“Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation" (Debord 1967, 7) The spectacle for Debord "is a social relation between people that is mediated by images" (Debord 1967, 7).” ... “The current life has become the pursuit of commodities where "people's activity becomes less and less active and more and more contemplative" (Debord 1967, 34).” ... “Instead of living our lives actively and allowing for critical thought, we simply spectate.”
(The Flâneur, the Badaud and Empathetic Worker Ekaterina Netchitailova)
Je file sur deux lignes blanches parallèles
Que mes skis enlacent comme jadis plus loin
Sur un sentier défoncé autrefois par le gèle, le dégèle
De ce spleen aspiré par la poudre dans un total dédain.
Je suis ce que je fut et fut ce que je suis à l’approche de 2015.
Une sorte de badaud iconoclaste doué du pouvoir de réfléchir encore,
Même si à seize ans j’avais déjà tout compris ce mal de vivre…
Just hit the discussion of the word Flaneur in the LM365 posts, and since this is a pretty important word in-text (and applies to a lot of my favorite characters, hello blatant interest) wanted to chime in!
Flaneur (and Badaud, which is something of an antonym in this text) is another sort of colloquial term, like gamin, that Hugo’s at least largely defining for his own purposes, as far as I can tell. It’s definitely used in terms of strolling, but there’s more than that, and it shows in the characters it’s applied to.
Doing a quick word search for flâne/ flâneur in association with characters(and very much acknowledging I could be missing something!) it shows up in connection to:
-Thenardier (! almost the only full-on “flâneur” I can find in the narrative voice! It describes him as naturally roaming. “Flâneur” itself shows up again in Grantaire’s long ramble in PG, and in description of the “idlers” at the barricade who Gavroche chides to get to work.)
-gamin, and Gavroche in particular (flâner,flâneries)
-Prouvaire (flânait)
-Bahorel (flânait, flâner)
-Bossuet, possibly (flânerie)
- and, incongruously and contrastingly, Marius.
(and cats, but what in Les Mis ISN’T about cats?)
Now I say incongruously and contrastingly about Marius because with all the others, it’s the narrative voice ascribing the Flân/ Flâneur status, and being really straightforward about it; here are these characters, this is what they are. In this context it’s pretty much always used positively (but note Thenardier, who I’ll talk about in just a moment).
But with Marius the relevant flân-- terms are applied to him *by other characters*-- Bossuet, his grandfather, Valjean-- and always with some sense of humor and/or derogatory sense about it. Bossuet suggests it as a common tie between himself and Hypothetical Marius in his Oration for Blondeau, Valjean uses it in irritation about him at the Luxembourg, Gillenormand uses it to mock him right up front (because Gillenormand is awful and everything he does is bad forever). It doesn’t seem to turn up in his self-assessment or even narrative assessment, even when he’s all Poor Student Reverie-ing. Which is interesting! And I could go into it, but in another post. because this is already gonna get loooong.
For those characters who get variants of “flân--”, verb form,there are of course the gamin, Gavroche, and Bahorel. Bahorel is so tightly textually linked to the gamin that it’s probably safe to talk about them all in the same cluster here; I think the use of the word for them especially, and most of the Postive Terminology characters, is pretty much explained by the line in Bahorel’s intro. “ Errer est humain, flâner est parisien. Au fond, esprit pénétrant, et penseur plus qu'il ne semblait.” These are characters who intensely belong to Paris, who --like Paris herself-- often seem to be idle or frivolous but really, really aren’t; seemingly carefree people whose humor goes along with a potentially dangerous energy. ( I think Prouvaire goes here too, through “sheer Romanticism”--Gavroche, Prouvaire, and Bahorel are all linked with Romanticism in some way, whether through cues to the in-the-know or Hugo just right out going LOOK AT THE ROMANTIC.)
With all of these characters-- and Bossuet too-- the sense of the idle/passive observer is pushed aside hard. They’re wanderers, they’re dreamers and strollers and street-watchers-- but they’re all actively watching, and very much ready to jump into the middle of the action when it looks right (this active observer status is actually what lets Bossuet turn the plot as heavily as he does! In Funeral Oration and PG both, he’s in Thoughtful Observation mode when he notices who’s passing in the street-- and both times the story changes route because of him. Uninvolved he ain’t.)
With uses of the word flâneur-- and especially Thenardier, who’s the only named Flâneur, as far as I can tell-- there really is the link, joking or serious, to idleness (and Hugo does NOT like idleness). In the case of Thenardier, there’s also a connection--though not at all a true parallel-- to at least three of the other narratively-stressed strollers. The link to Gavroche is obvious; the one with Bahorel and Bossuet is more tenuous. But they are, all three of them, members in some way of the not-class, which Hugo has some harsh things to say about in Thenardier’s introduction. None of them are either bourgeois or workers, not properly; Lesgle is falling bourgeoisie, Bahorel is a rising peasant, Thenardier is none of it at all. But Legle and Bahorel are, again, deeply involved in the world at large, active and concerned and specifically watching out for the wider view --the view beyond the barricade, more or less (as is Gavroche, really, but again, he also has the more notable connection to Thenardier.). They are, possibly a look ahead at the changes in class division that might be hoped for, rather than the ones that might somehow be feared (and wow, is that ever a topic too many for this post. But later!)
So I think we’re being given a split approach to the word; on the one hand being challenged to question the *appearance* of idleness in people who aren’t defined by it at all, but who are all easy to dismiss socially (because that IS another connection there, between the street kids, the aggressive weirdo art crowd, the broke, unemployed student, they’re all easy to write off as not really part of things, not contributing to society. Hugo is of course pretty insistent that they ARE society, but that’s Les Mis for you).
On the other hand, Hugo super definitely believes in Idleness as A Bad (and it comes up when linked with badaud too, besides all the stuff about Patron Minette and so much else) , but is inviting a discussion about what really marks such an attitude, and trying to figure out the line between just gawking and actually paying attention.
(If I’m right about this then it all fits in with Marius’ status in the book as a character in flux but this is now REALLY REALLY too long to go into that, augh.)
This has been Overanalyzing Everything Forever, with yr host Pilfering Apples. >_>
