Recent reading
Mar. 25th, 2023 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
troisoiseauxRead Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi, a "novel in interlocking stories" centered around a group of women who met as students at an all-girls boarding school in Nigeria in the 1980s, but it spans generations and continents, from a story set in the 1890s-1920s to one— the story that's going to stick with me, out of all of them— set in 2050. (Ogunyemi's vision of 2050 involves a theocratic Nigeria and a U.S. where hospitals have their own debtor's prisons, which, oof.)
Read through 4.7 in Les Mis: Marius and Cosette HAVE FINALLY MET, the Thénardiers continue to be terrible parents, there's a prison break, and Victor Hugo has a lot of thoughts about argot.
I love Cosette so much??? After seeing her primarily through the lens of other characters' stories, she finally comes into focus in 4.3— I love the little details about her looking for bugs and chasing butterflies in the garden of Rue Plumet, and being "wild and brave at heart," and her teenage makeover montage— and we get her side of the story re: Marius falling in love with her from afar and being a doofus about it. That whole part does Smack of Gender (19th Century Version), but the passage about how her and Marius' mutual crush, without ever talking, was exactly the kind of "relationship" she was ready for as a convent-raised 15-year-old— "any closer and more palpable encounter at this first stage would have terrified Cosette ... it was not a lover she needed, it was not even an admirer, it was a vision"— rings true to me.
It occurs to me that Valjean's sense of grief over Cosette growing up, and his fear that she'll leave him behind, is probably one of the ways that the ghost of Léopoldine Hugo haunts Les Mis; it certainly makes it more poignant.
As Hugo intended, 4.6 has me super emotional about Gavroche. On a weighted scale of what one has vs. what one gives away, he's at least as generous/selfless as both the Bishop and Valjean, and arguably more so— stealing the purse that Montparnasse tried to steal from/was given by Valjean and leaving it for Mabeuf to find, even as he goes hungry himself; giving his shawl to a beggar girl even as he goes cold as a result; taking in two stray kids and sharing what little he has, without even knowing they're his own little brothers. I freely admit that I teared up over his makeshift home inside the elephant statue: "The emperor had a dream of genius; in this titanic elephant ... he wanted to incarnate the people. God had done a grander thing with it, he had sheltered a child." (TToTT)
More narrative parallels/echoes in the difference between 1. Fantine leaving Cosette with the Thénardiers, because she thought it was her best option, and the Thénardiers straight-up leasing out their two youngest sons to someone who wanted to run a scam, for profit; 2. how Cosette was abused by the Thénardiers, vs. the two boys being raised as "little gentlemen"; and 3. Cosette's rescue/adoption by Valjean vs. the two little boys being rescued/adopted (in a sense) by Gavroche after they were thrown to the streets when their adoptive mother was arrested.
I did not have "Montparnasse is my new favorite minor character in Les Mis" on my 2023 bingo card, but here we are.
Read through 4.7 in Les Mis: Marius and Cosette HAVE FINALLY MET, the Thénardiers continue to be terrible parents, there's a prison break, and Victor Hugo has a lot of thoughts about argot.
I love Cosette so much??? After seeing her primarily through the lens of other characters' stories, she finally comes into focus in 4.3— I love the little details about her looking for bugs and chasing butterflies in the garden of Rue Plumet, and being "wild and brave at heart," and her teenage makeover montage— and we get her side of the story re: Marius falling in love with her from afar and being a doofus about it. That whole part does Smack of Gender (19th Century Version), but the passage about how her and Marius' mutual crush, without ever talking, was exactly the kind of "relationship" she was ready for as a convent-raised 15-year-old— "any closer and more palpable encounter at this first stage would have terrified Cosette ... it was not a lover she needed, it was not even an admirer, it was a vision"— rings true to me.
It occurs to me that Valjean's sense of grief over Cosette growing up, and his fear that she'll leave him behind, is probably one of the ways that the ghost of Léopoldine Hugo haunts Les Mis; it certainly makes it more poignant.
As Hugo intended, 4.6 has me super emotional about Gavroche. On a weighted scale of what one has vs. what one gives away, he's at least as generous/selfless as both the Bishop and Valjean, and arguably more so— stealing the purse that Montparnasse tried to steal from/was given by Valjean and leaving it for Mabeuf to find, even as he goes hungry himself; giving his shawl to a beggar girl even as he goes cold as a result; taking in two stray kids and sharing what little he has, without even knowing they're his own little brothers. I freely admit that I teared up over his makeshift home inside the elephant statue: "The emperor had a dream of genius; in this titanic elephant ... he wanted to incarnate the people. God had done a grander thing with it, he had sheltered a child." (TToTT)
More narrative parallels/echoes in the difference between 1. Fantine leaving Cosette with the Thénardiers, because she thought it was her best option, and the Thénardiers straight-up leasing out their two youngest sons to someone who wanted to run a scam, for profit; 2. how Cosette was abused by the Thénardiers, vs. the two boys being raised as "little gentlemen"; and 3. Cosette's rescue/adoption by Valjean vs. the two little boys being rescued/adopted (in a sense) by Gavroche after they were thrown to the streets when their adoptive mother was arrested.
I did not have "Montparnasse is my new favorite minor character in Les Mis" on my 2023 bingo card, but here we are.
