Recent reading: Les Mis through 2.7
Feb. 18th, 2023 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
troisoiseauxIn Les Mis, Valjean has rescued Cosette from the Thénardiers, and they're on the lam in Paris.
I have to make a confession: I got stuck for a while on the Waterloo Digression, and ended up mostly skimming through it. I KNOW, I KNOW. The digressions are important! I actually do enjoy most of them*! It's just that a. I am easily bored by descriptions of military action and b. I've stalled out completely on almost all of the Long Classic Novels I've tried to read in the past 1-2 years; I really didn't want to add this one to that list. So, yes, I skimmed. What did stick out to me is how Hugo - humanizes, I guess? - the soldiers who fought at Waterloo and the people who were effected: the names scrawled on the wall of the chapel; the Huogomont peasant Guillaume Van Kylsom; the "obscure officer named Cambronne" whose shout of "MERDE!" at an English demand to surrender gets two whole chapters.
Valjean's rescue of Cosette from the Thénardiers and their early days in the Gorbeau House (2.3-2.4) are just— *clutches heart*. She's this poor little kid who has been abused for most of her life, and suddenly she finds herself showered in kindness and dolls and gold coins in her shoes on Christmas?? By rescuing her, Valjean - a man who turned his life around only to have been sent back to prison for doing the right thing, which would understandably turn even a saint into a nihilist - gives himself a reason to keep living for others?? The quote that really got me was:
A not-so-fun fact: in 1843, Hugo found out his 19-year-old daughter Léopoldine had drowned by reading about it in a newspaper. It can't be a coincidence that Javert learns about Valjean's apparent drowning (his escape from the prison hulks) through the paper— and, as this post reminded me, Valjean later learns of Javert's (actual) death by drowning in the same way. (That post makes some interesting points about the extent, and significance, of drowning imagery in Les Mis.)
* Speaking of which: I've just finished the Convent Digression, which was particularly interesting to re-read after In This House of Brede— both because Hugo's fictional Bernardine-Benedictine order** does share some traditions with Godden's (one imagines significantly more realistic) 20th century Benedictines, and because of his attitude of MONASTICISM is a DISEASE TO CIVILIZATION. It's a bit of a whiplash to go from 2.6 - which is actually quite fun, particularly in the "kids say the darnedest things" chapter about life in the convent school - to 2.7, which goes full "And In This Essay I Will" about why, in the Age of Enlightenment, monasteries and convents have outlived their usefulness.
** After some quick googling, it appears that Bernardine-Benedictine nuns do exist, but Hugo is specifically like "no, not the Cistercians" - the one that comes up when I googled it - "this is a different Bernardine-Benedictine order."
I have to make a confession: I got stuck for a while on the Waterloo Digression, and ended up mostly skimming through it. I KNOW, I KNOW. The digressions are important! I actually do enjoy most of them*! It's just that a. I am easily bored by descriptions of military action and b. I've stalled out completely on almost all of the Long Classic Novels I've tried to read in the past 1-2 years; I really didn't want to add this one to that list. So, yes, I skimmed. What did stick out to me is how Hugo - humanizes, I guess? - the soldiers who fought at Waterloo and the people who were effected: the names scrawled on the wall of the chapel; the Huogomont peasant Guillaume Van Kylsom; the "obscure officer named Cambronne" whose shout of "MERDE!" at an English demand to surrender gets two whole chapters.
Valjean's rescue of Cosette from the Thénardiers and their early days in the Gorbeau House (2.3-2.4) are just— *clutches heart*. She's this poor little kid who has been abused for most of her life, and suddenly she finds herself showered in kindness and dolls and gold coins in her shoes on Christmas?? By rescuing her, Valjean - a man who turned his life around only to have been sent back to prison for doing the right thing, which would understandably turn even a saint into a nihilist - gives himself a reason to keep living for others?? The quote that really got me was:
Jean Valjean had begun to teach [Cosette] to read. Sometimes, while teaching the child to spell, he would remember that it was with the intention of doing evil that he had learned to read in prison. That intention had now changed into teaching a child to read.
A not-so-fun fact: in 1843, Hugo found out his 19-year-old daughter Léopoldine had drowned by reading about it in a newspaper. It can't be a coincidence that Javert learns about Valjean's apparent drowning (his escape from the prison hulks) through the paper— and, as this post reminded me, Valjean later learns of Javert's (actual) death by drowning in the same way. (That post makes some interesting points about the extent, and significance, of drowning imagery in Les Mis.)
* Speaking of which: I've just finished the Convent Digression, which was particularly interesting to re-read after In This House of Brede— both because Hugo's fictional Bernardine-Benedictine order** does share some traditions with Godden's (one imagines significantly more realistic) 20th century Benedictines, and because of his attitude of MONASTICISM is a DISEASE TO CIVILIZATION. It's a bit of a whiplash to go from 2.6 - which is actually quite fun, particularly in the "kids say the darnedest things" chapter about life in the convent school - to 2.7, which goes full "And In This Essay I Will" about why, in the Age of Enlightenment, monasteries and convents have outlived their usefulness.
** After some quick googling, it appears that Bernardine-Benedictine nuns do exist, but Hugo is specifically like "no, not the Cistercians" - the one that comes up when I googled it - "this is a different Bernardine-Benedictine order."
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Date: 2023-02-18 06:26 pm (UTC)Also just think there's some fun tension in this + Notre Dame de Paris irt the uselessness of monasticism vs the value of sanctuary.
I'd had some thoughts about drowning before, but hadn't made the connection to the newspapers part.
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Date: 2023-02-18 06:44 pm (UTC)Ooh, interesting. I have read Notre Dame de Paris, but it was probably the summer before 9th grade, so I pretty much only remember the whole thing with Gringoire and the goat. Maybe I'll re-read it at some point? ...although, I just skimmed the wikipedia summary to refresh my memory, and HOO BOY.
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Date: 2023-02-18 06:52 pm (UTC)but yeah, i think we kind of get there w/ human rights law but, how does the law provide space to protect people unjustly persecuted under it is really the core question i see throughout his work - especially when you (rightly) decide the answer can't just be unaccountable religious authority...
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Date: 2023-02-18 11:37 pm (UTC)Yeah!!!
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Date: 2023-02-18 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-18 11:37 pm (UTC)