I really just want to discuss Les Mis. Anyone out there have something to say please?

[bluesun777]

Tell me what you thought of the book as a whole. Or discuss minor details you found interesting. Favorite characters? Why you like them. Things that confused you. Your favorite part. The book's relation to the musical. Anything. Just so long as you are enthusiastic.

(Also, no spoilers on Hugo's other books, please. I haven't read them. Reccommendations, however, are welcome.)

For example, I was very surprised at the amount of instances the word "badass" applies to this novel. Seriously. Particularly in respect to Jean Valjean and Javert. Although Marius, Gavroche, and Eponine have their own badass-ness too. Also the revolutionaries, and Mabeuf, and the bishop.... well, you get the idea.

[Kemathenga]

If you're still around, bluesun, we can have a go at it. I only watched the TAC-Version of the musical, so far, but that one quite often and I I LOVE the book.

My favorite character is Grantaire. He's the one I can best identify with. Gift of Gab but not if it comes to Deeds prefers Domino.

As for the "badass-ness" I do not quite get the idea. Maybe I don't know the right meaning of the word. My dictionary defines it as "very tough guy", that right?

I'd be happy to discuss book and musical to any length.
:)

[bluesun777]

Excellent. Yeah, I have been watching the TAC version too. My favorite songs have to be Drink With Me and Master of the House b/c that Thenardier is just so delightfully nasty. But I basically love all the songs. (I don't particularly like Colm Wilkinson as Jean though.)
I did see a high school version. For a high school, it was really good, but I really really really want to see it done professionally.
In regards to the book: /suh-woon/. It was awesome. Rather lengthy and ranty at times, but /most excellent./
When did you read it?

^_^ yay, Grantaire! I totally ship him and Enjy (Enjolras). I think Grantaire's love for him is adorable. And the scene where they die is just beautiful and, once again, rather badass.

However, though I do love the Amis de l'ABC (particularly Grantaire, but Jolllly is cool as well. And Laigle is sweet.) and a number of other, my favorite character, beyond a shadow of a doubt is Jean Valjean. Like, I intend to name my first child Jean. (My second son will be named Atticus. =]) He is the quintessence of awesome. And badassery, and morality, and strength, and AWESOME. Sorry, I'm geeking out. Even beyond simply the excellence of his character, he delivers a message of hope, redemption, and doing the right thing. I think they should make t-shirts with "WWJVJD?" on them. Not only b/c it would be funny, but b/c "What Would Jean Valjean Do?" is a question that everyone can ask themselves. The world would truly be a better place.

In regards to the definition of "badass": For different people, badass means different things. Overall your dictionary fails to convey its concept b/c "badass" is essentially slang. (A close synonym: "kick-***".) A very tough guy can be a badass, but that generally has a negative connotation, and badassery is not limited to toughness or guys. To me, a badass or a badass action is cool, righteous, awesome, kick-***, and/or epic.
*looks through book to find notes about the subject*
When Marius bursts into the battle scene with two pistols and saves Courfeyrac and Gavroche, that's badass.
When Eponine scares away a big group of thugs to save Marius, that's badass.
When Javert keeps his condescending dignity throughout the whole battle when he is captured, that's rather badass as well.
When Jean saves that sailor, Fauchevelent, Javert, Fantine, and basically all those people he so epically saves, that's super badass.
These are only a few examples of badassery in Les Mis.
(Outside of Les Mis, there are examples such as Wolverine of X-Men, Strider of the Lotr trilogy, and Susan B. Anthony of the women's rights movement. As you can see, though the word is a more modern invention and used with modern applications, it is quite versatile.)

Oh jeez, sorry for the super long reply. Believe it or not, this is me holding back.
=]
(btw, did you search me on youtube or was that a coincidence. Either way, I'm so glad you found me b/c I had given up on this forum. Also, out of curiosity, are you male or female? It doesn't say on your profile.)

[kiki1982]

I don't know about the word 'badass'. Now you have given a definition that goes beyond the negative connotation, it really does not evoke the laden nature of the French 'misérable'.

The 'misérables' are not suposed to be heroic, nor is Jean Valjean. They are a forgotten class, anonymous, continuous, always there yet never noticed and they get nowhere. Whatever they do, their lives are useless, anonymous and the world is oblivious to them.

Jean Valjean is a most compelling example: he has been stripped of his name and become a number in prison, takes on several identities in the book (essential to a misérable) and in the end the epitaph on his gravestone just fades like his life fades at the point where he dies (in fact, was he truly there?).

Marius wastes away in the depths of Paris. If he dies or not, will it matter? To Cosette it might do, but who else is to care?

Eponine is even sadder: she loves Marius, even gives her life for him, but Marius could not care less. She dies in the tumult of the barricades, but wil someone care? her father and mother not, her sister even less, Marius not... No-one will cry over her and someone will just burry her body like a dog in the ground, maybe even tread it to pieces as the horses of the cavary might tramp over it. Society will not care about her.

Gavroche who goes to take the money of the dead soldiers is also forgotten by society. He lies there dead, yet his father an mother (the Thénardiers) have not seen him for ages and he has become a child of Paris with the city as his parent so to say, anonymous.

Fantine is a sad case, but who cares for a prostitute and single mother? No-one. She disappears into the depths of the novel as she dies. By the end, she is a distant memory and we know that such a person has existed, but apart from being the mother of Cosette she is worth nothing. She has done no memorable things, nothing to remember her by. She has not even a gravestone. She is one of the many.

Even Javert is a misérable: a tiny wheel in the big mechanism of the Police that means nothing as it disappears because it will be replaced. The injustice done by people too much engulfed in their duty will continue and people like Jean Valjean (the 'misérables') will continue not being able to escape that 'system' which Javert embodies. It is a system, like society, that keeps the misérables unknown and necessarily bad. Society is in love with itself and cannot face injustice. In an attempt to destroy injustice, they incarcerate it so they don't have to see it. As if that is going to help. Yet, that was the reality of the Revolution: nothing changed despite big promises. Where are 'liberté, égalité et fraternité' ('liberty, egality and fraternity')? Where are they for the misérables? The world has stayed the same, yet has wrecked the lives of many noble people (like f.e. Mr Gillenormand and others we know that have been murdered by the Reign of Terror). What was the use of it?

So I don't think that the word 'badass' actually evokes the negative side of the French 'misérable' which is an anonimity and miserable lot of oblivion. It is not heroic, despite the actions of some people of that 'race' (if I might call it like that). In fact, as the life of Jean Valjean fades away, and that of Fantine has faded since the start of the novel, has actally the book not faded too? Will the work itself not fade into bookcases, written on paper eaten by the mice? That is at least what Hugo implied. As Jean Valjean's existence fades, the plot of the book has no subject, as such is worth nothing, loses its significance. It was not an epic tale...

If you like films about it, I would thoroughly recommend the version of 2000 with Gérard Depardieu as Jean Valjean, John Malkovich as Javert and Charlotte Gainsbourg as Fantine. Screenplay by Didier Decoin. It was a mighty production but oh so true to the spirit of the work. They made one version in French, and one in English. I do prefer the French version but I suppose the minor changes to the English version do not really matter to the great work of Josée Dayan. A great renewal in that version was the humanity of Javert (brilliantly played by Malkovich despite being very modest about his French) and the Thénardiers (Christian Clavier and Veronica de Ferres). Absolutely breathtaking. Also the scenery was beyond anything that was ever seen. So right, so grey and black, so dreary, so sad. A-ma-zing.

Ok, sorry for my rant, but I just can't face anyone toning that thing down. I am a purist I think :D.

[Kemathenga]

Hi, bluesun,

I'm overjoyed to have found someone to write a lengthy reply to since you started it ;-).
Just to clear facts first, I am female, kind of middle-aged age- and mind-wise, married with four kids (unfortunately, when they were born I hadn't read LM yet, so none of them is named after the book) and I just happened to notice your name in the youtube comments was the same as in this forum so I took a chance.

I was introduced to LM by my oldest daughter who did it a school. While msot of her classmates remained immune she caught a very bad case of Les Miserablitis and I got it from her, it's so very contagious. We both read the book after watching the TAC-Dvd for ...err ... twenty times? Aaaaaand we are going to London the 2nd of January to actually see it on stage. My daughter will be 15 the end of december and that's her birthday-treat.

I am so glad you share my love for the Grantaire-Enjolras story and seemingly can do without shlash, too. I'm fighting a battle royal on another youtube-vid trying to convince somebody that there was no "special relationship" between them but it was just Grantaire adoring Enjolras with no response on the other side. Hugo makes it quite clear that Enjolras offered Grantaire nothing but pity and even despise. The passages he tells him to leave well enough alone while they're planning the revolution or when he sends him off the barricade are next thing to cruelty on his behalf.
All the more significant is the Death-scene (page 93 in the german edition, I am used to refer to it just by that number). This is the moment of reconciliation not only for Grantaire. It is the moment his love for Enjolras is finally accepted but also the moment Enjolras accepts that it is not strength and glory that prevail but weakness and mediocrity. In the very end there is no-one standing by him but the drunkard he despised and he knows and accepts and smiles and presses his hand. It's a transformation for both of them. Beeee-autiful!

BTW, it is very interesting to compare how performances carry out this scene, mostly featured in "Drink with me". I have seen four or five on youtube, so far, and none can compete with TAC. There is one vid fans love dearly (and I do, too, to some extent) where Enjolras (David Thaxton) hugs Grantaire close. It is very movinghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJmp5yjZHtY but it is OOC, I stand firm in that. Enjolras as depicted by Hugo would never have done that.
The problem is they don't show their death at is in the book, normally, but Enjolras lying on the red flag and Grantaire somewhere in the battle - where he never was - so they have to bring the reconciliation between them somewhere else and I think TAC does that superbly. The way Enjolras just touches Grantaires shoulder through "Drink with me" and that glance Grantaire gives him has it all, no dramatic action is needed after that.

As far as Jean Valjean is concerned I'd buy such a button on the spot. But it would be rather risky. I experienced that just the other day. I had been writing a biting youtube-comment on a german performance of LM where the actor of Marius came over really cheesy, and I deleted it the next day thinking it was really a brutal thing to do and I woldn't like it done to me. That's the trouble with LM, it's kid of educating. I notice myself paying much more attention to my conscience than I did before and I DID pay some before since I'm a studied theologian with diploma and everything.

Okay, I will let you get a word in edgewise now. Be as lengthy as you like. :-)

[Kemathenga]

Hi, kiki,

I don't think "badass" as bluesun explained it would be a translation of the french word "misérable". I seem to remember the official english title is "The Glums" but I, too, can spot the heroic aspect in the novel and the characters. That's what saddens me looking at the present and our current "miserables" in modern society. As I read in a book about the spiritual message in LM, modern "miderables" would rather go to Disney Land than to the promised land beyond the barricades. We are missing some of this badass-ness in the present, no doubt.
But it wasN't all heroism in the book either. For instance, Father Mabeuf. I don't think he went to the barricade out of any heroism. He just hadn't anything left to live for. His life was over when he sold his last book, there wasn't anything else left than death but he didn't seek death consciously, he just sort of went the only way left for him without realizing what he was doing. They were celebrating his sacrifice for the red flag as a conscious deed at the barricade, escpecially Enjolras, but I don't think that's what he did. He became a hero without knowing and willing.
I like this about the book. Heroism just creeps in and it always has a "flaw" to it, like in the old yin-yang-symbol. Like with Marius not wanting to touch the money he thinks might be obtained illegally or even Eponine trying to save Marius she wanted to die the moment before. Marius judges Jean Valjean on a false premise, Eponine dies for her love out of selfishness (sort of) and even Enjolras, the impeccable one, is more cruel to Grantaire than to the sergeant he shoots.
So, imhO, if I want to copy the "badass-ness" of the "Miserables" I have to accept my own weaknesses and failures first to let the heroism creep in at its own speed.

