Marius
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My Thoughts on Part 3 of Les Miserables
I had a hard time getting into part 3, as I tend to be impatient in my reading constantly wondering about relevance. But of course, Hugo makes everything worth while and without fail Marius is just as intriguing as his predecessors: Fantine and Cosette.
I love how Hugo builds a story out of lengthy character developments and social commentary. There’s no story, just life, but in that it is one of the most fascinating stories ever told. I think that is why I always find the climactic plot points so startling and wonderful – I don’t expect them. Hugo waits until you’ve settled into not being impatient, gotten cozy with the daily ins and outs of a particular character’s existence, and then shatters your world with a life altering event for them. The whole thing is beautiful, and depressing, and wonderful. .. think East of Eden, but instead of a sunny dust bowl, you’ve got the dank, cold of Paris. Why am I so drawn to this kind of literature?
I am 710 pages into this novel with only 550 pages to go, the overwhelming intimidation behind me, now I’m just eager to see what happens to all these people I have come to love (and hate). I am so glad I joined a readalong to encourage me through this novel, but I have found that the group really hasn’t served the purpose I previously expected. I hoped to read posts and have discussions, following the thoughts of others in a classroom like manner as I plodded through this masterpiece. Instead, I impatiently wait for other bloggers to share their reading experiences, only to find they haven’t read or at least haven’t posted about what they’ve read.
So instead, I sit here cherishing Fantine, Cosette, Jean Valjean, and Marius alone. Instead, I find that few others are sharing my desire to throw the Thenardier’s off a cliff by the mere fact that they are not presently posting the desire. God, I hope I am not the only one feeling murderess passions toward these useless pieces of crap who keeps “a pipe in his mouth, and was smoking. There was no more bread in the den, but there was tobacco.” People who do nothing for themselves, but scrape by off the hard work and sympathies of others, breaking their own windows to appear even more poor to a wealthier man who might give them money.
Misery loves company, and as I am reading Les Miserables – I want company to lament in the utter awfulness of these people who do everything they can to bring the good ones down to their level. The good ones being those equally destitute, equally at odds with the world, but doing their best to make a life and stay as happy as can be imagined.
Have you read Les Miserables? Care to join me? We will be all ready to see this at the end of the year: http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/50396/the-les-miserables-trailer-a-million-theater-geeks-just-fainted
Read my next post on Les Miserables.
Fantine
Notes from a Les Miserables Readalong
I am reading from the Modern Library edition
On History
As a reader, I am captivated by novels about the Napoleanic Wars, or more accurately, set during the Napoleanic Wars. Long have I loved Jane Austen heroines, had my heart pitter patter to the feats of Horatio Hornblower, and kept such writers as Alexander Kent and Patrick O’Brian on my TBR pile. But I’ve never take the approach of a historian to these wars, and certainly never contemplated the affect they had on the countries involved. So with a copy of Les Miserables sitting on my night stand, I am now admonished for my previous ignorance. So much pain, so much chaos, on every level of the human experience: politics, religion, the whole of society has been torn apart. And just a few pages into Les Miserables, I can’t help but wonder: Is Hugo going to put it together again?
On Writing
Reading old letters in novels always has struck me. So often characters end with something along the lines of running out of paper or their paper being filled up. Even as a child, reading all the historical pieces I could get my hands on, this concept amazed me. The idea of running out of paper! What luxury we have in this modern age of ours! (Yes, in a book about people starving and not having enough to keep a fire in winter, the luxury I am stunned by is paper, not the fact that I am always well fed!) Never am I out of stationary or cards to write letters; never am I out of journal space, always buying the next one when I see that I am thirty pages or so near the end. How spoiled we all are that now we are even less likely to run out of room to express ourselves with all the unlimited cyberspace at our fingertips – unless of course while on Twitter, confined by 140 characters.
On Personal Experience
“being in the mountains, the evenings of October are cold there.” – pg. 54
Its always the little things I get hung up on when I’m reading, often distracted by my own experiences. I see cold and October in the same sentence, I swear, for nearly ten minutes I stop reading and think of all those excrutiating Halloween nights in Texas. I distinctly remember, and most often recall, that one muggy night spent in a pumpkin suit noisily shifting the newspaper so my chest and belly could breathe. “Who thinks about pumpkin suits while reading Les Miserables?!” is the thought that occurs to me, bringing me back to the page… only to see traveller and innkeeper and start thinking about Christmas. That train of thought wasn’t done any favors by the fact that the innkeeper tells the traveller, “Monsier, I cannot receive you […] I have no room.”
On The Bishop
Of course, I adore him.
“In such moments, offering up his heart at the hour when the flowers of night inhale their perfume, lighted like a lamp in the centre of the starry night, expanding his soul in ecstasy in the midst of the universal radiance of creation, he could not himself perhaps have told what was passing in his own mind; he felt something depart from him, and something descend upon him; mysterious interchages of the depths of the soul with the depths of the universe.” – pg. 49
That description is so beautiful. The man himself is so beautiful. I envision him sitting around endless vines of jasmine under the moonlight communing with God and its just a very pretty image that resonates with me and does not leave. Then, later, I nearly cried the moment the bishop ordered the woman to put clean sheets on the bed for the convict.
On Felix, Fantine, and Cosette
Felix is such an irresponsible jerk! And the girls to praise him such with laughter! Fantine is such a fool, never met such a naive character in all my life. And poor little Cosette, the victim of their faults. Its true that while reading this book your heart just breaks and breaks over and over again. Hugo doesn’t help matters, the moment I get attached to a character – even in their woe and distress – I am whisked away to be introduced to another.
On Jean Valjean
The story of Jean Valjean is quite possibly the most depressingly awful thing I’ve ever read, until I read about all the escape attempts and deem the man an idiot for not just waiting out his sentence patiently. For his intial nineteen years in prison, I have no sympathy. However, he redeems himself and earns my care later, but I don’t want to post any spoilers at the moment… not until everyone dives into the book and gets more than their little toes wet.
Favorite Quotes
“Table talk and lovers’ talk equally elude the grasp; lovers’ talk is clouds, table talk is smoke.” – pg. 115
“He loved books; books are cold but sure friends.” – pg. 142
“Some people are malicious from the mere necessity of talking.” – pg. 155
Fantine Posts from the Kate’s Library Readalong Blog Hop
Kate’s Library http://kateslibrary.blogspot.com/2012/03/les-miserables-victor-hugo-post-1.html
Southern Bluestocking http://southernbluestocking.com/2012/01/07/les-miserables-book-1-fantine/
A Room of One’s Own http://jillianreadsbooks2.wordpress.com/category/authors/victor-hugo/
If you’re in this blog hop too, please leave a comment below with a link to your post about Part I: Fantine.
Next Les Miserables Blog Post by Anakalian Whims: https://anakalianwhims.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/les-miserables-readalong-update-50412/
Anakalian Whims 