#LM 1.1.4

[gavroche-le-moineau]

So far the FMA translation is doing a better job in spots I had problems with in Hapgood...

In today's chapter Bishop Myriel makes a joke about his height! FMA translates the joke as: “Madame Magloire sometimes called him "Your High­ness."” “...as the bishop was rather short, he could not reach it. "Madame Magloire," said he, "bring me a chair. My highness cannot reach that shelf."”

The use of the word "highness" conveys the sense of the joke much better than Hapgood's translation as "Your Grace" / "my greatness." The word used in French is "Grandeur" which means both physical size as well as grandeur/greatness/magnanimity. So when Bishop Myriel jokes “Ma Grandeur ne va pas jusqu’à cette planche.” He's saying "my size/height does not reach as far as that shelf" but employing the title "Ma Grandeur" bestowed on him by Madame Magloire.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Les Misérables 1.1.4 - Works Answering Words (Part 2)

Okay, now that I’ve gotten the tax policy stuff of my chest, I do have other thoughts on this chapter.

I love the bishop’s pun on ‘Votre Grandeur’ (which works better in French, where ‘grand’ actually does mean ‘tall’, than it does in English). He doesn’t like being called honorifics (see his line ‘Bienvenu counterbalances Monseigneur’), so if Mme. Magloire insists on calling him that all the time, he’s going to make light of it when he gets the chance. I think his tendency to respond to feeling annoyed or frustrated by using humour rather than by displaying anger or aggravation is also manifested in his latter two lines, about the countess and the miser.

I love the line:

As we can see, he had a strange and peculiar way of judging things. I suspect that he acquired it from the Gospel.

The part about the executed man made me think of one particular thing. What the bishop did is exacly what a good bishop is supposed to do - he gave the man spiritual counsel, gave him hope, enabled him to repent and trust in God’s mercy. I thought at first that the bishop’s being overwhelmed afterwards was due to trauma - he likely had friends and family who died at the guillotine, even if he did not see it. But in fact it is something different: after the fact, he reproaches himself. Likely he asks himself: this man has been granted mercy by God; what right then had human power to refuse it to him? Perhaps he no longer sees his presence at the guillotine as a good act, but as implicitly sanctioning something that ought not to have been sanctioned.

[shsenhaji]

Les Misérables - 1.1.4 - Les oeuvres semblables aux paroles

So, I didn't post anything yesterday, partly because I was too busy, and because I didn't have much to say about 1.1.3 - except that it was surprisingly short and that I totally didn't remember Victor Hugo directly comparing Myriel to Jesus Christ in actions and manner.

However, for today's chapter I do have Thoughts.

First thought: The French chapter title seems more meaningful and packs more of a punch than the English version.

Second thought: There were a few parts I didn't remember, including the trial of the man who made counterfeit money. Myriel's position of asking who judges the judge was pretty cool, and once again it's nice to see how his ideals ties into Jean Valjean and predisposes Myriel to act the way he does.

As my friend said in reply to my thoughts, "It's a really powerful setup for everything that comes later, for sure."

Third thought: For whatever reason, the narrator's tangent on the guillotine and the scaffold was a bit abrupt. The change from the past tense, describing Myriel, to a present-tense meditation on the guillotine took me by surprise, even though I like the book's conceit of a narrator describing past events while also expounding on things in the present sense, and that's one of the parts I enjoyed most last year. Perhaps it's the audiobook version that made a difference, or the French, but either way, I was taken a bit aback at that part. I guess I'll see how I feel as I continue to read. I do respect that Myriel (and the narrator/our friend Victor Hugo) is against the death penalty.

Fourth thought: the ending was both abrupt, a bit like the transitions between the scenes of Myriel's "oeuvres," but also sweet and quite touching.

Fifth thought: While I understanding what he's saying, I don't love this passage: "

« L’homme a sur lui la chair, qui est tout à la fois son fardeau et sa tentation. Il la traîne et lui cède.

« Il doit la surveiller, la contenir, la réprimer, et ne lui obéir qu’à la dernière extrémité. Dans cette obéissance-là, il peut encore y avoir de la faute ; mais la faute, ainsi faite, est vénielle. C’est une chute, mais une chute sur les genoux, qui peut s’achever en prière."