:-)

[bluesun777]

Kiki1982:

You have a good point. But by that logic, isn't everyone a miserable? I mean, we're all going to fade into obscurity somehow. Everything and everyone. A look back throughout history brings many significant names to one's attention, but their number pales next to the countless nameless masses nobody will ever remember. Even the significant names are simply names, nobody cares about them or cries for their death. Therefore, I will fade away. You will fade away. There will be nothing to remember us by.
However, human nature urges us to find hope. I question your basic assumption: Is the true meaning in life found in being remembered? In one of my favorite poems, Emily Dickinson once wrote:
"If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain:
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain."
This poem, argues that meaning is found instead in caring for others, helping others, and I would argue it is also in being cared for. OR even more simply, "All you need is love." =] *trails off singing...*
*...returning to reality* I am certain that Hugo was trying to make a point about obscurity (especially with Eponine's death, Fantine's life, and Jean's grave). He also goes through great pains to emphasize society's apathy. I am not arguing that, I'm arguing about whether that really drains all meaning. (Besides, is Jean not kept alive through the 1463-page novel about him?)
I understand how you may not agree with the applications of badassery to Les Mis. After all, I use it mostly as an expression of my enthusiasm. However, I believe it applies in important and unimportant ways throughout the novel.
I strongly disagree about Jean not being a hero. If he is not a hero, than who is? I do not believe his status as a miserable impedes upon this concept; if anything, it helps. Jean (much like Atticus Finch, though they are very different characters) is the quintessence of a hero in my mind.
Thus, to answer your rhetorical question "in fact, was he truly there?" I vehemently believe that he was. If I can't believe that, than how can I apply any meaning to my own life?

Although Les Miserables is a tragic work, I believe its message of hopelessness and obscurity is far outweighed by the messages of love, redemption, sacrifice, and hope. At any rate, it will always have an honored mice-free spot on my bookshelf, worn only by overuse.

Excellent. I shall look for that version. I have not been successful in my Les Mis movie searches. Have you seen the newest one with Claire Danes? I have yet to do so, but I'd like an opinion from a purist.

Rants are welcome. Sorry for mine. =]

Kemathenga:


Wow. That’s really cool. I am glad you did so. =]

Ah. Les Miserablitis. Very contagious. I’ve heard scientists still haven’t found a cure.
Hooray for TAC! I had to write a paper on LM recently and the whole time I did nothing but watch TAC on youtube. I cannot describe how jealous I am of you for going to see a professional London version. *mock jealous glare*

Well, I understand that there was no “special relationship” between Grantaire and Enjy; however, I cannot say I believe R’s love for Enjy was platonic. There is a good argument for either case, particularly with references to Achilles and Patrocles, and Orestes and Antinuos thrown in. There are also parts of the book when R will look at Enjy with “an inexpressible gentleness” and stuff like that. Having just read The Picture of Dorian Gray, which contains an awful lot of homosexual undertones thrown in just because Wilde wanted to mess with people, I’ve noticed some of the same elements. Nonetheless, it is obvious that Enjy does not return R’s feelings, which is what makes that last scene wonderful.

Yes. TAC definitely had the best “Drink With Me.” However, the one you posted here is also really good, however OOC. It actually made me tear up. So sweet. Great blocking. I like that Marius better too. I know the TAC Marius is amazing talented but I still like this one. I also noticed that this is the Drew Sarich one. I think he is a fantastic performer, but he was not right for Jean Valjean. He should stick with stuff like Jesus Christ: Superstar.

I know exactly what you mean. I have actually applied “What Would Jean Valjean Do?” to my own life and make different decisions b/c of it.

Disneyland over promised land. That is an interesting concept. Of course, one can’t always group the Miserables into one b/ c, as Hugo demonstrates through Fantine and the Thenardiers, Miserables can be good or evil.
I love the reference to the Yin and Yang symbol, though I disagree on the fronts of Eponine’s selfishness and Enjy’s cruelty.

Exactly. That kind of application is what proves literature at all to be worthwhile.
Of course, if you wanted a shortcut, you could always go to a French prison for 19 years then steal a bishop’s silver. That seemed to work for Jean. ;P

[Kemathenga]

Hi, bluesun, ahh, let's dwell on that Achilles and Patroklos parallel for a spell. I see the implication to our time's eyes but I still indulge in the luxury of a differing opinion. Hugo describes Grantaire as a person who only becomes "somebody"when attached to a greater figure. The world would know nothing about Patroklos if it hadn't been for Achilles. I understand this passage as a description not of their relationship but of Grantaires character. He is the born lieutenant who needs a captain to be himself. he is a Patroklos while Enjolras is not an Achilles - at least not in his attitude towards Grantaire.

I see it as a problem that we nowadays, in our post-Freud days, do not feel entitled to leave sexuality out of the picture. We have come to regard it as one, if not the, dominating forces of life and everything that does not include it falls victim to being judged "un-realistic" or "naive". To my opinion this is a narrowness in modern perception not easy to vercome. As I put it somewhere else: there are more kinds of love than the usual suspects.

Some twenty years ago I wrote o an austrian author and poet who had written a book I admired and - in pre-internet days - had no other means to acquire than to copy it by hand on my type-writer. This book , "Abt Ebro's Schatz", featured a character, an abbot, depicted in a way that spoke of great love and I wanted to know who this man was or had been. The author told me about this very complicated and contradictoty character, a man he had known and, in his own words "loved more than anything (über alles) although there was no sexual relationship between them. But - he wrote - "you know, there is a tenderness of the mind".
I saw no reason to come oevr all Freudian and tell this man I knew betetr what was in his mind than he himself and there was a homosexual subtext in his writing. I couldn't see any and I still apply this not to my naivite - or his - but to the simple fact that there is more to love than modern times allow.

Another pet-parallel of mine is David and Jonathan in the Old Testament, heaped with adoration by gay movement international. During my days at university I did mo0re text-analysis than I care to remember and I learned the difference between Exegesis - to extract what is in a text - and Eisegesis - to out something into a text from my own perspective to make it visible to others. Commonly the latter is called allegoric interpretation.
In case of David and Jonathan we have Davids lament over Jonathan's death and him, stating that Jonathan's love was more agreeable to him than that of a woman. There is a possible gay interpretation, agreed, but it's not the only one. It is also possible that David simply valued this friendship on an entirely different level than sexuality and - having had trouble more than once with love affairs - all summed up preferred it. Which interpretation I prefer is not solely due to the text but just as much if not more to what I WANT to prefer. We decide on a subtext rather than detect it. At least if the author himself is not available to give an authentic interpretation.

So, as far as Enjolras and Grantaire are concerned, of course, a homoerotic interpretation is possible but given the fact that Hugo was an experienced user of sexuality himself I wouldn't deem it necessary here.

at this point of my own arguing the thought strikes me: what is the role of Enjolras at all? Is he there to show that love without the real counterpart, the woman, doesn't mean enough to build a new world upon? After all his love for "Patria" and the Republic (his mother, as he calls it) obviously fails to produce anything but death. Even Grantaires love for him proves more enduring, it suffices to transform the old drunkard and the "marble hero" in their very last moments. Because it does have a living counterpart?
What do you think?

[bluesun777]

So, in a way, you think that society has become too fixated on sexuality in connection to something's value reality. I know what you mean. Like, I am glad that sex is no longer the deadly taboo it once was, but you have a good point. People are so eager to include it that they leave out the possibility of platonic love.

One also mustn’t forget the status of Victor Hugo as the head of the Romanticist movement in France. Although he was an avid user of sexuality in his writing, he often portrayed it unrealistically. A good example is that of describing Cosette’s entrance into womanhood. Something I found very funny and a little annoying about that chapter is how Hugo describes puberty. Somehow, I do not recollect “bloom[ing] in a twinkling and becom[ing] a rose all at once” when I hit puberty. =P

However, if Hugo had wanted homosexuality to be part of Enjy and Grantaire’s relationship, he’d have probably made it more clear. The feelings of his characters were never this blurry at any other point in the novel. (Unless it was too much of a taboo for him to write about.)
Also, in regards to Achilles and Patroklos, were they even considered to be gay in Hugo’s time period? Maybe their love was taught to be or seen as platonic by 1800’s France, which would make it a more appropriate connection for Hugo to make in regards to heterosexual characters.

Considering Hugo’s writing style and his usual treatment of sexuality, I think that much of the hinting at homosexuality is, as you said, people seeing what they want to see, and that Enjy and Grantaire’s relationship was mostly platonic admiration (or, in Grantaire’s case, idolization) in accordance with romantic literature. Nonetheless, I do still have some doubts.

Keep in mind though, many of the people you are arguing with about this subject can often classified, in terms of internet slang, as fangirls/boys; it’s practically their job to get excited over things that are either not there at all or are only hinted at whether they truly believe it or not. (See ‘Zutara,’ a hugely popular pairing in the popular animated series ‘Avatar: the Last Airbender,’ which had almost no basis whatsoever. I happen to have been a ‘Zutarian’. Not b/c I believed in it, but b/c it was more fun.) So don’t get too frustrated with slash-shippers. =]

(Personally, that passage of the bible does not sound like it condones homosexuality. I could see how it would sound like it to some, but even as an avid supporter of gay rights, I’d have to say it doesn’t apply.)


Hmmm. That’s a hard one. I do not think that Enjy serves to diminish the meaningfulness of a woman’s love. After all, Hugo never stops talking about how great Cosette is to Marius. Hugo seems to believe that the love of a woman can grant true happiness.
I do not know what the purpose of the revolution is at all. I mean, they fail to make a change. Does that make their effort pointless? “Oh my friends, my friends, don’t ask me, what your sacrifice was for.” (Marius in the musical. Though you probably knew that anyway. =])

However, passion for a cause in combination with a determined group of people has been one of the true catalysts of change throughout history. I mean, look at the American Revolution. That certainly worked. Their love for “freedom” and “Patria” won them a war (figuratively speaking). What point then could possibly be made by a failed revolution? This is something that has always confused me.
A love with a “living counterpart” therefore, seems to be the only type of effective love in this novel, considering Grantaire, Marius, and Jean. Each man loved another in a different way, but still achieved something of it.
I had always thought it was a shame that Enjy is not capable of loving another person. His love for Patria (the Latin word for homeland), seems passionate but cold. I guess another reference to Enjy as the “marble lover of liberty.”

By the way, tell me how the London show you’re seeing is/was (depending on when you respond).

[Kemathenga]

Hi, bluesun,

we're still pre-London although we completed our outfit, my daughter and I. Black trousers, a red vest for her and a red scarf for me, white shirts much too large and a black leather wrist-band for my daughter since she so likes David Thaxton wearing them as Enjolras on youtube ;-). Also, we will tie a blue-white-red flag around our waists, both of us, only one of them is really from the Netherlands :lol: One week to go!

As for arguing with "the slashies" you're right and I'm probably a bit harsh sometimes. I experienced some of that duty-to-see-hidden-things when I was writing fanfiction of Harry Potter. I was about the only one on that site not using slash.

And, of course, I am not totally neutral, either, or I wouldn't relate to Grantaire so intensely. I see in him and Enjolras a lot of myself although in a very different setting.

