Oct 5, 2024
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Round 1, Matchup 43: I.v.7 vs V.viii.3
Which chapter title do you prefer?
Fauchelevent Becomes a Gardener in Paris
They Remember the Garden in the Rue Plumet
Hugo’s descriptions of nature here are as beautiful as they always are when he describes this garden, but that beauty is overshadowed by sadness as Cosette forgets her meeting with Valjean. And that their meetings often consist of discussions of Marius just so that Jean Valjean can make them longer.
I’m not frustrated with Valjean for focusing on Cosette’s simple lifestyle here because it’s a sign that something’s wrong. On the one hand, he saved all that money because he wanted her to live without fear of poverty, and on the other, that lack of spending combined with his further marginalization in the household (the lack of a fire, for instance) suggests another attempt to rid the house of his influence.
I hate that Marius thinks Gillenormand’s money is somehow more acceptable than Jean Valjean’s. I could accept him wanting to live off of a salary (it’d still be strange, but strange in a Marius-is-prideful kind of way), but he knows that Gillenormand’s money is a form of control.
Watching Valjean slowly retreat even more is so painful.
I don't feel any sympathy or understanding for what Marius is doing in these chapters. I detest his actions and we all know the consequences they'll lead to. It's evident that whatever Jean Valjean had in mind when discussing matters with Marius, he's not prepared to leave Cosette behind or sever all connections with her. Instead, he's staying longer, trying to visit when others are away, even ready to discuss stupid Marius, if it pleases Cosette. And Marius is doing everything possible to make Cosette forget Valjean. He is manipulating her, and just as bad, pushing Valjean out of the house by rendering their meeting room uninhabitable. It's frustrating enough to make me wish I could throw something heavy at Marius!
Marius is suspicious about the origin of Cosette’s dowry and is ready to dispose of her money. Conversely, Valjean seems overly concerned about Cosette’s wealth, or the lack of visible attributes it presents.
In the end, Marius has achieved what he wanted.
Brickclub 5.8.3 “They Remember the Garden in the Rue Plumet”
I hate this. I’m having trouble even participating in Valjean’s grief that Hugo wants me to feel, because the way this book treats Cosette at this point is so fucking bad it’s all I can focus on. There are absolutely ways of talking about the disparities that happen when one person has a whole life and a person they genuinely love has only them and nothing else; that’s a hard situation, that leads to tensions. But the way the narrative talks about Cosette is as if she makes no observations and has no opinions or thoughts other than how great Marius is. The narrative is absolutely bent her having no negative reaction to anything that’s going on, as if her head is perfectly empty.
Fuck you, Hugo.
Every time we see an actual record of her dialogue it becomes clear that’s not the case, but we’re not getting that this chapter.
I hate it so much.
Marius’s crimes here are at least deliberate on Hugo’s part:
"We have said that we would go to see our garden in the Rue Plumet again. Let's go. We mustn't be ungrateful.”
He’s using that devastatingly loaded word “ungrateful,” manipulating Cosette into going away to the garden and forgetting her father the way his grandfather manipulated him into forgetting his own. “Ungrateful” isn’t a particularly important word for Cosette--yet--but she’s happy to go out with him. It doesn’t occur to her that this is all a ploy to separate her from her father because why the fuck would it, that’s fucking nightmarish, and she’s seventeen or eighteen years old and not automatically looking for ways her new husband is lying to her and isolating her.
Was there, then, some truth in that comparison of the chrysalis which had occurred to Marius? Was Jean Valjean indeed an obstinate chrysalis, who came to visit his butterfly?
This feels to me like a deliberate, ironic callback to the use of “ungrateful” above. A butterfly’s chrysalis is just like the rotting fish, or the wilted flower, and so on--it’s another one of those items from the convent passage about used up things demanding to be loved as if they were current, threatening their discarder with “ingratitude” for not needing them anymore. Marius has always been incredibly weak to that argument, so it’s pretty rich of him to say Valjean is a used-up thing that shouldn’t presume on old acquaintance.
I do really believe the text knows Marius is being fucking awful here. The problem is, the text knows he’s being shitty to Valjean--I don’t think it has any idea he’s harming Cosette. Which is terrifying: Cosette’s manipulative, underhanded asshole of a husband is trying to perpetuate on her the abuse that was done to him--for exactly the same reasons it was done to him: your father is a brigand! I want you all to myself! I want total control over you!--and all this book can think about is how that impacts her FATHER?
Fuck you, Hugo.
Valjean’s dialogue gets weirder, imitating the things he thinks Cosette wants to hear now: how she should buy herself pretty things because wealth makes everything better (is everybody gonna imitate Gillenormand this chapter?) and extolling the virtues of Marius, because he’s a subject she likes.... it’s bad. I hear the depression talking, obviously, but I wish we got some indication of how fucking weird it is for Cosette to talk to a father who’s trying to phase himself and his own opinions out of his dialogue. And, of course, he talks about the old days with Cosette, because he can only focus on his past with her, he’s cutting himself off from the future.
And then Marius escalates his slow campaign to ice Valjean out of Cosette’s life entirely, sending passive aggressive unwelcome signals through the furniture, talking about eschewing Valjean’s money. Again, Marius refuses to explain anything to Cosette, so she goes to Valjean hoping he’ll actually talk to her. Valjean, of course, upholds Marius’s bullshit and tells her nothing. Meanwhile, he takes the blame for all Marius’s horrible furniture moving, because obviously it’s better that Cosette think her father doesn’t care about her than letting her know that her husband is a fucking manipulative nightmare who’s ending the other most important relationship in her life via some underhanded bullshit with the chairs.
Between the two of them, they gaslight Cosette very effectively... and again, the narrative sees zero problem with that.
Finally, Valjean stays away two days, which is his own bullshit test of Cosette: she doesn’t realize it was two days rather than one, she doesn’t call him father when she inquires instead of the thing he asked to be called, she sends a servant (as is normal and customary) instead of coming herself--therefore it’s over, she doesn’t give a shit and she doesn’t get to have a dad anymore.
If any of this fucking book involved acknowledged that any of what happens in this chapter was shitty to Cosette specifically, I would be on board for it.
It doesn’t, and I’m really fucking not.
V.viii.3 Ils se souviennent du jardin de la rue Plumet
Which is your favorite translation of this chapter title?
They Remember the Garden in the Rue Plumet
They Recall the Garden of the Rue Plumet
They Remember the Garden in Rue Plumet
Round 1, Matchup 43: I.v.7 vs V.viii.3
Which chapter title do you prefer?
Madame Victurnien Spends Thirty-Five Francs on Morality
A Find