This sense of the flesh being burden and temptation, and always having to repress it... Especially the wording in original French sounded too preachy in a negative way; as in, our selves and desires are inherently wrong, and we have to watch ourselves all the time? In some ways, we do; we have to decide what our actions will be, regardless of initial impulses.

I do love how Myriel considers himself to be an ex-sinner, however. It says a lot about his past (which we don't know a lot about) and about his beliefs and actions.

Sixth thought: I really appreciated how Myriel in a way does realize that the actions of the poor and the "misérables" are not always their fault, though he specifically blames the fathers and husbands and the masters and the rich and the wise. However, the little aside at the end of that section, where the narrator tells us that Myriel's views are strange and sketchy, but that he probably got it from the Gospel, was both depressing and hilarious.

Final thought: "Le fantôme de la justice sociale l’obsédait." ("The phantom of social justice tormented him.") That line, when Myriel is grappling with his newfound crisis of faith regarding the practice of execution by the state - that hit me hard. In a way, it almost summed up a lot of the book's themes in really poetic way. The ghost of social justice. What so many characters grapple with or are forced to face, the ghost of old wrongs always coming back to haunt the present, the ever-present and oppressive forces so eloquently laid out in the preface...

[cliozaur]

This chapter delves deeply into revealing the character, worldview, and beliefs of Bishop Myriel. He clearly represents a modern approach to religion and preaching, avoiding references to hell and charity (as the path to salvation)—an approach distinct from the younger vicar's. He touches on sins, particularly bodily ones, only occasionally and without accusations. Instead, he engages in conversations, offers solace, and gently educates others about injustices, particularly against the peasants (the bishop is well-versed in his statistics!).

It’s nice that Hugo addresses the language issue: being a local, the bishop comprehends all the southern patois, making him approachable and trustworthy. During that era, language wasn't standardized, and people, especially peasants, from different parts of France had difficulties understanding each other. Weber notes that this situation slightly changed only towards the century's end with the introduction of standardized and compulsory education.

Marquis de Champtercier, “an ultra-royalist and an ultra-Voltairian,” reminded me of M. Gillenormand!

This chapter marks the formulation of some major themes of the novel for the first time: (1) Society’s responsibility for individuals’ ills. (2) Initial critical remarks about the flaws and injustices of the legal system. (3) The horror of the death sentence and execution—a topic that reflects Hugo’s own lifelong crusade.

[the-wraxall-illustrations]

[stargirl24601]

Les Mis Vol 1 Book 1 Ch 4 - Works Corresponding to Words

Bishop is pretty freaking iconic. The imagery and description of the guillotine is what strikes me the most of this chapter as well as the quotes about oppression and the oppressor. The vivid language of the scaffold being something that eats men and consumes that blood of the executed, that it is a being guilty for that murder in conjunction with the executioner. It’s a beautiful bit of personification.

The standout quotes of this chapter to me are:

“The faults of women, of children, of the feeble, the indigent, and the ignorant, are the fault of the husbands, the fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise.” It’s a tad reductionist in the context but it makes sense with the message that within binaries, oppression is enforced by the privileged party and the reactions of the oppressed parties attempting to survive within that system don't inherently reflect their true beliefs.

and “The guilty one is not the person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the shadow." This is the perfect summary of the previous quote and really hits at the heart of les mis

as well as “As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts.” This one is a bit more of a lighthearted one that shows the importance of communication and understanding across cultures. Also inspires me to do my Duolingo

[inmarbleimmobility]

1.1.4 - "Works to Match Words"

well look who finally got caught up enough in their real job to do their les mis letters posts! (and figured out how to use the title feature!) oh boy there's so much here y'all.

the title immediately stands out to me - it reminds me of a bible verse, though I can't immediately pinpoint which one. a quick google tells me probably james 2:17 (faith without works is dead) but i think 1 john 3:18 fits better - "[...] let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth". this whole chapter is an exploration of what people *say* (or what their titles/positions say about them) vs what they *do*.

Pun Count is now 2 ("My highness cannot reach that shelf", maybe my fave pun in the whole book)!

Myriel refers to the Saint Augustine quote ("place your expectations in him to whom there is no succession") as being "something odd", just like Hugo later says he has his "own strange way of judging things" - driving home that point that for a priest to follow christ's actual words and intentions isn't the rule but the exception.

not sure how the anecdote about his cousin fits my words/works thesis but let me get to the end of this post and I bet I'll find it!