Concerning Hugo and sexuality I was impressed by the difference between his description of Marius' and Cosettes wedding night and the entry about his own in his diary as quoted in Edward Behr, "Les Miserables, History in the Making". Either Hugo was idealizing the whole thing on hindsight or he really was ashamed of how he treated his wife, Adèle, that night. I'd venture a guess on the former, though. Anyway, he himself was well aware of sexuality and the power it rules over people and yet he almost entirely left it out in the novel. This may be due to 19th century literature standards. He does hint at it in, I think, a beautiful way when he describes Jean Valjeans love for Cosette. He says that since Valjean never was married his love for a wife was mixed with his love for Cosette but never stained it. It presented itself in his possessiveness of Cosette, though.

BTW, here's an anecdote from that book by Behr. "Bring him home" was opne of the last songs to be completed and at first they wanted it to express the sublimated sexuality in Valjeans relationship with Cosette, but the music wouldn't come to heel. Finally they realized they had to do it as some sort of prayer and then Kretzmer wrote it in one night and it had everyone speechless at first hearing. Mackintosh said to the actors "I told you it was all about God, that play" and one of them answered: "Yes, but you didn't tell us you'd engaged Him to sing it."

The Revolution, ahh, there's a topic to spend nights on. Hugo is the rare case of a man who starts being a conservative in his youth and becomes a left-wing radical at ripe old age. The 1832-barricades really were a minor affair compared to the 1848 and 1871 ones and I read that Hugo chose them because in 1848 he was voting for non-violence and in 1871 the book was already published. But in 1871, in the days of the Paris "Commune" there was a woman, Louise Michel, teaching kids in the "Commune" and fighting on the barricades and she preferred to be called "Enjolras". The book not only stems from barricades but was taken to them, too.
What the musical leaves out completely is the historical background which imO renders the barricades sort of useless. In what way would the poor of Paris benefit from raising a barricade? But Enjolras can only be understood when set before the flaring background of the Great French Revolution. When the soldiers first shout: "Who's there?" he answers "French Revolution!" The idea of Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité were never fully brought to life in 1789-1799 and in a way there'd be cause to raise that cry again today. Maybe, they NEVER will be realized in full but to know people once tried and died for them is still a "flame that never dies" to people all over the world (see China these days, or even more compelling: Iran)

Yet, I believe that Hugo wanted to make a point in that Love for an ideal isn't enough. Javert loves an ideal, too, and isn't able to notice that non-perfection, falling short of an ideal, deserves to be loved, too, and certainly is loved by God. That's my "pet-point" concerning Enjolras and Grantaire. The one is perfect, the other clearly isn't and yet it is love that endures when the ideal is shot. It's what Hugo lets the students muse upon on the barricades, that their real cause to fight is their love for their girl-friends (only the way these girls are described I find it hard to believe that).

It saddens me that Enjolras leaves almost no trace after his death in the novel. His name is mentioned only twice in Marius' memories, the barricades themselves seem to leave no traces and I can't help but think this is on purpose. That Hugo wanted to say the real changes in society will not come from insurrection but from love and forgiving among people.
What do you think?

[kiki1982]

Kiki1982:

You have a good point. But by that logic, isn't everyone a miserable? I mean, we're all going to fade into obscurity somehow. Everything and everyone. A look back throughout history brings many significant names to one's attention, but their number pales next to the countless nameless masses nobody will ever remember. Even the significant names are simply names, nobody cares about them or cries for their death. Therefore, I will fade away. You will fade away. There will be nothing to remember us by.
However, human nature urges us to find hope. I question your basic assumption: Is the true meaning in life found in being remembered? In one of my favorite poems, Emily Dickinson once wrote:
"If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain:
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain."
This poem, argues that meaning is found instead in caring for others, helping others, and I would argue it is also in being cared for. OR even more simply, "All you need is love." =] *trails off singing...*
*...returning to reality* I am certain that Hugo was trying to make a point about obscurity (especially with Eponine's death, Fantine's life, and Jean's grave). He also goes through great pains to emphasize society's apathy. I am not arguing that, I'm arguing about whether that really drains all meaning. (Besides, is Jean not kept alive through the 1463-page novel about him?)
I understand how you may not agree with the applications of badassery to Les Mis. After all, I use it mostly as an expression of my enthusiasm. However, I believe it applies in important and unimportant ways throughout the novel.
I strongly disagree about Jean not being a hero. If he is not a hero, than who is? I do not believe his status as a miserable impedes upon this concept; if anything, it helps. Jean (much like Atticus Finch, though they are very different characters) is the quintessence of a hero in my mind.
Thus, to answer your rhetorical question "in fact, was he truly there?" I vehemently believe that he was. If I can't believe that, than how can I apply any meaning to my own life?

Although Les Miserables is a tragic work, I believe its message of hopelessness and obscurity is far outweighed by the messages of love, redemption, sacrifice, and hope. At any rate, it will always have an honored mice-free spot on my bookshelf, worn only by overuse.

Excellent. I shall look for that version. I have not been successful in my Les Mis movie searches. Have you seen the newest one with Claire Danes? I have yet to do so, but I'd like an opinion from a purist.

Rants are welcome. Sorry for mine. =]

Sorry, I must have missed your reply somehow ;)...

No, I don't think that negative view applies to us, because ultimately we as the 'masses' are not forgotten by sociey (hopefully) and the vast amount of people is noticed, has food to eat, has work and money. There is only a very small amount that is not noticed and then every time it is cld and occasionally more, we express concern about them. So they even are noticed. If you asked the average bourgeois or rich person in Paris in the 19th century about the poor, he would not have cared less, apart from the rare exception. The poor were an anonymous class that was preferably locked up maybe, or was at least to blame for their own poverty (also in France).

Jean Valjean is not a hero. He is an anonymous man (he regularly changes identity) who fights his way through life the best he can and can under no circumstances do any ill whatsoever. The bishop has moved him so much (or bought his soul if you will) so that he can only turn the other cheek. His life does not revolve around being loved, noticed, or anything. He is only living because Cosette literally needs him. His person will fade like the verses on his grave not because Cosette has ceased to love him, because he is not needed anymore materially. For the life of him he cannot shoot that soldier on the roof at the barricades, because the soldier himself has done nothing to deserve it, like Javert who only follows his instructions of the police-manual that reflected the contemporary opinion about the poor and criminal.

In fact, Jean Vajean should be seen as one of many in the book. That is also why he is not aways present in it and focus often shifts to something totally different (to Fantine f.e.). He is one in the row of himself, Fantine, Petit Gervais, (the bishop), Marius, Javert, Thénardier + family, Cosette, Enjolras, Mr Gillenormand, Mr Maboeuf and the rest. They are not noticed even as they are alive, not loved, not even valued as humans, as members of that society of 'liberty, egality and fraternity'. Jean Valjean might be the most lamentable, but he is by no means any more important than the rest. He is not even the first we encounter, because that is the bishop: an obscure bishop from Digne (what's in a name if that adjective actually means 'noble'?) that is an exception in itself, because usually the church preaches poverty but are swimming in it themselves. They do help the poor, but do not deprive themselves from anything. The bishop is different: he lives in poverty and impoverishes himself even to move Jean to goodness, even risking his own life with it. In that, he also becomes one of the obscure and as unimportant to the church as our misérables are.

The fact that Jean takes on several identities is a clue in itself. He is anonymous, nothing, even if Cosette calls him 'father'.

The thing is not that Hugo wrote about humans in particular, he wrote about those people in his society, in the 19th century, and his ideas about it. He was also a philosopher and wrote his ideas of digust down in this life work. He wrote about that class of people and not about one in partcular, that is why he fades Jean Valjean's (and necessarily life and story) in the end: because misérables will keep coming with the same story, same life, same issues, same failures, same deaths and their unimportant stories have to be told 'as long as society is in love with itself' (from a letter to his Italian translator Daelli).

[Kemathenga]

Hi, kiki,
I agree with you but for one sentence: that Valjean is not a hero. You make it sound as if he was literally unable to do anything bad after the bishop "bought his soul" but in fact he was tempted a lot and did not always escape unscathed. The night before he goes to Arras and the night after the wedding are only the most expressive of those moments. He still had a choice whether to do good or evil and it often cost him something. He hated Marius, he didn't care about that nameless girl, Fantine who?, until he happened across her and Bamatabois. Yes, he is much like anyone else, anonymous, but he still is a hero in so far that he more often decides to do what is good than the average human then and now. The title of a Saint he is sometimes given by other people in the book is not far from the mark. Saints in the original meaning are not superheroes fallen from heaven but people who started like everybody else but made the right decision somewhere along the way. In depicting Valjean as one of that brand although without the somewhat hindering halo of institutional religion he opens the door wide to that kind of heroism for everyone of us.

[BienvenuJDC]

I love Les Miserables...
I would love to discuss this book more when I have time.

Trivia...
Who is Bienvenu?

[kiki1982]

Hi, kiki,
I agree with you but for one sentence: that Valjean is not a hero. You make it sound as if he was literally unable to do anything bad after the bishop "bought his soul" but in fact he was tempted a lot and did not always escape unscathed. The night before he goes to Arras and the night after the wedding are only the most expressive of those moments. He still had a choice whether to do good or evil and it often cost him something. He hated Marius, he didn't care about that nameless girl, Fantine who?, until he happened across her and Bamatabois. Yes, he is much like anyone else, anonymous, but he still is a hero in so far that he more often decides to do what is good than the average human then and now. The title of a Saint he is sometimes given by other people in the book is not far from the mark. Saints in the original meaning are not superheroes fallen from heaven but people who started like everybody else but made the right decision somewhere along the way. In depicting Valjean as one of that brand although without the somewhat hindering halo of institutional religion he opens the door wide to that kind of heroism for everyone of us.

I don't think that is true.

The turning point, which most French critics acknowledge, is when he has robbed Petit Gervais of his coin. Jean goes through a geat mental struggle after depriving the little boy of his coin and eventually comes to the conclusion that he will give it back. It is the first time that he has felt like this, but he remembers the bishop afterwards and his words in chapter XII (The Bishop works) after he has handed him the candelabras: 'Jean Valjean, my brother, you don't belong to badness anymore, but to goodness. It is your soul I buy from you; I take it away from dark thoughts and from perdition, and I return it to God.' The real extent of this speech Jean did not realise until he stole the coin of Petit Gervais.

At Arras, it is even worse. Arras is a problem to Jean, because as mayor Madeleine he now needs to admit to his identity and will be convicted to life-long hard labour (gallions) because of his steeling the coin of Petit Gervais. Who would not be tempted to leave this Champsmatieux in the clutches of the French legal system that is about to make a blunder? Let's say he asks himself what he has to do, but he is neevr tempted. He has ceased to think like in the era before Petit Gervais. He is not allowed to get into the hall because he is too late. Anyone can interpret that as Providence, but no, in the end he is allowed in because of his nature of mayor and declares himself as Jean Valjean, the guy they are looking for. But the ironic thing is that it is almost having to go, not wanting to. It is as if a force drives him to do this. Certainly not his choice, because he was going to give up at some point, yet returns and demands attendance. At this point his struggle is barely there.

The same weird stuff happens when he wants to go to England with Cosette, at the time of the barricades. He, as Victor Hugo himsef, is deadly jealous of Marius who is taking his Cosette away from him. He is baffled at reading the reflection of her letter in the mirror, but is driven to the barricades to do what he has to do: save Marius. Despite the fact that he could leave him to commit suicide on that same barricade, and that would make Jean better. But that is not Jean. The ironic thing is that by this time he has kind of peace with that feeling of having to do something, not being able to do anything for himself alone. Before, at Arras and certainly after the robbery of Petit Gervais, he fought it, now he has peace with it and decides to obey the force because it always wins anyway.

He lets Javert walk, not choosing to do it, just doing it. There is no other option.

He decides to drag Marius all through the sewer of Paris, not knowing whether he is still alive, in order to save him. And in the end he delivers his daughter to him although it will kill him. And then tells his son-in-law that he is an ex-convict. Not of course that he dragged him through the sewage-pipes and saved his life. It is ironically Thénardier (another misérable) who will disclose this to Marus who then sees his mistake.

