Les Mis through 5.1
Apr. 8th, 2023 05:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
troisoiseauxIn which the people of Paris do not rise up, and the barricade falls :(
I've read Les Mis at least four times since 2010 and Enjolras' speech in 5.1.5 makes me cry every time. "Citizens, can you imagine the future?" he asks, from 1832 by way of 1862, and reading his speech 160+ years later, it's just... oof. "The nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century will be happy" might be the single most haunting quote in this book. That's usually the line that gets me, but this time I choked up at "We have tamed the hydra, and he is called the steamship; we have tamed the dragon, and he is called the locomotive; we are on the point of taking the griffin, we already have him, and he is called the balloon." The balloon!! There's a heartbreaking pathos to a vision of the future at once so quaintly antique— to see a character marveling over hot-air balloons, when since then, we've invented planes, we've gone to space— and at once still so far beyond our reach, as a utopia without war or poverty or inequality.
The character who really stands out to me in 5.1 is Combeferre, who is basically the conscience of the barricade— imploring the men who have families to support to take the opportunity for four of them to leave before the barricade inevitably falls (in a bittersweet hypocrisy, "he remembered the mothers of others, but forgot his own"); his plea with Enjolras not to kill the young artillery sergeant about to fire on them first ("What a hideous thing these bloodbaths are! ... he might be your brother ... and mine, too. Well, don't let's kill him.") When Hugo kills the rest of Les Amis de l'ABC (sans Enjolras) in one run-on sentence, he's the only one who gets more than a "[name] was killed," and the description invokes the Pietà: "Combeferre, peirced by three bayonet thrust to the chest, just as he was lifting a wounded soldier, had only time to look to heaven, and expired."
One thing that struck me as actually kind of funny, this time, was Hugo-through-Enjolras' repeated insistence that Marius was a leader of the rebellion— "Marius inquired, 'Where's the leader?' ' You're the leader,' said Enjolras" (4.14.5); "[Enjolras] said to Marius, 'We're the two leaders; I'll give the last orders inside" (5.1.18)— when the poor guy is clearly just dissociating the entire time ("[Marius] witnessed it all as from outside; as we have said, the things that were occurring before him appeared remote ..."). Okay, that's not entirely fair: Marius backs up Enjolras and Combeferre when they order four men with families to take the stolen National Guard uniforms and save themselves; he's the one who retrieves Gavroche's body, when he's killed sneaking out to collect unused cartridges. But also, come on.
Halfway through 5.1— after Gavroche's death— Hugo cuts away from the action at the barricade to check in on the two littlest Thenardiers, who we learned in 4.11 got lost again, the day after Gavroche took them in: THEY'RE FINE! I mean, they're street kids in 19th century Paris, so they're not doing great, but they're alive and together and the older brother (who's only seven; the younger brother is five) has stepped into Gavroche's (metaphorical) shoes.
I've read Les Mis at least four times since 2010 and Enjolras' speech in 5.1.5 makes me cry every time. "Citizens, can you imagine the future?" he asks, from 1832 by way of 1862, and reading his speech 160+ years later, it's just... oof. "The nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century will be happy" might be the single most haunting quote in this book. That's usually the line that gets me, but this time I choked up at "We have tamed the hydra, and he is called the steamship; we have tamed the dragon, and he is called the locomotive; we are on the point of taking the griffin, we already have him, and he is called the balloon." The balloon!! There's a heartbreaking pathos to a vision of the future at once so quaintly antique— to see a character marveling over hot-air balloons, when since then, we've invented planes, we've gone to space— and at once still so far beyond our reach, as a utopia without war or poverty or inequality.
The character who really stands out to me in 5.1 is Combeferre, who is basically the conscience of the barricade— imploring the men who have families to support to take the opportunity for four of them to leave before the barricade inevitably falls (in a bittersweet hypocrisy, "he remembered the mothers of others, but forgot his own"); his plea with Enjolras not to kill the young artillery sergeant about to fire on them first ("What a hideous thing these bloodbaths are! ... he might be your brother ... and mine, too. Well, don't let's kill him.") When Hugo kills the rest of Les Amis de l'ABC (sans Enjolras) in one run-on sentence, he's the only one who gets more than a "[name] was killed," and the description invokes the Pietà: "Combeferre, peirced by three bayonet thrust to the chest, just as he was lifting a wounded soldier, had only time to look to heaven, and expired."
One thing that struck me as actually kind of funny, this time, was Hugo-through-Enjolras' repeated insistence that Marius was a leader of the rebellion— "Marius inquired, 'Where's the leader?' ' You're the leader,' said Enjolras" (4.14.5); "[Enjolras] said to Marius, 'We're the two leaders; I'll give the last orders inside" (5.1.18)— when the poor guy is clearly just dissociating the entire time ("[Marius] witnessed it all as from outside; as we have said, the things that were occurring before him appeared remote ..."). Okay, that's not entirely fair: Marius backs up Enjolras and Combeferre when they order four men with families to take the stolen National Guard uniforms and save themselves; he's the one who retrieves Gavroche's body, when he's killed sneaking out to collect unused cartridges. But also, come on.
Halfway through 5.1— after Gavroche's death— Hugo cuts away from the action at the barricade to check in on the two littlest Thenardiers, who we learned in 4.11 got lost again, the day after Gavroche took them in: THEY'RE FINE! I mean, they're street kids in 19th century Paris, so they're not doing great, but they're alive and together and the older brother (who's only seven; the younger brother is five) has stepped into Gavroche's (metaphorical) shoes.
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Date: 2023-04-10 04:25 am (UTC)It's actually quite charming how, despite Marius' first impression on (most of) Les Amis being to completely fail to read the room and start enthusing about Napoleon, Enjolras apparently considers him a part of the group? Like, in 4.1.6, he "had counted on that absentminded Marius [to go to the Barrière du Maine], since he's good on the whole, but he doesn't come anymore."