"using the tomb to feed their vanity" seems to imply there's something else these men should be using the tomb for - most likely a contemplation on heaven?

"A pennyworth of paradise" - lots here!! someone else brought up Myriel choosing to convince people to good acts through love rather than fear; we're seeing the fear approach work here, but only insofar as it gets Geborand to donate a single penny - a token contribution, a "work" that is more word than deed. he can say he was charitable, therefore he thinks he'll get into heaven. Myriel's saying it doesn't work that way - that a pennyworth of charity only gets you a pennyworth of paradise, perhaps also that the greater your works on earth, the greater your reward in heaven? this is a view I personally don't vibe all that much with as I feel like in practice it only encourages performative "works" instead of its intent (to reward fully those who were truly good). it *is* a very biblical take, though; see the beatitudes.

the Marquis de Champtercier - others have mentioned him as a kind of precursor to Gillenormand, which, yeah! the "words" here are the marquis claiming he's prioritizing his own poor while the actual work is to deny "Myriel's poor" his donation. Myriel (and I) disagree with the "my poor/your poor" distinction - the suffering of any person is the responsibility of all of us to alleviate, hence "give them to me". interestingly this was the first time i read this line as "give *them* to me" instead of "give them to *me*" - the latter is, again, Myriel saying he doesn't discriminate between "his" poor and the "Marquis' poor"; the former feels like an even cheekier followup to "you must give me something" - if it won't be money, it'll be "his" poor.

"God gives light to men, and the law sells it." Myriel is speaking literally here re: the door and window tax (which I know nothing about; what's the logic there??), but in a larger sense, he also isn't. Light is one of the things I'm specifically looking for on this read, and this feels like the setup for the points Hugo will make later with his other usages of light. God gives light - hope, love, education, belonging, whatever it is - to men, and the law - literally, but also just society and government - sells it (at a monetary cost but also a less tangible one - your soul? your humanity?) goddamn, I can't believe I never thought more about all the things Hugo is subtly setting up in these chapters and passing off as Sick Bishop Burns TM.

"My brethren, be compassionate; see how much suffering there is around you" - it says he's preaching this at "the cathedral", but I don't know much about the demographic of Digne at this time. are his parishioners mostly rich? mostly laborers? a mix?

I appreciate the inclusion of Myriel's knowledge of Southern dialects more now that I know a little about the context of Occitan/lenga d'oc/Provencal at this time! i want to spend some time researching the history and linguistics of Occitan here soon, it's fascinating to me.

lots of people have expressed that Myriel's doctrine of repressing the body so as not to sin as rubbing them the wrong way, and same. unfortunately it very much jibes with the Catholic view of sin. nothing'll give you Permanent Weird Feelings About Your Body And Specifically Sex like Catholicism! (this last to be read like a tagline on a commercial with, like, the Mr. Clean guy doing a thumbs up above it, only he's wearing a miter.) from a modern viewpoint I'd expect Myriel to think a bit differently on this point the way he does on a lot of other Church doctrine things, but I suppose if he really "got it from the Gospels" there's plenty of textual evidence to support that. ew, Catholicism.

also not the first person to point out "but be upright" as paralleling "un juste", the title of this book, but wow it's good.

gonna be vulnerable here and confess I don't really get what he's saying about the "offended hypocrisy" that's "quick to protest and run for cover". pot/kettle I guess? maybe it's just worded in a way I can't wrap my mind around.

again with the Big Three - women, children, and laborers (here "servants". Hugo via Myriel directly identifies the corresponding oppressors - husbands, fathers, and masters - but in this case I'm not sure how much I agree with those. masters certainly, but husbands and fathers? certainly they *can* be oppressive and create those conditions Hugo so strongly opposes, but not always - and in many cases those husbands/fathers are also laborers, so. I much prefer his followup of the strong, the rich, and the wise. once again Hugo says eat the rich.