It is at the point where Javert leaves Jean the carriage at the house of Gillenormand that he finally realises that his police-manual is not quite right on criminals. They can change. Allegorically, the three people in that carriage - Marius, Jean Valjean and Javert - could represent respectively the misérables (lost forever, dead like Marius is deemed dead by Javert), the bishop (who refuses to believe that all is lost) and society (who has given up on Marius/the misérables and deems it useless to do something about him/them). Javert returns regularly during the story and could be seen as society that relentlessly prosecutes the misérables because they are just that, but also as the force that forces Jean to do only good. There is no choice, like there is no escaping Javert. At the point Javert commits suicide, Jean will make his ultimate sacrifice that keeps him alive: Cosette. He will succumb to desperation, in the water and drown, like Javert. He cannot get rid of Javert (shoot him), because he needs that force, its job is not finished yet. At the point where it is finished and Marius's life has been saved, his job is done, like Jean's job is done when Cosette has married Marius.

I don't think Jean Valjean did not at all care about Fantine. At least he felt responsible because she had been thrown out of his factory. If he did not care about her then why did he actually go and get Cosette at the price of 1000 francs? There are hints at the fact that there was possibly more, but that is how one interprets them. He dresses Cosette in black, tells her of her mother as if he was talking of a saint, never actually talks about her as if she was someone anonymous. The film with Liam Neeson did actually make a point of Jean falling in love, but I don't believe in that. I think he regretted the fact that he did not see that the female manager for the women-department of his factory, fired her because of being a single mother. Had he checked better, had he done his job as mayor better, he might have saved her.

[Kemathenga]

well, I can't see how all this makes what I said untrue? ;-)
As for Fantine Valjean does care when he learns about her individual situation. Before that he might not even have known a girl was sacked, and so, of course, didn't care.

But as for Arras I can see the struggle until the very end. He is sorely tempted not to go there at all especially since the possibility to interprete all the hinderances as providence interfering lurks around the corner constantly. I also do not see the incident with Petit Gervais as the turning point of his MIND. He hardly notices he robbed a child. When he discovers the forty sous under his foot he doesN't even know what this is at first. It is on hindsight he realizes what he has "done" and even more what he IS.

Why he chooses to go to the barricades Hugo never makes clear. he just goes. It may be driven by force of conscience or simply his love for Cosette and the bond he already realizes exists between her and Marius but other than in the struggles before Arras and after the wedding Hugo does not give us this insight in Valjeans feelings at the barricades, so interpretation has a field day there.

I see him much more active in all his mental struggles. he COULD have decided otherwise but didn't, that's all the difference.

[kiki1982]

You see, that’s where I differ in opinion.

Hugo identifies three things within man: ‘le je’ (‘the I’), ‘le moi’ finit (the finite self) and ‘le moi’ infinit (the infinite self). The infinite self is the self that is God, or a part of God like Rousseau identifies it. The I is the material manifestation of oneself with one’s looks, but also with one’s roots, past etc. The finite self is the identity that one has with its views, ideas and ideals. The self and the I are not connectable as they are of a different substance. The infinite self can only be accessed through total anonymity and death of the finite self (from there Hugo’s fascination with misery and poverty that attains one a kind of angelic state, more than riches). Guy Rosa put it like this: “La présence de l’autre-en-soi est nécessairement mortelle pour le « moi » incapable de saturer le « je »; inversement, l’appropriation du « je » par le « moi » est, au choix, suicidaire – Madeleine tuerait Jean Valjean s’il envoyait Champmathieu au bagne – ou meurtrière : Javert, Bamatabois, Tholomiès sont tous plus ou moins assassins pour avoir refusé toute altérité intérieure.” (‘The presence of “the other in oneself” is necessarily deadly for the finite self that is incapable of saturising the I; inversely, the appropriation of the I by the finite self is either suicidal – Madeleine who will kill Jean Valjean if he sent Champmathieu to prison – or murderous: Javert, Bamatabois, Tholomiès are all mor or less assassins for having refused all interior otherness.’) From there the large struggle that Jean Valjean goes through when he learns the story of How Jean becomes Champ. Jean Valjean has taken on another identity: he has become a good man, honourable, rich (though not living according to it), he has become mayor (despite his wishes). His finite self might be changed (he no longer thinks it right to steel, he no longer is contemplating the death of someone, he no longer feels angry at the world, he is not excluded from it, he can even read and has learned the law), but his I is still Jean Valjean with his past, yellow passport, and his crime against Petit Gervais. His views have changed: the Jean Valjean with his first finite self would have run a mile and would have let Champmathieu be condemned to hard labour for life. This Mr Madeleine has a problem: either he gives himself up (according to his principles) and condemns himself to lifelong hard labour, or he does not, but where is his I then? Forever condemned to be gone. From there the profound conflict. Either way, he is condemned to eternal imprisonment. That is why he eventually admits to his I to Marius, but because of that he has killed his finite self (Mr Fauchelevant) that he cannot unite with his I. There is only his infinite self left, the angel almost, or the a-personal. In order to attain that, he is forced to kill his finite self, and ultimately his I.

About Fantine’s situation:

This is not so simple as ‘he did not know, so he did not care’. Through the infinite self, everything and all is connected as all and everyone is connected in Les Misérables. So Mr Madeleine (the other identity of Jean Valjean at this point) might not have known that Fantine was sacked, but had he not cared, he would have no infinite self, nothing to connect him morally and humanly to Fantine. In the introduction to his Contemplations, Hugo wrote: “Insensé qui crois que je ne suis pas toi.” (‘He who thinks that I am not you is senseless.’) Indirectly, Mr Madeleine (the finite self of the I Jean Valjean) is not only responsible for his own infinite self, but also for Champmathieu’s. If he condemns him, he condemns himself. The same with Javert: if he does not kill himself, he will kill the rest of humankind.
Other than this, Hugo proves Mr Madeleine did actually care, even at the point where he did not know by putting these words into his mouth: “J’ignorait même que vous eussiez quitté mes ateliers. Pourquoi ne vous êtes-vous pas addressee à moi?” (‘I did not know that you had left my studios. Why did you not come to me?’). If he did not care and only cares now, then why does he find it natural that he would have re-instated her, or helped her, if she had come to him. That speech implies a judgment, not influenced by pity or the present situation, a judgment that is natural (even expressed in the grammatical construction of the sentence). Even more to the point is that women, as they give birth to angels (children), are angels themselves and are closer to God than men. If Mr Madeleine’s finite self is just (which it is) then it is absolutely impossible that he would not have cared about Fantine being sacked. Not to mention what would happen to his infinite self by rejecting Fantine.

About Arras and robbery of Petit Gervais:

The robbery of Petit Gervais and Mr Madeleine’s own denunciation in Arras are both connected with one thing: his ascension to his infinite self. All ascension involves a downfall. The process is not yet complete, but it is going on and it is not a personal struggle but rather an inevitable process put in motion by the bishop. It frightens Jean Valjean, but it is inevitable.
We need to see how he leaves the bishop after the latter’s famous words: in a frenzy. Why? Because the past is too painful, he has crossed the line and has to become an angel or become a monster. Guy Rosa wrote that Jean Valjean committed a crime ‘of which he was no longer capable’. Indeed, it was Jean Valjean’s instinct as a criminal (his I) to steel that piece of silver from the boy, but his finite self had already crossed the line of destiny after the bishop’s words. He is running from the idea, but he cannot escape it. So, he steels the piece of silver, but then realizes that he is no longer capable of not feeling anything; his hard surface is gone. His finite self has changed, it has returned to the good. However, this, for the I Jean Valjean, is a traumatic experience, because it reminds him that he has a conscience and that there is an eternal duality within him (the other In oneself). Briefly, he will change into an angel as he sobs as a child (children being little angels in Hugo’s mind), but the process will not be completed yet.

He goes through life, and becomes, despite himself, Mr Madeleine, mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer. Some day Javert turns up with the message that Jean Valjean has been found. The struggle that follows this is not a mere struggle of ‘shall I tell or not’, but it is a struggle between the I that has disappeared and the infinite self that is not there yet. Jean Valjean, in the identity of Mr Madeleine, has become a good man (as he also displays when talking to Fantine), but has not quite become the angel he has to become, he has not yet reached his infinite self. He still does struggle wit the idea of giving himself up.

The fact that there are many obstacles on the way to Arras is not a matter of showing temptation, it is a matter of for him (Jean Valjean), doing something ‘that he is not yet capable of’ (Guy Rosa). Like with Petit Gervais he was not capable anymore of steeling (it was not according to his finite self), now, he is not capable of doing something so unbelievable as handing oneself in to people who do not even want to believe one, proving one’s own guilt and condemning oneself to lifelong hard labour. It is something for the infinite self, the divine, to do this, because it is ultimately just and saves mankind of lying, not for the finite self, the identity. Hugo builds up the tension, but at the same time shows us as readers that it is to be; that Jean Valjean has in fact no choice.

His dream shows this:

He walks on a road, in the bare countryside (not a tree in sight, all brown) and talks to his long lost brother. They pass several people and one grey, bald man on a brown horse who carries with him a wand, heavy as iron. At some point Jean loses his brother and enters into what he thinks is a village. The streets are deserted, no-one there. Around the corner, there is a man against the wall and he asks him: ‘Where am I?’ The man answers not. All doors of the houses are open and he enters one. The first room is empty, the second is not: there is a man standing against the wall and he asks him: ‘Where am I? Whose house is this?’ The man answers not. He continues into the garden, where even the sky is brown and discovers a man behind the tree. He asks him more or less the same question. The man answers not. He discovers that the village is in fact a town and goes out of it. When he looks round, he sees a large group of men, the very men he met in the town, walking behind him. They do not hurry, but nonetheless they are walking faster than he is. They eventually catch him up and encircle him. Then one of them decides to talk and says ‘Where are you going? Did you not know that you have been dead for a very long time?’ Jean Valjean wants to open his mouth to answer but he wakes up.

This dream, which is revisiting the episode of Petit Gervais and is going to receive a déjà-vu in the court at Arras as Jean Valjean flees through the corridor, is very significant.

It is significant that the whole place is brown, there are no trees and nothing green whatsoever. The colour brown signifies at the same time one’s roots, but also material comfort and such things. Here as well, there is a duality present, as in Mr Madeleine who has escaped his I, but is living in material comfort. There is no life, no ambition (no trees), in this world, and all hope has gone (it is dusk), only one naked grey man sits on a brown horse. The strong energy expressed in the brown horse of ambiguity and duality also frightens him to be exposed (the grey man).

Guy Rosa and Anne Ubersfeld have argued about the brother of his childhood years who featured in the dream is not actually a brother, but rather another self, or the other in oneself. This might not be so far from the truth, because brothers can represent either a piece of oneself one must address or can even address spiritual issues (as a religious connotation). If he then first talks to him and then loses him abruptly, we could picture that, indeed, as an indication of the loss of his I/finite self (either way). The two have lost contact. Not that they can ever unite, but they can communicate. In this case, indeed, Mr Madeleine, has lost his I Jean Valjean in the mists of time and needs to re-acknowledge him.

When he enters into the village, we can see restrictions. As the doors are all open and the houses all accessible, we can easily see that Mr Madeleine’s house (a symbol for one’s person) is empty. His roots in it (the brown men) are silent. He tries to communicate, but he cannot get anything out of them. As he goes out of the house, he discovers that the village is in fact a city. It is still deserted which indicates that Mr Madeleine still feels rejected by society (Guy Rosa also addressed the voyeuristic nature of Les Misérables), or at least fears just that.

