#((I GET TO KEEP THE FMA PUN/REFERENCE IN THIS RUN!!!))

[adamantlocked]

Route 207

“YAY!” He needed a Fire-type in his team for a lot of reasons - while he wouldn’t be able to do much in the upcoming Gym, this Ponyta should be able to help out a lot going into Eterna Forest and the Gym there. 

Roy / Male / Naughty / Highly persistent / Likes spicy food / Flash Fire

[pilferingapples]

Brick Club 17, 1.1.1-1.1.5

ALL RIGHT LET'S GO 

This entry is mostly pretty livebloggy/about the translation BUT there's a larger point in it I'm really curious about, so that goes above the cut:

In 1.1.3, when the Bishop is giving his examples of Virtues as Lived By People Just Like You So You Know You Don't Have To Suck,  he mentions the village of Queyras, an apparently idyllic place where around three thousand people band together to pay for travelling teachers,  and there's no need of lawyers because the town officials do all the legal wrangling for free and the people respect their chosen leaders. 

So here's the thing: Myriel says that wonderful little Queyras is "like a little republic". ("Mon Dieu! C'est comme un petite republique." 1.1.3).

Now this chapter is well ahead of the chapter with the Conventionist, and Myriel is royalist. (Even after the talk with the Conventionist, he's a monarchist, really.) So why is he talking about a well-run place as  a republic?  Is  Digne an exceptionally republican bishopric, where that would be what people listen to? (this is not at all impossible!)  Is there some common Christian use of the term that would make this a natural positive description despite Myriel's personal dislike of the republic and the revolution? (I've heard "the republic of Heaven" used in some descriptions but only in American history studies, where it's obviously gonna be a less complicated term for the audience of the day than it would be in post-Rev France.)  Anyone have any thoughts here?

Anyway! Much more scattered notes below:

-I think Donougher makes it more clear than usual that Myriel was a Scandal in his youth. Probably cheated on his (arranged) wife, like, a LOT-- "amorous intrigue" doesn't mean "wowie what a lot of marital sex", after all.  

I LOVE this, because  Myriel obviously isn't haunted by guilt-- he's very content and happy!-- and he doesn't try to split his identity into Past Myriel and New Myriel to account for his change of heart. Instead he's learned from his own experience and clearly incorporates it as part of his way to understand and compassionate others.

This is kind of a major point of the book--not just moving past mistakes, but learning from them and learning SYMPATHY from them to help others, because other people WILL be in similar situations because Humans Screw Up A Lot--and it's part of why Myriel gets to be a Big Good and I love it and I am really sorry that more adaptations don't find a way to reference this aspect of his story!

-gad knowing more about the NIII situations really makes all the sympathy for Myriel's emigre status hit a lot harder. The situation at home being maybe even "more terrifying" for emigres who don't hear news right away and can't interact with events and have to be passive...yeah, that's gotta be a particular Feeling for Hugo, there. 

-I think Donougher's translation of the good man/great man thing loses the pun and the poetry that make it work. Hmm. 

-Myriel knows  "THE MUSCULAR LANGUAGE OF THE SOUTH". Okay! That sent me to look up the original, which is "l''énergique  langue du midi"--which is not QUITE the same as The South in France, I think, but IS another Midi Relevance Point!  I should be keeping a tally on those. >_>

- I don't really like the translation of Baptistine's intro? And I'm not sure how much is Hugo's fault and how much Donougher's. But I do think part of the problem here is sheer Era Dissonance-- Hugo's going on about Genderless Souls In Bodies is less jarring in the 19C-style parlance of the day, like Wilbour and thus FMA  tend to rely on; it's not un-weird but it's weird in a way that sort of fits?  in the more modern tone Donougher uses, lines like "hardly enough of a body to have any sexual identity" are...even weirder and more uncomfortable?  Yeah. 

-"we do not say the portrait that we have presented here is very likely; only that it is very like." OK now that's a nice translation of the phrase!

-Geez I really feel for Magloire and Baptistine--they're running a household of three on half of Bahorel's allowance, and of course the Bishop is the one who gets to allot that budget even though he's not the one who has to make it work. And I love Myriel! He's great! But Obvious Problem Is Obvious, here, though I think it wasn't to Hugo. 

1.1.3

-"The Phantom of Social Justice Haunted Him" -- A Tumblr Story

1.1.4

I NEED THIS CHAPTER TO BE IN ADAPTATIONS. I NEED IT.  The corruption and hypocrisy of the justice system, the horror of the death penalty, the callousness of other Church officials to the convicted--that first priest was going to just let the condemned man die without last rites, which WOW that's INCREDIBLY dehumanizing--and the fact that this is all seen and clearly dged by the Bishop, who has no personal gain in judging it unfair and wrong, is a big deal. So is the obvious effect it has on Myriel! An ex-exile has no reason to think the legal system is infallible, but it's obvious in these chapters that his priestly duties have allowed Myriel lots of chances to see where the legal system is inhumane and against his idea of how men should treat each other in God's name.  Kind of relevant to his big plot-transfer moment later! 

I also like seeing the Bishop...not despairing, but sort of rattled, here, *and* clearly turning to his faith as a way of finding understanding.  Especially on the heels of the other priest's clearly unChristlike behavior, but also in light of things like the rich man buying "a sou's worth of paradise".  There's a seriously complex examination of how people use faith-- to embrace the world, to hide from it, to understand it, to push the world away,  as a way to justify their own behavior or a reason to interrogate it-- running through the book, of course, and it's one of my favorite things about the novel, and it starts right off, here.  The brief glimpse of Effortlessly Saintly Myriel in the moment his story crosses Valjean's really doesn't do him, or that wonderful complexity of discussion, any justice. 

1.1.5 

Agh. It's unstated, but the Bishop's milk-and-bread routine is both a probable necessity of his budgeting, and a thing that's enforced on Baptistine and Magloire without their having a say.  And if dining on milk and bread and a few boiled vegetables every day isn't starving, it's sure not *fun*.  The Bishop doesn't care, but his sister just defers, and Magloire, just a servant, has no say at all. 

I'm not sure how much of an issue this is meant to be HERE-- I think Magloire and Baptistine's sacrifices are really treated rather lightly.  But this is another major issue in the book at several points--the cost that sacrifice and heroism takes from others than the person choosing to do the sacrificing. It's a really tricky issue! And, gotta say,it is very often women who are left on the "don't get to do the choosing" side of the discussion.   I'll want to talk about this again when Valjean's black bread comes out later-- I wish I could think of a good way of tagging myself to Come Back To This  >_> 

Random Thoughts: 

I've said elsewhere that Bossuet actually reminds me of Myriel quite a bit , and WHOO BOY he really does. The snark, the carelessness about personal financial straits, the whole deal with the overworn clothing,  even the mention here that the Bishop "chats" to people (someone check the French for me to see if it's the same verb as the one used for Bossuet in Lieutenants?), which, even if it's just a translation choice, is definitely the right mood.  (There's definitely ties to others of the Amis, of course-- all the Idealists of the novel have certain resonances-- but this is the one that really stands out to me.) But there's a major difference in the Life Partner issue. But agh, that's another thing to come back to later...

OH AND: 

Terms of Endearment Tally:  

Baptistine "loves and venerates" her brother, l'amait and vénérait. 

Now I get to read everyone else's posts, yay!:D