"the guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness." alright everyone, pack it up, we're done here, we've found the Main Idea! lmao can you imagine if that's where Hugo stopped? hilarious.

the counterfeiter. the "word" here is claiming to uphold justice, when the "work" is actually just upholding the law. I especially like the wording of saying the prosecutor had "brought truth to light" here - going to have to go grab my French text and see if this is a Hugo wording or a FMA wording, but either way it goes back to that theme of light - in this case, how the truth of the case isn't necessarily the same as the Light, the good.

the condemned man. there's so much here. "[Myriel] called [the condemned man] by his name" - this brings to mind musical!Valjean's line "my name is Jean Valjean!" when Javert persists in addressing him as 24601, as well as his later surprise when the bishop treats him like a person. sometimes all it takes is treating a person like a person. i'm sure this won't be the last time I say that. Hugo also refers to death as "an abyss" here; that recalls "I am reaching, but I fall/and the night is closing in/as I stare into the void/into the whirlpool of my sin". I don't think this is the first time Hugo refers to the unknown as an abyss, either! in this case, it isn't just the unknown of death that the condemned man fears, but likely also the judgment after, which he knows won't go well for him (he's specifically said to be "not ignorant enough to be indifferent"), much like the abyss of Valjean's sin. Myriel sheds light on this abyss ("showed him the light") and teaches the condemned man not to fear death or the afterlife. fascinating also how we're specifically told Myriel stays with the man onto the cart and all the way onto the scaffold, literally accompanying this man to his fate, helping him not be alone to the very last moment.

the upper classes see Myriel's reaction to the guillotine as "affectation" - because if they were to show the same outward reaction, it *would* be affectation for them.

haha hey did you guys know there's a character limit on tumblr posts? because i do now!! so uhh part 2 in a second i guess.

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - Works Corresponding to Words, LM 1.1.4 (Les Miserables 1925)

He went instantly to the prison, descended to the cell of the “mountebank,” called him by name, took him by the hand, and spoke to him. He passed the entire day with him, forgetful of food and sleep, praying to God for the soul of the condemned man, and praying the condemned man for his own. He told him the best truths, which are also the most simple. He was father, brother, friend; he was bishop only to bless. He taught him everything, encouraged and consoled him. The man was on the point of dying in despair. Death was an abyss to him. As he stood trembling on its mournful brink, he recoiled with horror. He was not sufficiently ignorant to be absolutely indifferent. His condemnation, which had been a profound shock, had, in a manner, broken through, here and there, that wall which separates us from the mystery of things, and which we call life. He gazed incessantly beyond this world through these fatal breaches, and beheld only darkness. The Bishop made him see light.

[eirenical]

Madame Magloire liked to call him Your Grace [Votre Grandeur]. One day he rose from his armchair, and went to his library in search of a book. This book was on one of the upper shelves. As the bishop was rather short of stature, he could not reach it. “Madame Magloire,” said he, “fetch me a chair. My greatness [grandeur] does not reach as far as that shelf.”

--Les Miserables, Victor Hugo, 1.1.4

*whispers loudly* Possibly my favorite joke in the whole book. 😂

There's so much I love about the bishop, but his sense of humor is possibly my favorite thing about him. The conversation he has with the head of the hospital in 1.1.2 reads like a comedy routine being performed for an audience of the two speaking those lines. And his humor pokes fun mostly at himself and the inflated image everyone assumes a bishop to have, like in 1.1.3 when he says he rides the ass not from vanity and asks the people to forgive him for riding the same animal that Jesus rode.

He humbles himself with his actions and his humor and that leaves him ever more accessible to everyone who needs him, and I definitely feel SOME KIND OF WAY ABOUT THAT. ALWAYS. TT^TT

...ok maybe I do have a few things to say after all? XD

OH WAIT I FORGOT SOMETHING:

He said, moreover, “Teach those who are ignorant as many things as possible; society is culpable, in that it does not afford instruction gratis; it is responsible for the night which it produces. This soul is full of shadow; sin is therein committed. The guilty one is not the person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the shadow.”

--(Same book and chapter)

This one ALSO hits me SOME KIND OF WAY, but I'm not awake enough to discuss it now. OTZ

[thevagueambition]

Les Mis 1.1.4 thoughts

a lot of this post is about things that annoy me about christianity just fyi lol

Re Geborand, I'm reminded of something biblical scholar Dan McClellan has talked about (e.g. in this 2 min video) called the "prophetic critique" where various performances of piety are criticised in the old testament/tanakh. The context of that being that when the rich and powerful perform piety through these offerings and festivals while at the same time violating religious principles of mercy and charity, their offerings become sinful.