And then, the end: all the brown men pursue him; they do not hurry, but they catch him up nonetheless; it is inevitable. Then one of them asks where he is going ‘because he is already dead’. Indeed, he is already dead, at least his I is: buried under Mr Madeleine.

Now, what does that tell us about the déjà-vu in the Arras-court? As Mr Madeleine is running away through the corridor (Guy Rosa noted the similarity between the village where he entered in the dream and the corridor), he is in fact revisiting the village. As he stops on the stairs, we can picture the men stopping him and asking him where he is going. He returns and that is the answer that he wanted to give: he needs to re-acknowledge his I Jean Valjean that has been dead for a while now, or it will be forever lost, he will be forever out of the village and will never be able to get back to his house.

So, no, I am not of the opinion that Jean Valjean under any finite self that he took on, could have decided otherwise. Had he done that, it would have been his downfall. That, either kills himself and it kills others. So, on the one hand, he could stay jealous of Marius and let him die, but if he does that, he kills himself too and commits suicide (like Javert). Javert can only release Jean Valjean if he kills his finite self and ultimately his I , because they cannot be united with the infinite self that is also Jean Valjean’s. Essentially the same happens to Javert as what happens to Jean Valjean after Cosestte and Marius’s wedding: the latter has renounced his finite self and inevitably will lose his I, because his finite self is jealous of Marius and does not want to renounce Cosette, but his infinite self tells him to do so, because that infinite self as much as it is Marius’s and Fantine’s is also Cosette’s. It is also a downfall in order to ascend, and it is his last. Maybe he here also does something ‘he is not yet capable of’. He will sacrifice Cosette and even contrives his arm to be injured so that the marriage is legal (it revisits the trouble he takes in Arras), at his own expense in the end.

The distinction between the I and the self (both selves) is also the reason why jean Valjean only tells Marius that he is an old convict and not that he saved his life. That he saved his life is not his I, it just is, it is a little bit of luck that he survived. The impulse came from his finite self, but is ultimately not part of his I Jean Valjean (the man from Faverolles who stole the bread and who served on the galleys). It is another who needs to come and tell Marius about it who then sees the light and will take it home (the candelabras from the bishop).

If Hugo does not make clear whether Jean Valjean was going to save Marius from the start or not, then it does not matter. The only thing that that passage makes clear is that, despite himself (“[Jean Valjean] regarda [Marius] avec une inexprimable haine”; ‘[Jean Valjean] looked at [Marius] with inexpressible hatred’; part V, book III, chapter IV ), against his interests and feelings, still saves Marius. It is a downfall that is necessary to make progress possible. And this is an issue that runs through the whole book. Even in the more historical parts as Warterloo and the barricades.

[Kemathenga]

In the light of your more than thorough explanation of Hugo's view on the self and how it might be constructed I can follow your earlier line of argumentation. I won't enter into psychology, though, since I neither have access to nor time to study the secondary sources you quote. But all this is very interesting and make me want to dig deeper into Hugo's work - sometimes.
:-)

[kiki1982]

I got my Fench book with footnotes and endnotes of Guy Rosa himself, who followed Anne Ubersfeld in her analysis. Sadly, he is only revered in France I think. But, by all means, do get into Hugo further, his ideas were really very renewing, modern adn quite unique at the time!

[Kemathenga]

I thought so when reading Les Miserables. To further describe my situation: my daughter read it in one week, I needed four and most of it was done in leaps and scraps at the lunch table between getting up to fetch things, wipe up liquids, open doors and answering the telephone, LOL.
But now and then I managed to just sit down and read, something I haven't been able to do for years, and I was amazed at how accurately Hugo describes especially attitudes which don't seem to have changed much over the last 150 years. There's one paragraph about the economical problems likely to arise in a communist society which describe the downfall of the GDR to a T. I am rereading it now with a marker in hand ;-).

[kiki1982]

1 week! I also needed four or even six! But was it an abridged version or not? My version (in French) was about 1700 pages long in paperback.

Overall it was deep and accurate as you say, but I had a problem with the 150 page Waterloo bit. I don't know, the 20ieth century peson in me says that divine influence in history is total crap, but Hugo definitely saw it. For him, as for people, every downfall in history, like the one of Napoleon personally and his regime in itself, promises an ascend/amelioration, as did the barricades, but on the whole I can't get my head around it... At any rate the thing about Hougomont almost got the better of me. I was so happy when I had finished that! Then I found the explanation about the convents of Petit-Picpus more interesting...

[Kemathenga]

My daughter is just sitting beside me and says to tell you she only needed a week because after page 93 in the third volume (the german edition) she couldn't bear to read on for a while. It was not an abridged version, it was a dusty three volumes full version from the library, but my daughter also read The Lord of the Rings when she was eight, she devours books. :-)

I must confess I totally fell for the Waterloo chapter. It's one of my favourites. I like history and I especially like to go into details, single battles, small settlements, detailed rituals. Hugo's description made the thing alive for me and the next time I'll see something about Waterloo I'll certainly look at it with a different attitude.

As for the religious view upon history I can easily identify with that although I wouldn't support it myself. I spend half my youth discussing things like that from different points of view. Now, after almost half a century on this planet, I would say the idea of a greater plan in everything is so tempting that it is very reluctantly discarded by many people, be it for want of somebody else in charge or just out of need to understand the causes and consequences. But I try to refrain from that need myself. I can interprete much that happens in history or in my personal life according to a spiritual plan, no problem, I'm a fully fledged theologian, but somehow I don't like to do that. Life has proven me (and others) wrong so often that I'd rather not venture any guesses any more. But I'm a child of the 20th century willing or not, we have been stripped of almost every religious explanation of war and luck in such by history. It is different in other cultures and from there the idea sometimes creeps back upon us again.

But in Les Miserables I noticed the idea of a great divine master-plan less concerning the battles but the personal life of Jean Valjean. The "higher plan" mentioned in the musical is in the book, too. Hugo's attitude at the end of his life impresses me, that he stated his belief in God in his testament and at the same time didn't want to have any religious rite performed at his funeral (a wish that was violated if I remember right).

[kiki1982]

Tell your daughter wow! It's good that she devours books. There should be more kids like that!
I am a slow reader. I read once an abridged version when I was 17 and once the full version, some time ago.

Maybe I'll have to read the chapter on Waterloo again then. Just to make sure I didn't like it. Maybe I just lost track at some point and couldn't get into it anymore...

I see what you mean about the masterplan. Indeed, Hugo saw one in everything and everyone. I guess the French writer of the musical did good work then, although I have some criticism, but I suppose nothing is perfect. As the musical only lasts, what, 3 hours max, one can't put all properly in it.

That latest film version, though was absolutely brilliant. I have it in French, but it was also made in English, although I have my doubts about that. The actors, like Depardieu, do speak English, but with an accent and apart from Malkovich who played a brilliant Javert (both in French which he speaks 'not fluent enough' according to his modest self, but which is great, certainly in his pronunciation which you could not really pin down as with an American accent), I don't think there was any native speaker English about in the cast... In emotional scenes, like the one they showed of the end, it was a little bit ridiculous. You're not really concentrated on what is happening, but on what awful accent the actor has. In the worst case it is just ridiculous, and that is not what you need while watching Jean die... Granted, Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz have accents for example, but do times 2 or 3 for Depardieu, Marius and Cosette... Not a good idea without a good English tutor. However, the screenplay was the best and most pramatic ever made of the novel.

Sadly, indeed, Hugo was burried with all the trimmings. A little bit sad... I sometimes wonder why people do that to others if they explicitly specify not to want to be burried with religious rites. I just think it is selfishness or a desire to show off, or something... But we won't get into that. That's not for this forum. I suppose it was the age?

[bluesun777]

Kemathenga: Sorry for being so long in reply. Life has been rather hectic lately, and it takes forever for me to do a good reply. Still have to reply to Kiki1982 as well.

I love your description of the outfits. I must find a French flag-colored scarf. Currently, I am on a mission from God to find an Enjolras vest. =]

You have a good point. I actually had gotten irritated upon glancing at your reply about Jean and Cosette b/c certain classmates were always giggling and making comments about Jean’s love so it has made me rather sensitive. I even wrote an argument for you. However, when I actually read your reply and checked the book, I realized that you were totally right. Any attempts to correct my argument just ended up restating your reply. So that failed. I will say this though: there is a passage, which reads, “…poor old Jean Valjean did not, certainly, love Cosette other than as a father…” But I know what you were talking about.

I think Marius and Cosette the most hinting at sexuality. What with all the blushing and meaningful glances and whatnot.

=] That story made me smile. That song is beautiful, no matter how inaccurate.

How interesting. I must remember that if I am ever leading a revolution, I’ll have to at least wear a red vest.
I think it is likely if not absolute that man can never fully realize Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. This is the dark side of human nature. It’s the reason Les Mis is a classic: “so long as ignorance and misery remain on this earth, there should be a need for books such as this.” However, hope is a flame that never dies. There is a part of human nature, however, that wants “to live by each other's happiness” (Charlie Chaplin’s speech at the end of “The Great Dictator”). This reflects that every human being is capable of great good and great evil (just look at Jean Valjean). It is this hope for a better future that has given us any progress we have ever had towards Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. Without this flame, all would be lost. I also believe that b/c of this, we are closer to achieving these goals than ever. In this world, it seems that oppression can never last: France has a democracy, and, sooner or later, Iran’s government will have to cave. As long as people are fighting for freedom. As long as people have hope. Then “Nothing is hopeless. Not while there's life.” – Alan Moore

Indeed, Hugo does seem to be trying to convey that point. However, he obviously supports the revolutionaries and the love of an ideal is important for society to progress, such as the case of the American Civil Rights movement. However, it can also be dangerous and blinding, such as in Nazi Germany. Nonetheless, both the book and the musical stress the importance of loving others. (“To love another person is to see the face of God.”)
I also believe that non-perfection deserves to be loved. Otherwise, how can people, essentially non-perfect beings, ever expect to be fully accepted by themselves or by others? It is lovely to find beauty in the everyday (however difficult it may seem).

“That Hugo wanted to say the real changes in society will not come from insurrection but from love and forgiving among people.”

I think if Hugo is trying to get this across, than he is right in some ways: For instance, I once learned about “levels” of human interaction/state of mind. The levels, to over-simplify, go 1-“life sucks”, 2-“my life sucks”, 3-“I’m great”, 4-“we’re great,” 5-“life is great”. Level 1 is the level of mind/interaction of people who commit crimes and such (kind of like the Thenardiers). Level 3 is a selfish but positive frame of mind that most people reach and stay in. Level 4 is a positive teamwork-oriented frame of mind. And level 5 is the ultimate level of human interaction: the work of Gandhi or the effective peace and reconciliation efforts in South Africa. It is when people work together to overcome differences and to forgive and love.
Despite this, there is still part of me that points to history and cynicism and tells me this concept is too idealistic. Thus, it is clear that love and forgiveness are powerful and effective, but I doubt nonetheless.

[kiki1982]

About Jean and Cosette:

There is indeed a little concern about that, but indeed, their love is not sexual. Guy Rosa (in my notes) put it down to an odd feeling Hugo had when he had to give away his daughter Leopoldine to a man in marriage. Before this, he had been totally unaware of that feeling, but as the moment came (his daughter was slipping away from him, so to say), he felt really jealous of the man in question, although he was not married to his daughter (naturally). He felt he needed to give up his role as protector and had to let her go out of his control but did not know what to do with his feelings, because his feelings of love had always been projected in the form of protecting, but that's not possible as now the husband was to take up that same role. So, he needed to change the way he looked at his daughter. Sadly, she would commit suicide later...

