#lm 5.3.12

[butchmariuspontmercy]

gillenormand really said “marius should have been at the club!”

[gavroche-le-moineau]

“A scamp who, instead of amusing himself and enjoying life, went off to fight and get himself shot down like a brute! And for whom? Why? For the Republic! Instead of going to dance at the Chaumière, as it is the duty of young folks to do!”

M. Gillenormand really said "Marius should have been at the club"

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

Round 1, Matchup 192: IV.xi.5 vs V.iii.12

Which chapter title do you prefer?

The Old Man

The Grandfather

Voting ended onMay 23, 2025

[ruedesfillesducalvaire]

the 'thanks!' at the end of gillenormand's joyful little outburst kinda cracked me up

i'm not sure why hapgood decided to go with 'thanks' rather than 'thank you'; it seems so anti-climactic lol

[cliozaur]

Good news for Cosette: “From the waist down, the barricade had protected [Marius'] lower part of the body from injury.”

[dolphin1812]

“She did not go so far as: “I told you so!” which is customary on this sort of occasion.”

I love the bits of humor that continue through this section.

Gillenormand is so painful to read here. For once, I feel conflicted about him. On the one hand, it’s so easy to sympathize with him as a grandfather in a way that’s drastically different from Gillenormand in any other context. Hugo emphasizes his age here (even though he does gain the energy of a young man), and it adds to the tragedy, suggesting that he’s simply a grandfather who loves his grandson and has lost him at a young age. And he does love Marius. He has been awaiting his return, and the details he remembers about him show that he cares. But his love is also pretty abusive, as we saw, and he certainly doesn’t understand Marius’ position. To be fair, Marius didn’t go to the barricade for political reasons, but he didn’t go to spite his grandfather, either; no one did. The barricade was for the politically motivated and the desperate, not for anything as petty as what Gillenormand imagines.

His politics aren’t the only issue. I think his treatment of Marius as a child is honestly his greatest flaw, but his attitudes towards women once again resurface. The idea that Marius could have had “any” woman is at the forefront of his mind, and while that’s partly because he sees Marius as being beautiful and young, it’s also part of his objectifying attitude towards them, one which Marius rejects because of his more Romantic perspective. Their clash does involve politics, but it really is based on their worldviews more broadly, and Gillenormand’s limited effort to understand Marius is still here in full force even as he grieves him.

(The way he automatically jumps to talking about the Republic also makes it seem like the woman Marius loves is the Republic. How Enjolras of him).

He’s so awful that I don’t want to be moved. But his faint when he realizes Marius isn’t dead remains moving.

[cliozaur]

I have to say it: Hugo’s medical knowledge is inadequate (to put it mildly), it really sucks. First, cholera, then the ever-bleeding Marius. According to Hugo, he was bleeding continuously for about eight hours – how much blood is he supposed to contain and lose? He would have succumbed to that much blood loss long before. Also, the head cannot bleed so profusely (although the concussion might explain his prolonged unconsciousness). If the flesh on his arms were deeply cut, stopping the bleeding quickly would indeed be challenging. But then, what about his open wounds in the sewers? I understand these questions are rather senseless. But…

Good news for Cosette: “From the waist down, the barricade had protected the lower part of the body from injury.”

However, the most unbearable part of this chapter is Gillenormand’s rambling. Curiously, his initial sentences are almost a verbatim repetition of Javert’s narrative: “He is dead! He has got himself killed on the barricades!” Then he plunges into a repulsive mixture of self-pity, impudent lies, and false memories. “You knew well, that you had but to return and to say: ‘It is I,’ and you would have been the master of the house, and that I should have obeyed you, and that you could have done whatever you pleased with your old numskull of a grandfather!” What? I understand we've been reading about June 5-6 for almost two months now, but in real-time, it's only been two days since June 4 when Marius literally came to Gillenormand to seek help. Marius went to the barricade not out of faith in the Republic but out of hopelessness and the lack of support from his grandfather, who is now putting on an act. It’s disgusting!