"There is M. Geborand purchasing paradise for a sou." is not quite the same thing, but it hits on this same idea of the public performance of piety with an ulterior motive in mind (whether social propriety or a ticket to paradise) not being paired with moral behavior

(I guess the text doesn't mention if Geborand starts behaving more morally alongside his charity, but how paltry said charity is certainly suggests not)

The bishop's use of local dialects contrasts with the FRev's dogmatic desire to define a french citizen as a speaker of standard french

Myriel's religious views frankly seem fairly similar to the sort of Christianity I was raised with (there are shitty conservative priests in my area as well, but not in my immediate community).

His virtue lies in correctly identifying the miserable as the inheritors of the earth and in acting according to his principles

The description of Myriel's beliefs does hit on a part of Christianity that deeply annoys me, though: the body as something bad which must be subordinated to the mind/soul ("Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, cheek it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity.")

Why should the body be bad? It can cause you pain, of course. You can fall ill, you can get injured. But you can also embrace others, you can smell the smells of your home, you can eat your favourite dish. The body that hurts loves and feels pleasure, too. But then of course "pleasure" is exactly what's "dangerous" about the body – as if all pleasure was selfish and destructive 🙄

(I don't agree with the Descartean body/mind split in the first place. Imo you are your body. Your mind is part of your body.)

It relates somewhat to this other thing that irks me about Christianity -- and which I think might also actually be relevant to Myriel's development in this chapter, lol -- which is Christianity as a cope religion. It identifies the problems of the world -- illness, oppression, war -- and says "but if you're kind, if you dont break our rules, the afterlife will be wonderful." Like we don't have to fix the problems we have in the world because in the afterlife you will be free from suffering. Enduring the world piously is the goal, not making it better

(I'm aware that there are many Christians who don't think that way. My dad believes firmly in God and (his own personal interpretation of) the Bible and that's certainly not how his morals shake out. But that is an element in many permutations of Christianity)

Anyway where I think this might actually be relevant to Myriel is re "It is wrong to become absorbed in the divine law to such a degree as not to perceive human law." One interpretation of that is that if you focus exclusively on piety and the solace of divine judgement, it precludes you from perceiving injustice and brutality in the world and acting against it. An injust ruler may be condemned in the afterlife, but you should do something about him in this life, too

I think Hugo is probably right in saying that the death penalty is the sort of thing one can't be neutral on once one has seen it in action

Becaise it's one of the few pieces of leftist theory I actually have read and (mostly) understood, Walter Benjamin's Critique of Violence (Zur Kritik der Gewalt) it probably occupies an outsized prominence in my thinking on several things, buit in it Benjamin argues that the death penalty is the ultimate form of law establishing -- that the threat of violence(/force) behind law is what makes that law into a reality rather than a piece of writing and that in control over life and death being the ultimate form of violent power to hold over someone, capital punishemtn is useful for a legal system less because of its literal function and more because it so concretely manifests the law

"The opponents of these critics [of capital punishment] felt, perhaps without knowing why and probably involuntarily, that an attack on capital punishment assails not legal measure, not laws, but law itself in its origin. For if violence [...] is the origin of law, then it may be readily supposed that where the highest violence, that over life and death, occurs in the legal system, the origins of law jut manifestly and fearsomely into existence. In agreement with this is the fact that the death penalty in primitive legal systems is imposed even for such crimes as offenses against property, to which it seems quite out of "proportion." Its purpose is not to punish the infringement of law but to establish new law. For in the exercise of violence over life and death, more than in any other legal act, the law reaffirms itself." (online PDF version of source)

[pilferingapples]

LM 1.1.4

Well this chapter escalated quickly.  Family gossip!  A little snark about grudging charity! Musings on the nature of sin and forgiveness! Abuse of the legal system by the prosecutor to destroy a family! PUBLIC EXECUTION. 

-the bit with the Countess is obviously mostly silly, but--I'm not sure how to say this? -- but ...like,we're told, repeatedly, by the narration and the Bishop , that their family Lost Everything and was in exile and had no one after the Revolution.  But here's this Countess, whose children have such great expectations and such a Promising Future in a very Inherited Position kind of way, not even one generation out from the Revolution.  I don't know if Hugo meant it (for once) , but to me it speaks to just how deeply  entrenched the old power structures were/are.   There was a disruption in the lines of power, but it clearly wasn't a permanent severing...

-I'm curious about the visiting priest and his speech! He may not have moved Geborand (...who I can only assume is a dig at someone Hugo knew , because aren't they always) to especially impressive heights of charity, but it's apparent that his sad little "pennyworth of paradise" is more than Myriel had been able to convince him to give. Is it maybe because Myriel , being Hugo's Ideal Priest , doesn't deal in Threat sermons and that's the only thing that gets Geborand's attention--not hope, or compassion for others,  but a threat to his own wellbeing?

