without even a chance to vote, well, hey--them's the breaks.

And yeah, I get that this is legitimately hard on Marius, that he is indeed freaking out more than a bit, that he's not in the best headspace to begin with, not just because of the whole thing with the barricades and the abusive grandpa but because he is, in many ways, embodying the violence of the system-- the system that encourages material comfort over human connection, that values objects over the lives those objects might save, that counts humans as assets or debits on a ledger. But the fact remains that he is STILL REINFORCING THAT SYSTEM. To paraphrase a meme going around:  Cool Motive.STILL ABUSE. "As for Cosette, she was in on none of these secrets, but it would be hard to condemn her, too."

YES! YES IT WOULD! IT WOULD BE REALLY HARD TO CONDEMN HER FOR BEING LIED TO AND MANIPULATED BY THE TWO PEOPLE SHE SHOULD BE ABLE TO TRUST MOST IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, it would be REALLY HARD to fault her for not being able to prevent her own gaslighting! That would be a PRETTY MONSTROUS ATTITUDE! So hey, LET'S NOT DO THAT!

And then Hugo rambles on for a  while about the natural distancing of young and old and how parents are too rough about 'the ingratitude of children' and you know, it might actually be a ramble worth discussing, except NONE OF THAT IS WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE. Marius and Cosette aren't just HAPPENING to be too busy to hang out with Cosette's old man (though there's time to visit Georges' grave! Marius. MARIUSSSSS. LOOK AT YOUR LIFE LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES.), Marius is INTENTIONALLY driving Valjean out. And Cosette's not BEING passive! She's sending messages to check on her dad! It's not her fault she keeps being told he's away, what the heck, is she supposed to perch on his doorstep like a lost puppy until he comes home?!? She's quite reasonably assuming he'll let her know when he's back, being as, you know, they're all adults and can all send messages and last SHE knew, he was in perfect health!

"We must not blame these poor children."

...Well. We must not blame COSETTE, anyway.