At any rate, there is definitely a similarity between Hugo's own feelings and the feelings of insecurity and desolation Jean Valjean feels when he sees Cosette's letter reflected in the mirror. The odd thing is that daughters do not at all stop and think about this. Cosette sees it as natural that she should love Marius and should be allowed to marry him, but she does not realise how sad Jean Valjean is about that. For her, nothing changes; for him everyting changes.

It's sad really, but there are people like that. I think my father and his father were such (what my grandfather did to ruin my parents' relationship and what my father did to ruin mine, is inconceivable).

Othe than that, Bluesun, just take your time ;)

[bluesun777]

BienvenuJDC:
Why, Bienvenu is Bishop Myriel of course! =]

[Kemathenga]

Hi, bluesun, happy new year :-),

as for revolutions I'm not that optmistic I must admit. The similarities between Iran and Paris in 1832 struck me, especially when it was at the funeral of the opposition's man Ayatollah Monzateri that the latest insurrection began. But I have to bring myself to look past the revolutionary zest I know well from my own youth ...cough, cough ... when I spent considerable time at demonstrations and even saw some barricades built, on to reality. In Iran like in Paris back in 1832, but also in 1848 and 1871 as long as there is an outwards enemy people of different belief and ideology stick together and form "the opposition". Once Ahmadinejad will be gone - and I'm sure he will have to go rather sooner than later - those differences will start to matter. So far no revolution has managed to escape their own private 1793, the moment the french revolution started gobbling up its own children,. It happened in Russia, it happened in Latin America and when will it happen differently somewhere?
That does not mean revolutions are pointless. The insurrections of the nineteenth century resulted in social changes we are taking for granted nowadays. Without the barricades of 1848 our social system would not be today what it is like. Still, are we any nearer freedom, equality and fraternity?
But do look for a red vest by all means, it builds up good feelings which are necessary for everyday's barricades, absolutely.
My daughter and I went to the Queen'S theatre in London dressed like this: black trousers, white shirts (oversized), red vests and blue-white-red flags (bless ebay) tied round our waists. I even went as far as waving my flag (which is really netherland, I must admit) during the Finale of the musical.
Nobody else looked like us but some were looking at us, LOL.

[bluesun777]

Kiki:
Yes, I see what you mean.
It certainly is true that daughters do not consider their fathers when they marry. But this is natural, and, what's more, I do not think this convention calls for any change.
I think Jean's misery was further increased by the lack of anyone else to love. When he lost Cosette, he lost everything.
Of course, Hugo tends to exaggerate things: Most fathers are saddened by their daughters' departure. Jean /died of sadness/.
However, in modern day, I doubt that this situation would be at all possible. At least, I am so different from Cosette in every way that I cannot see sitting by happily in my house satisfied with what my husband told me happened to my father, who suddenly starts making me call him Mr. Edward.
But this is the cynic in me being annoyed with romanticism, and I guess what you might be able to classify as gothic heroines. To read Les Mis, one really has to let go of the cynicism and accept the idealism. Kind of like how one has to put up with sexism in old movies to enjoy them. (I love old movies, btw.)

Kemathenga:
Happy New Year to you, too. =]

What kind of "revolutions in your youth"?

I would argue that, at least in some places in the world, we are indeed closer. And although women are still oppressed in many parts of the world, I cannot recall any other era throughout history in which we were allowed the rights to vote, own property, not be treated as property, have the right to divorce, and treated with respect (well, more than before anyway.) Additionally, slavery has died out or been abolished in many places. So, though the world remains a generally effed-up place, we are closer to liberty, equality, and fraternity. Or at least liberty and equality.

I will get that vest even if I have to go so far as to make it! =]

x] That sounds excellent. I am supposing by your flag-waving that the performance was a good one?

Here's a question about the book: Who is your favorite member of the Amis de l'ABC?

[heyung]

Hey I really enjoy these threads that have been posted. Here are some of my thoughts.

In order to consider whether Jean Valjean is a hero or not, one must determine what defines a true hero. People are usually considered having heroic qualities by being noble and doing the right thing. This person lives their life above the standard of an ordinary law abiding citizen. Society deems these “heroes” as nearly perfect and without flaws. Jean Valjean, in this case, does not meet these requirements. If you look at him closely, he is actually a thief with a criminal record. Under these circumstances, there is no way he would be a hero.

I, however, believe Victor Hugo is trying to portray Jean Valjean as ordinary everyday hero. He is not your cliché hero that is perfect, but a real hero that realizes his flaws and overcomes them for good. Like every man, Jean Valjean has certain temptations and flaws. In the beginning, the readers see these flaws and struggles where he steals a loaf of bread out of desperation. He does not know stealing is morally wrong. He only knows that stealing is wrong due to the consequences of the law. It wasn’t until his failed attempt to steal from the bishop that changed his attitude. The bishop forgives him and told him to "use the silver to be an honest man” (105-6) This is important, because, through the bishop's forgiveness, this is where Jean Valjean to be a better man. Now, as the story progress, we see that Jean Valjean continually battles his conscience to do the right thing. The monologue shows the struggles inside his head is much like an ordinary person. He wants to be the mayor rather than to go back to jail. He wants to keep Cosette, his only family member, rather than giving her to Marius. These are desires that many ordinary people would want. Yet, unlike before, Jean Valjean struggles but then he makes the right choice. In this sense, it does make Jean Valjean a hero.

[Kemathenga]

@bluesun: I lived in Berlin (west) during the nineteeneighties in one of the poorer quarters. There was a general housing problem and the owners of big houses would rather let them stand empty than rent the flats to people because they were getting compensation by the government for the loss of rent-money. At first it was the students (!) looking for cheap flats protesting against that and then it resulted in what was called the "Berlin Squatter Movement". Young people would just move into a house and stay there. The owners called the police and some would leave, some would bargain for contracts and others would resist violently. My brother was one of the latter. He moved into a squatter's house when he was sixteen. We would spend the evenings listening to a radio tuned illegally to receive police radio to find out when and where the police was trying to "storm" a house and then go there and build a barricade (really!). I never did much more than stand by and savour the revolutionary atmosphere. I drew the line when it came to throwing cobblestones. I once dug one up and then let it fall again. I simply couldn't throw it against another person even if it was a policeman (normally called "bulls" then as a term of abuse). I joined a left-wing political party after that and tried to change the world by talking ;-).

You are right that our social situation at least in western europe and the US and Australia is much, much nearer to the ideals of the French Revolution than the nineteenth century. But there are other chains of slavery now. It makes me shudder how easily the mass media, the internet in first row, manipulates people. It is much more difficult now to express an attitude differing from the mainstream now than it was in my youth, let's say the nineteenseventies, -eighties. I have children going to school and I'm shocked at how indifferent parents are toward what happens at school. All they are interested in is "will my child get the best job after graduation"? I am working part time as a teacher at a school for less privileged children and there we have children whose parents don't even care if they have all the books and pencils they need. But they do get a playstation 3 for christmas. The emotional deprivation we are dealing with - not only in children - is much harder to battle than hunger and poverty in 19th century France.

We found a red vest on ebay - but without the gold stripes, of course. Still, my daughter looked great in it and, yes, it was an amazing performance. We were hard put not to sing along, sometimes :-) and some of the details would escape us since we had places far up and to the side. But we DID bring binoculars. And we want to see it again!

Oh, don't you start me on my favorite ABC. Do you want to read postings on here for the rest of the day? It's Grantaire, of course. I am right where he is and vice versa with the slight difference that I definitely prefer red wine to absinth (shudder). I'm not really given to alcohol but I definitely am given to words. I can whip up a speech like his on the spur of a moment and the less I know what I'm talking about the better. I can totally identify with his effort to create a balance between cynicism and idealism and best with his dramatic failure at that. Wanting so desperately to belong and at the same time clinging to his own ways and attitudes - until the very moment Enjolras turns up and scowls at him and makes him just want to be like him and with him and thank you, cynicism, see you later if at all. Wanting to be revolutionary, to be IN it all and to find someone who represents everything he never did and never will achieve to death if necessary. Hugo says that Grantaire became somebody with Enjolras. The reasons why I am in need for somebody to be myself are quite different from Grantaires (which we don't know at all, by the way) but the situation is much the same. If my hero could come back I'd follow literally everywhere.

I stop myself here with some effort. Who's your favorite?


@heyung:
Welcome to the thread. Yeah, I agree that Jean Valjean is an every-day-hero in so far that he wasn't born and raised to be one but he does out some fort into becoming one and that makes him not so every-day. One of the great virtues of the book is, imhO, that it takes its times in taking decisions. Valjean takes a whole night and Hugo takes several chapters to make up his mind to go to Arras and he doesn't make it too easy to find out which is the right decision. I marvel at the accuracy Hugo describes this process with. And even when he is actually going Valjean isn't sure if he will arrive there or if he does what he is going to do. I wouldn't say he makes up his decision only the moment he speaks up, it was sort of born out of his thinking and arguing with himself and in the end the outcome was inevitable even if he didn't realize that. But like most births it was a painful affair and he couldn't be sure if it was the right thing to do even when he was doing it.
That certainly makes him a hero worth turning to when it comes to taking decisions.

[bluesun777]

Wow. That’s really cool. I am also glad you opted for peaceful resistance instead. Like Ghandi, you know. And, I suppose, like Jean. (But he was more peace than resistance.)
I think the world needs to be changed by action but not violence.
A good friend of mine is a German exchange student from West Berlin, too. =]

Yes, I know what you are talking about. But I still think that we are closer to Utopia (which literally translates to “Nowhere” b/c it’s not truly possible) than we’ve ever been. I understand that the internet causes all kinds of problems nowadays, but people have always been manipulated. As for your points on emotional deprivation, I can only agree with you. It is harder to fight, and it is a real and serious problem, however I’d sooner solve world hunger and poverty before emotional deprivation.

That sounds excellent! I am so very jealous. I am now eBay-watching for a red vest I can sew gold stripes to. So far, no such luck. But I will not give up.
Btw, I’ve been working on a picture of a bunch of the Les Mis characters I drew. I shall send it to you when I finish the lengthy process of coloring in Photoshop in my spare time.

Oh yeah, I forgot. You had mentioned your love for him before. =] Also, I was surprised to see him drinking absinthe when I first read the book. I am not as good as you with whipping up a speech, x] but I can b.s. a paper like no other.
That is so very interesting. I think it is great that classic literature can still provide us with relevant characters and situations today. (“So long as ignorance and misery remain on this earth, there will be need for books such as this.”) I think I am different from Grantaire in that I have no hero, but I am a budding cynic (a trait I suppose I picked up from my mother). But is it cynicism or realism, after all?
All comparisons aside, Grantaire, the homely, arrogant, lazy, cynical drunk, is, oddly enough, one of the most beautiful characters in the entire novel. =]
If you don’t mind me asking, who is your hero you’d “follow literally everywhere”?

My favorite, hmmm. It’s not so definite a decision for me. I do really like Grantaire, but I think Jollllly is cute – what with hypochondria and bookishness and everything. Combeferre, while I never did pay much attention to him seemed to have a good balance between intelligence and idealism. Also, this scene is just great:
http://cillabub.deviantart.com/art/Super-Republican-SMACKDOWN-100870614
L’aigle is a sweetheart. <3 Prouvaire is a poet and a badass and a dreamer. <3 I can remember absolutely no details about Bahorel and I know Feuilly was poor and worked hard and remained cheerful so that’s good I guess. Then Enjolras has his super badass moments every once in a while as well. Did I forget anyone besides Courfeyrac?

[Kemathenga]

Oh, I like Bahorel. He's the one, Gavroche takes a liking to. He comes from a peasant family which should count for good common sense ;-).