-I love the "fall onto the knees" speech/section for a lot of reasons ( despite the Bahorel who lives in my head rent free definitely adding unintentional lols to that line) .  It introduces so many running through-lines? 

- Gad, the slow horror of the Counterfeiter case.  Sentencing the counterfeiter means leaving the mother and child without support --he was already committing crime to take care of them, so things must be desperate! -- and it means destroying what seems to have been a sincere love on both their sides.  It's very likely the mother and child won't live, or won't both live--and if she can't keep the child alive on her own , it's just as likely this prosecutor or another will be getting to accuse her of infanticide for her failure to survive the justice system.  It's such a direct study in how the systems of power convince people to act against their own interests ??   I'm Upset. 

- The death penalty case!  Beccaria namedrop!  And also first Joseph de Maistre namedrop, and yeah I see how that's already being set up in opposition to ..everything this book is in favor of , really

Abolishing the death penalty is one particular issue Hugo really could claim to have fought for all his life (unlike the republican politics, which, wellllll). He'd had personal acquaintance with it  since he was very young , with his mother's lover/his godfather, General Victor Fanneau de La Horie, being executed for treason in 1812. 

 The most obvious place that he first deals with it seriously is in the Diary of a Condemned Man; as (IIRC) @prudencepaccard once pointed  out, Bishop Myriel here is something like the ideal priest the prisoner of that story hopes for, one who can truly bring comfort and a sense of his God, and offer real sympathy and connection.  There's a lot to say about that--but what's sticking with me this time is the effect that the execution has on Myriel.  Aside from his obvious trauma about it (and this is the first time it's occurring to me he probably had friends and family executed, sight unseen by him, in exactly this way, and that...cannot be making it easier) , there's his speech: 

"I did not think that it was so monstrous. It is wrong to become absorbed in the divine law to such a degree as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing?"

--which feels to me like it's hitting a lot of the same thematic notes as Enjolras does in the "Love, Thine is the Future" speech, but almost from the opposite direction? there's so much to say about the two of them in narrative conversation (the two genuine idealistic priests of their respective ideals, who are actually able to change and grow , who in their own way represent the Just) but..agh, this chapter write up is so long already? well, put a pin in it for later, I guess.><  

..And this read through is the firs time I've consciously made the connection-- Works Like Words, Les œuvres semblables aux paroles , that is, they're both based on the Gospels. Small thing , but it's zoomed past me all these years!

A Final Note for this chapter: I remain highly entertained by the concept of the Phantom of Social Justice haunting Myriel like a Woke Opera Ghost.  PRACTICE CHARITY!  PRACTICE CHARITY,  MY PRIEST OF JUSTICE!

[cryingalexanders]

1.1.4 - “Words answering words”

I’m going to peace in here with my first entry for the readalong, starting with this chapter because it’s the first one I had a lot of thoughts on. I’m gonna be quoting the Wilbour translation, though I am trying to simultaneously read it in French (though that’s more for practice + trying to get certain og quotes than anything).

The point about Myriel communicating in the languages of the South. My version of the brick is footnoted and it has one for this, which says that this is part of Hugo’s ‘democratic dimension’ and that the text, first represented in Myriel, ‘welcomes all local dialects and all social idioms.’, and that this will later be seen in the discussion of argot as well.

During the part where it outlines Myriel’s view of sin there’s a line: "It is a fall, but a fall upon the knees, which may end in prayer." That’s Valjean foreshadowing right?

This chapter goes in harder on the social justice themes than the previous ones, and it has this important quote: "society is culpable in not providing instruction for all, and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness." Here we have 1) the Liberal ideal of education as a road to betterment, and 2) the responsibility for social problems is at the feet of the people at the top of society. This idea very much exists in contemporary sociological analysis of phenomenon like crime. So we can interpret this quote as describing a social system which fails to support its most vulnerable people and then condemns them for behaving in the way which it incentivises.

"As we see, he had a strange and peculiar way of judging things. I suspect that he acquired it from the Gospel." This made me crack up, ngl. This is a pretty good demonstration of the book’s particularly brand of social(ist) Christianity, though. It’s not something I see a lot of ppl grasp, I think because it is pretty idiosyncratic and at odds with the Romantic and realist aspects.

"And where will the king’s attorney be judged?” Myriel insinuating that the attorney is going to be judged in the afterlife for his deception. Another example.

And the passage about the guillotine continuing the theme from ‘Le dernier jour d’un condamné’. "We may be indifferent to the death penalty ... so long as we have not seen a guillotine with our own eyes." Hugo has attempted to provoke this horror towards the death penalty in his audience before. In Le dernier jour it was from the point of view of the terror of the prisoner on death row, and Les mis it’s from the point of view of Myriel as a consolator and witness of the execution. (sidenote: the miniseries version of ‘82 actually briefly includes this scene, but without Hugo’s narration-and point- it’s pretty much just a grisly shot of the knife coming down and Myriel reading)

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Les Misérables 1.1.4 - Works Answering Words

“…there are in France 1,320,000 peasants’ cottages that have but three openings; 1,817,000 that have two, the door and one window; and finally, 346,000 cabins, with on,y one opening - the door. And this is in consequence of what is called the excise upon doors and windows. In these poor families, among the aged women and the little children, dwelling in these huts, how abundent is fever and disease? Alas! God gives light to men; the law sells it.”

Okay, folks, let’s talk ✨tax policy✨!

I do not think this law was intended to be cruel to the poor. In fact, I think it was intended for the opposite.

In an age before income tax, how - beyond land taxes - does one tax the rich progressively? By taxing things of which the rich have many, and the poor have few. A wealthy man’s mansion, such as the one that Myriel gave up for the hospital, may have fifty, a hundred, or hundreds of windows. A peasant’s or factory worker’s house, even without the tax, would have only few.

I think the intent of this excise is progressive taxation. (I suspected this at first reading it, and Wikipedia backed me up.)

This is what policy wonks call a perverse incentive - you try to do one thing, but also cause a reaction that is completely unintended. It illustrates the need to think out the possible consequences of your policies beforehand, to have systems to make you aware of problems they are causing, and to make changes to fix those problems when you find about them.

This particular problem could, in theory, be fixed by applying the tax only to homes with more than a certain number of windows (and only to homes, since there are other reasons to want buildings like factories to be well-lit; and not to multi-unit dwellings like apartments), so that it in effect becomes only a tax on the mansions of the wealthy. (In Britain, in fact, it only applied to to windows after the first 10, and was applied at a higher rate to, say, the 50th-100th windows than to the 10th-20th windows - the equivalent of the graduated income tax.) They might still call it a tax on air and light, but they also called the estate tax a death tax.

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 1.1.4 “Works to Match Words”

Longer chapter, and wow my thoughts are all over the place.

We get a lot of bishop snark in the first part, and I was flipping back and forth line by line on how I felt about it. Some jokes feel like they’re puncturing exactly the right thing, and other times... okay, yeah, the “highness” joke is a great quip, but I do hope Magloire gets to make fun of him a bit too. Having this one guy whose one-liners are always pithy and right and full of Simple Wisdom is starting to get to me.

Is that heresy?

All this talk of inheritance and fancy people feels much more in keeping with the end of the book. The beginning and end kind of share a milieu in terms of privilege and social circle (not exactly, but close at least), and we spend the entire middle very far from it. I’m still playing with the ways this book may wrap around in a big circle, and the beginning has more to do with the end than is immediately obvious.

I complained about some of Myriel’s quips, but “I have my own poor”/”Give them to me” always gets me in the heart.

The detail with which the bishop cares about the peasants and *knows* about the peasants and speaks all the languages in the midi is beautiful. I’m a little mad that all we hear in explanation is “this pleased the people and contributed not a little to giving him ready access to their hearts.” It sounds like ... I don’t know, friendly condescension? the rich coming down to the poor’s level, and the poor and simple peasants being grateful? Rather than an act that works to correct the injustice of native languages being eradicated in France and the people most downtrodden by the law literally not speaking the language the legal and administrative systems were run in.

..I know, I know, this book has a deliberately gentle and apolitical beginning. The rest is coming.

He rips apart the window tax so beautifully: “God gives light to man, and the law sells it.” Holy shit is that idea going to come back. I love it.

Sin. Oh no, I have no idea what to do with Myriel’s thoughts on sin. They’re. I mean. I don’t like them? Also, they’re probably a whole lot better than what he was supposed to say?