And I also like Feuilly. For several reasons. He's not a student, so he provides common sense, too, and a realistic look on life. And he's an orphan and knows what it is like to belong nowhere but other than Grantaire he does not choose one hero to make up for this but to give himself to everybody, especially to those as deprived of a home as he himself is. Poland, for instance, just dealt out to the nations like a bag of candy and it hasn't recovered to this day. It indicates a strong soul and character if you lack something as vital as a family and a home not to try and CLING to something/someone but to rather GIVE. I admire Feuilly.

As for my hero. Its difficult to write about that on the internet. It's somebody who was very important to me and who is dead now.

And as far as freedom is concerned - there'S an article on our newspaper today. Some business, our public transports and the local soccer club are running an experiment together: a bus stuffed with sensors and cameras to save all the passengers reactions, temperature, movements and habits in order to "better understand their behaviour". What is it we are to them? Guinea pigs? Or is this 1984 reloaded? I'm still fuming from reading this at breakfast this morning!

[bluesun777]

=] Well, if Gavroche likes him...

Indeed, I like Feuilly for his hard work and peseverence. Which is probably why I always get him mixed up with Bossuet.

Oh wow. That's just awful. Jeez. Life is becoming more and more like a science fiction novel all the time. On the up side, despite technology's exponential increases, literature remains prevalent. In fact, websites like this one are even used for discussing novels. Literature and technology working together. Thus, all hope is not lost for avoiding a Fahrenheit 451.

What are you thoughts on Marius? Can he be forgiven for his stupidity and selfishness? Or is he a hero?

Also, http://bluesun777.deviantart.com/art/Les-Mis-Happy-Dance-colored-152840617
Click on it to enlarge. This may be a bit pretentious, but I thought you might like it. =]

[Kemathenga]

Hi, bluesun,

thanks for the link. I like the idea of letting them all have a good time together. :-)

Well, Marius, he's certainly the kind of idiot you'd expect him to be. Idealistic, eager to prove himself and absolutely NOT eager to accept help and advise. Like: I'm going through this wall even if there's a door right beside me. Of course he must be forgiven if only because he never lets others pay for his stupidity - not even his aunt. I like it that Hugo describes him in several stages of development. How he learns to love his father and immediately idolizes him and tries to become like he would have wanted him to be (probably) and then after meeting the ABC-friends he wants to be with them and be accepted by them and realizes he can't be accepted by his father (posthum) AND his friends, blast it! :-) Just like he can't love Cosette more than life itself AND go on studying and living and maybe even earning some money. Let's do something almost unforgiveable and compare him to Harry Potter. Harry was almost perfect from the beginning on. Dumbledore never fails to emphasize it. Harry, you can love! How wonderful and handy in fighting Voldemort. And how very unrealistic. A child who never knew love and attention, who was abused by his relatives, mistreated and punished at home and at school arrives at a wizard-school and is able on the spot to make friends, adapt to a community and show extraordinary powers and skills. Excuse me, Mrs. Rowling, but whom are you trying to fool?

And then there is MArius. A lonely child growing up with his grandfather, never knowing much love and tenderness but learning from early age on that his father was no good. And he then learns after his father's death that this man loved him deeply and made sacrifices for him. The young man, overwhelmed by this proof of love, identifies with the dead father at once and tries to stabilize this identity by opposing his grandfather. Then he meets friendship and tries to identify with THAT to the point of joining a bloody insurrection and then he realizes that he, who WAS loved after all by his father and therefore MUST be loveable, can love another person and throws himself and his soul which must be craving for love full heartedly into his adoration for Cosette.
If I had to choose who is the better psychologist I'd take Hugo any time.
Don't you agree?

[bluesun777]

“Like: I'm going through this wall even if there's a door right beside me.”
- That made me laugh out loud. An excellent description of his character.
I don’t know. I think others certainly do pay for his stupidity: his father, Eponine, M. Gillenormand, Jean. Marius does hurt people.

Well, Harry’s also a whiny little thing at times. (To quote a funny parody I saw, “I’m feeling angsty and pubescent today and I don’t know why! I’m going to take it out on people I like!”) And he never does anything but yell at his friends about it. But you are right about his adaptation. It is strange that he should be able to do all of those things. However, he does have to make friends with other outsiders as well. Perhaps due to his feeling like an outsider. I suppose it is just Rowling using the underdog theme. Nonetheless, Harry seems far more realistic and easier for me to relate to.

That is an interesting analysis of Marius’ personality. I have always attributed his passion simply to romanticism. Kind of like how Romeo is thrown into despair or happiness depending on his seeing Juliet. In fact, Marius and Cosette are compared to the Shakespearean couple several times in the book. However, perhaps the reason is because of his childhood and latent discoveries of love. Comparatively, however, at least Marius’ grandfather loved him growing up. I don’t think he had it quite as bad as Harry.
Marius (and sometimes Harry) can really anger me sometimes. But Harry has much more reason. Marius, on the other hand, indirectly causes Jean’s, and less importantly, Eponine’s, deaths. Killing my favorite character is not easily forgiven. On the other hand, his heart is in the right place, and, as I mentioned a while back, he does have his instances of badassery (saving Gavroche and Courfeyrac). He is also quite cute at times when he is with Cosette. (“If no one loved, the sun would go out.”) Also, when he realizes where gratitude is due, he shows it; as in the case of Jean and his father, etc. I suppose he is just too naïve for me to take seriously. I prefer heroes like him to be a little more down to earth. I’d choose Harry over Marius. But comparing the two novels is a bit of a stretch in some places.

(So, would that make Cosette Ginny? I don’t know about that. Thenardier would be Peter Pettigrew. Gavroche ~= Fred/George. Javert would beeee... Snape! Oh, well that works out well. Jean doesn’t quite fit Dumbledore though. Wow. This is hard. Any others?)

[hoope]

I will discuss Jean Valjean personality in short.. though it's so deep and every scene needs a whole day to talk about .... But i hope you will accept my simple intrusion :smile5:

He was an ex-convinct not that commit a crime but just wanted to feed his poor family who were starving , he was imprison for breaking in store and stealing a loft of bread !I see an injustice in this.. How poor people lived back at those days ? Hence, Vlajean was known as a convict not that he was a one because his morals & attitudes were far away from that of any convict. It was the unjust community that they lived in back then... It was the life that turned him that way . He hated the government and blamed them but yet he couldn't do anything but become what they wanted him to be a prisoner .

He meets the saint who when he intended to steal him ; he hesistated because of his spirit but then he did steal him and the saint knew that but he didn't take any action and let him go . However when he was caught with those expensive silvers ; and the police accused him of stealing them for where the hell could a filthy poor man with no money & job get them from. There the Saint said i gave them to him .... In that particular moment , he started seeking the redemption. A new beginning . For he is not who the people want him to be .. that saint gave him hope and a motive to change for the saint saw thebeautiful part of Valjean that he can make a new start .. people are not what life wants them but what we want to be .

Jean Valjean changed and what i most admire in him is not only his strenght for bearing everything life has done to him but also his love for young Cossett and when he gives his life for her.. he becomes the only father she ever knew and saves her beloved one Marius ... No man can do anything like that .

And when he save Javert from being killed ... that also not only proved to us the noble character that he had but also to Javert , who puzzelled Valjean's behavior . How can one save a person he was a reason to destroy his life and chase him all this years... How can one forget all this hatred that Javert carried to him ? Simply because Valjean knew that life is not about revenge but about forgiving .

Hugo has drawn one of his masterpiece in the character of Jean Valjean. And what most touched me was the tragedic death of Jean Valjean .


" He is asleep Though his mettie was sorely tried,
He lived, and when he lost who loved, died,
It happened calmy , on its own
The way night comes when day is done "



Regards,
Hoope

[kiki1982]

Just a remark. Your translation was just a little bit off:

"Il dort. Quoique le sort fût pour lui bien étrange.
Il vivait. Il mourut quand il n'eut plus son ange;
La chose simplement d'elle même arriva,
Comme la nuit vient lorsque le jour s'en va."

"He sleeps. Though his lot was quite strange.
He lived. He died when he had his angel no longer;
It [(death)] came simply of itself,
Like the night comes when the day goes."

[hoope]

Oh ! thanks kiki .. for the correction :)

[kiki1982]

The poem is just a little ambiguous. The it inthe third line (in French 'la chose', which means 'the thing') could also be the fact that Cosette left her father (Jean Valjean), to go to another man. That is also by itself, because nearly all girls (and boys for that matter) go away from their parents to stand on their own two feet. As Jean Valjean's death is inevitable if he loses Cosette (not only because she is the purpose for him personally, but also on a more metaphysical level), the two (his death and Cosette leaving) come together in that third sentence. Night will come after the day; the night of eternal sleep will come after the light Cosette has gone out.

The second sentence expresses the analogy of the bishop and his candelabras. If the candelabras burn, the bishop/angel is there. He is there until the end, when Jean Valjean gives them to Cosette (will he be there for her all the time?).

His death, or the leaving of Cosette, is a gradual thing, though. The day goes away, like a person. One can see the other getting further away until the latter is just a speck on the horizon and so is the leaving of Cosette: she does not disappear in one go, she gradually gets further and further away from him (from the day she starts puberty to the day she gets married, to the day he doesn't come and see her anymore. cfr the gradual taking away of furniture and things like that in the room where Jean Valjean and Cosette meet after her marriage). His death is also a process of a gradual nature. Eventually, he goes, but he gets further and further away from Cosette, and thus dies, like a candle that has reached its end.

ah snif

[hoope]

The poem is just a little ambiguous. The it inthe third line (in French 'la chose', which means 'the thing') could also be the fact that Cosette left her father (Jean Valjean), to go to another man. That is also by itself, because nearly all girls (and boys for that matter) go away from their parents to stand on their own two feet. As Jean Valjean's death is inevitable if he loses Cosette (not only because she is the purpose for him personally, but also on a more metaphysical level), the two (his death and Cosette leaving) come together in that third sentence. Night will come after the day; the night of eternal sleep will come after the light Cosette has gone out.

The second sentence expresses the analogy of the bishop and his candelabras. If the candelabras burn, the bishop/angel is there. He is there until the end, when Jean Valjean gives them to Cosette (will he be there for her all the time?).

His death, or the leaving of Cosette, is a gradual thing, though. The day goes away, like a person. One can see the other getting further away until the latter is just a speck on the horizon and so is the leaving of Cosette: she does not disappear in one go, she gradually gets further and further away from him (from the day she starts puberty to the day she gets married, to the day he doesn't come and see her anymore. cfr the gradual taking away of furniture and things like that in the room where Jean Valjean and Cosette meet after her marriage). His death is also a process of a gradual nature. Eventually, he goes, but he gets further and further away from Cosette, and thus dies, like a candle that has reached its end.

ah snif

That is so well written Kiki , i just love those lines.. and admire your explanation.
Thanks for make it clear .

[BienvenuJDC]

As far as Valjean's innocence, even he admits that there were other ways that he could have obtained the food that he needed, so the injustice was not that society did not provide for the needs. The true injustice is found repeated throughout Javert's attitude. Gilbert and Sullivan summed it up very well in one of their performances....
"Let the punishment fit the crime." The French judicial system failed in this. Five years for stealing a load of bread....hardly solved the problem. Their focus was only on punishing and dividing the "scum" from the piety. Furthermore, the extended sentences for attempted escape...not seeing the REAL problem, which was the inhumane treatment of prisoners. No concept of rehabilitation...the true answer is found in my favorite quote below...

(more to come)

[hoope]

Well maybe that quote proves that Javert wasn't bad after all ; he conscious woke up late .. When he kills himself ! Because he can't live with !