Myriel’s notion of bodies is that their desires should be repressed, but also that failing to repress them adequately isn’t that big a deal. I’m GLAD it’s not that big a deal, but oof. He’s being very nineteenth century and very Catholic, even if it’s a gentle version of both, and I’m not super happy with it.

But I’m trying to sort out which of us the book actually agrees with, and I may be biased, but I think it’s me. Hugo tips his Romantic hand a lot more later, and we have Cosette’s best qualities being inherent and instinctive--I forget the exact line, but the way she would have no way to react to the idea “Don’t love” because it’s nonsense. And we have Enjolras, who follows Myriel’s notion of repression and ignoring the body very successfully, but it’s a flaw of his, and all the best things about him come from softening on that. And we have very repressed Valjean who only ever loved one person, and that love was the best thing in his life but also it was fatally broken because it *had* been so repressed. And we have very repressed Javert who never loved anybody and died for it.

...

Yeah, okay, on reflection I think the book knows *very* well that there’s some bullshit in Myriel’s pro-repression, anti-sin stance.

We have our first anti-prosecutor snark! Nothing to say but Yessss. (Reading Champavert gave me so much context for the anti-prosecutor snark. SO much.)

...And the Guillotine. Holy shit, that passage. I feel like it’s the first time in the book we really hear Hugo’s descriptive voice come out, and it’s so, so beautiful. That question of capital punishment is beautifully laid out, and answered.

But also:

"Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing?”

The rest of the book is going to wrestle with that question, and not simplistically. It’s going to come out in favor of armed rebellion against tyranny--but I love that it starts here, with all the ways that must not ever be taken lightly.

[fremedon]

Brickclub I.1.3, “Good Bishop--Difficult Diocese” and I.1.4, “Works to Match Words”

--So much emphasis on legal machinations here, at all levels: village organization and the model for a good mayor in I.1.3, and in I.1.4, inheritance, taxation, prosecutorial abuses, and the death penalty. The book is still laying out its terms.

--That framing makes the bishop’s two general statements on sin, in the middle of chapter 4, sit oddly against each other. @everyonewasabird makes a good point in this post about how the rest of the book undercuts the bishop’s theory of sin as giving in to a body which should be repressed: “Man has a body which is both his burden and his temptation. He drags it along and gives in to it. He ought to watch over it, keep it in bounds, repress it, and obey it only as a last resort.”

The book sides very explicitly with the bishop’s other statement, that the sins of the powerless are the fault of those with power over them: “The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.”

They sort of fit together--if Man should keep his body in bounds and not obey it, then clearly the body should be the less powerful one in that dynamic, and any error it occasions is the fault of a mind or soul that should have kept it in check (and this is pretty clearly how the bishop means it). 

But I think Hugo starts driving wedges between the halves of this theory right away. The question I think we’re meant to ask is, If giving in to innate, physical needs and wants is an occasion of sin--Whose fault is that?

Hugo follows this passage immediately with the story of the counterfeiter’s mistress, and right away, we have a contrast between the counterfeiter’s crime--a crime against property and Society, committed very explicitly out of hunger and love for the family he needed to provide for--and the crime of the mistress who informs on him. She delivers him to what we are, again, explicitly told is a capital offense, out of anger and jealousy--two deadly sins, and not sins of the flesh--because the king’s prosecutor has lied to her, and forged information.

I feel like I’m going to be finding a lot of resonance in this story and coming back to it, but for right now the big takeaway seems to be that Hugo is establishing that Crime Is Socially Constructed--”God gives light to men, and the law sells it,” as the bishop says--and that this is equally true for crimes committed out rage and malice and ignorance as it is for crimes committed out of hunger and need. 

And a couple of last points that struck me as possibly significant, though I’m not sure quite how:

--The counterfeiter and his mistress are going to be tried at the Superior Court of Aix--where Myriel’s father was a judge, who had hoped to have his son inherit his position. In another life--one where the Revolution didn’t intervene--the bishop might have tried that case.

--Hugo very deliberately tells us that the condemned man in the last sequence of chapter 4 is a murderer--that’s not left in any doubt--but not who he killed or why. He doesn’t leave any opening for the reader to judge the case.

Which makes it interesting that one of the few things he does tell us about the condemned man is that he was a public letter writer, given how a public letter writer’s indiscretion will get Fantine fired and start her long downfall.

[gpllife]

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