Cultivators refers to humans - when we are unable to correct the system . The French system failed then .. isn't that why the revolution started in France!
The system failed Jean Valjean ... as it always does and we conclude that even now things like this happen .

[kiki1982]

Didn't Hugo write in Les Misérables at some point (I seem to remember some time after he escapes prison for the last time) that France (the king at that point) needed people to row on the galleys, because there were not enough? So, they needed people and they got them through convicting people to forced labour, which was Jean Valjean's lot. They exaggerated their sentences because, in those days, they did not believe that a person could get better (I mean, for God's sake, for one accusation (not necessarily true) a life sentence. If we were to try to introduce it now...). There was physiognomy that said that certain faces were doomed anyway (a person with a concave nose was avaricious, for example). Through the ages those views changed particularly in the age Hugo was writing in, there was a belief in bettering people by kindness.

I think Hugo's sentiment was rather anger at post-Revolution France.There was 1789 from which year on, everything would get better, but did it? No. They killed a whole load of people, including the king in 1793, who were alledgedly against the revolution, Napoleon became emperor and then lost half his troops in Russia because of bad planning and then France got forced onto it a king again by the rest of Europe which they kicked out in the 1830s (the barricades in the book). All through this, though, nothing got better for anyone. Maybe for the bourgeoisie (who really didn't have anything to say in the old days, but also really had a good life). They used the common people to storm the Bastille (the state prison for political prisoners), then now they became the new 'royalty'/'nobility'. They were so much in love with their own power that they ceased to care about the poor (emphasised in Jean Valjean, Cochepaille, the Thénardiers, Gavroche (part of the Thénardiers), also in Javert's attitude) although professing egality, liberty and fraternity. Hugo was disappointed with it because he started off very enthusiastic (like Marius and his friends), but clearly saw that it was not happening.

[kiki1982]

Well maybe that quote proves that Javert wasn't bad after all ; he conscious woke up late .. When he kills himself ! Because he can't live with !

That's just it!

But see it like this:

Javert has been trained as a policeman and has been trained according to certain principles (see above my post about physiognomy). He doesn't believe that a criminal can ever get better. Only, when he realises that he has been wrong about that all his life when he witnesses Jean Valjean convinced of Marius being alive instead of killing him and robbing him of his money, he cannot live with it. His self knows that he has been wrong, but his self cannot reunite with his material manifestation as a policeman. That is his problem. (I have mused on this in an earlier post) Notice that at that point, he calls Jean Valjean for the first time 'vous'. I know it cannot be translated in English, but the French form 'vous' is the form used for politeness. The common familiar you is 'tu'. All through the book, Javert has called Jean Valjen 'tu' (as an old convict who does not merit any respect), but just before he kills himself when they arrive at Gillenormand's place to deliver Marius barely alive, he calls Jean Valjean 'vous' as someone who deserves respect. It is such a poignant moment in that story and it shows Javert's changed mindset.

Ever seen John Malcovich as Javert? He IS Javert.

[BienvenuJDC]

The cultivators refer the the human systems. The French judiciary system failed both Valjean AND Javert. The religious system would have failed just the same. However, the true Christian system that M. Myriel had adopted instead of the current religious system that he was under succeeded through the blessed Bienvenu. Instead of punishment and seeing the evil in men, the perspective of the Bishop was grounded in mercy and seeking the humanity in man.

M. Myriel saw the good in man. Valjean was also good at finding the good in things...after his conversion. Here is the excerpt from my quoted chapter...

One day he saw some country people busily engaged in pulling up nettles; he examined the plants, which were uprooted and already dried, and said: "They are dead. Nevertheless, it would be a good thing to know how to make use of them. When the nettle is young, the leaf makes an excellent vegetable; when it is older, it has filaments and fibres like hemp and flax. Nettle cloth is as good as linen cloth. Chopped up, nettles are good for poultry; pounded, they are good for horned cattle. The seed of the nettle, mixed with fodder, gives gloss to the hair of animals; the root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful yellow coloring-matter. Moreover, it is an excellent hay, which can be cut twice. And what is required for the nettle? A little soil, no care, no culture. Only the seed falls as it is ripe, and it is difficult to collect it. That is all. With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How many men resemble the nettle!" He added, after a pause: "Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators."

Give men the right influence and understanding...and who knows what can be gleaned from them.

[BienvenuJDC]

Ever seen John Malcovich as Javert? He IS Javert.

No...where...when...Malcovich would no doubt make a perfect Javert. Geoffrey Rush wasn't bad, but I have to see John...

[hoope]

Anger as you said could be the reason but that stil doesn't deny th fact that its true


They were so much in love with their own power that they ceased to care about the poor (emphasised in Jean Valjean, Cochepaille, the Thénardiers, Gavroche (part of the Thénardiers), also in Javert's attitude) although professing egality, liberty and fraternity.

Agree with that !



Through the ages those views changed particularly in the age Hugo was writing in, there was a belief in bettering people by kindness.
Yea ! i believe that prisoner can change too ,,Have you watched 16 blocks :D ?


Notice that at that point, he calls Jean Valjean for the first time 'vous'. I know it cannot be translated in English, but the French form 'vous' is the form used for politeness. The common familiar you is 'tu'. All through the book, Javert has called Jean Valjen 'tu' (as an old convict who does not merit any respect), but just before he kills himself when they arrive at Gillenormand's place to deliver Marius barely alive, he calls Jean Valjean 'vous' as someone who deserves respect. It is such a poignant moment in that story and it shows Javert's changed mindset.
That also amuzed me ,,, I believe that this was the least he owe to Valjean.And as i said Javert Couldn't live with it ... You kiki , made it however clearer to everyone that Javert can't be a policeman unless he has such character( your physiognomy ).
One can't be a policeman without putting his humane a side.. ofcourse that is back at that time . Javert was presenting the vengeful form of the government and so he had to be .


Instead of punishment and seeing the evil in men, the perspective of the Bishop was grounded in mercy and seeking the humanity in man.
Without any religion no nation can flourish - this i believe in . In here Mercy was the answer and the example . The saint was a sign , though it could have been anyone else. But Hugo wanted to link it with religion so he probably chose a Bishop , were Valjean came back and made his new start .

[kiki1982]

In 2000. Depardieu as Jean Valjean and John Malcovich as Javert. That mini series was just... what to say... words fail. There exists a French version and an English one. I prefer the French as the text is more to the point. John Malcovich considers his French as 'poor', but really, he cannot say that. One cannot hear that he is of another nationality and he act in this admirable emotionless/neutral French way. That makes it all the more real. And it is his voice.

It was Depardieu, I think, who persuaded him to do it as they are great friends. John Malcovich considered his French fluent (he lives in France), but not enough to do a French film and play a role of this magnitude.

The series was magnificent and made by the same people that made Cyrano de Bergerac, The Count of Monte Cristo and a number of other acclaimed series.

[hoope]

I didn't watch that one.. nor any french version ,,
I watched the English ones .. and that of 1998 movie starting Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush, Uma Thurman and Claire Danes.

As for Goeffrey Rush ; he has played Javert quite well and Liam Neeson .. was really awesome in playing Valjean :)

[kiki1982]

I found that one too shot and too emotional. That film was lacking in depth.

[bluesun777]

Hoope: “No man can do anything like that .”
You pointed out that no man could do the kind acts Jean carries out. I disagree, I think that part of the beauty of Valjean comes from the fact that he is simply an average man who chooses to reform and do good. Therefore, he symbolizes hope for others to do good as well.

Kiki: “Javert has been trained as a policeman and has been trained according to certain principles (see above my post about physiognomy). He doesn't believe that a criminal can ever get better. Only, when he realises that he has been wrong about that all his life when he witnesses Jean Valjean convinced of Marius being alive instead of killing him and robbing him of his money, he cannot live with it. His self knows that he has been wrong, but his self cannot reunite with his material manifestation as a policeman. That is his problem. (I have mused on this in an earlier post) Notice that at that point, he calls Jean Valjean for the first time 'vous'. I know it cannot be translated in English, but the French form 'vous' is the form used for politeness. The common familiar you is 'tu'. All through the book, Javert has called Jean Valjen 'tu' (as an old convict who does not merit any respect), but just before he kills himself when they arrive at Gillenormand's place to deliver Marius barely alive, he calls Jean Valjean 'vous' as someone who deserves respect. It is such a poignant moment in that story and it shows Javert's changed mindset.”

Really? That’s great stuff! Thank you for explaining. =]

Everybody: Regarding Javert as portrayed by actors: Geoffrey Rush did well as Javert, and I have not seen John Malkovich (but then, I don't speak French). However aren't you forgetting Philip Quast? I mean, I know there are a lot of character differences between Javert and musical-Javert, but seriously, Quast is awesome as Javert.
Also, I've seen the 1998 version. I give it a 3.5 out of 5. It was like a fanfiction that got turned into a movie. A pretty good fanfiction, but nonetheless, it lost something quintessential about the spirit of the story. Hard to explain. The musical found it, the movie not so much. Fantine's descent was effective and rather disturbing - quite well done. Also, I rewatched parts of it that were really good, but overall was very upset by the utter destruction of Jean's character. I mean, Liam Neeson's a good actor, but Neeson-Jean is all wrong. He actually hits Cosette. I mean, what the hell?

[kiki1982]

There you are right, Bluesun, about the hitting. Jean Vajean would rather die than do anything, however small, to Cosette.

I found Geoffrey Rush in the scene prior to where Jean Valjean attempts to hit Cosette much too friendly. Javert should turn up and should awaken fear: he is a man (he has two arms and two legs and can talk), but empty; there is no emotion in him, nor in speech, nor in demeanor; only his silhouette on the wall should scare you. He is like a machine and therefore relentless in his pursuit of Jean Valjean. The sad thing about Javert is that he does not even have a personal motive to pursue Jean Valjean.

In Geoffrey Rush's Javert there was too much intonation in his speech, too much interest, too much politeness and at some point I think I saw a little smile on him. His face is also too nice. It does not scare, it puts you at ease (the nice policeman who comes to visit you). Maybe it is his nose, maybe his mouth. I don't know, but he is not Javert.

Philip Quest I haven't been able to see because he is from the musical right? But the pictures I can see of him do not have the same effect that Javert should have.

I always wondered if Javert actually had a wife and children or not. I bank on 'no', because I can't see Javert courting. I see can Phillip Quest doing that.

Apparently John Malkovich (of which Javert there is a version in English) was a renewal, because he is no longer the nasty villain who is there to willingly destroy Jean Vajean's life, but he is the machine of the original who commits suicide because he cannot deal with his issue. At least this was so in French cinea according to director Josée Dayan adn her screen play writer, but I expect that it cannot be any different in English cinema.

[Kemathenga]

As for Philipp Quast I'd like to add without having seen one of the movies that he displays Javert excellently to me because he does not make him appear like a machine. And neither does Hugo describe him that way. Hugo's javert does have feelings. Maybe not deep enough for courting but deep enough for over-confidence - when hunting Jean Valjean and Cosette through Paris and thinking them trapped, for example. Hugo's Javert isn't a monster that evokes fear wherever he goes, he's discipline that became flesh. He hunts Jean Valjean because he is convinced that it's the right thing to do and one must do the right thing. He's a representative of a society which firmly believes there is only two kinds of people: the good ones and the bad ones and the duty of the police and other leading authorities is to distinguish between them and keep the distinction clear. Since Jean Valjean belongs to the bad ones it is inevitable that Javert hunts him, it's the ORDER of things.
There is a saying among fans of the musical that Javert is not the bad guy and many actors play him that way, add a touch of soul to him. Some overdo it and act like he really had a personal spite at Jean Valjean or like he was on a crusade against him but Philipp Quast is marvelous, I fully agree.