#but also the whole book is great already

[pilferingapples]

eee ok this is an EXCITING bit so bear with me if I ramble a little

Historical Context A: The Napoleonic Era was huge for Hugo's generation of French writers. Like...what WWI was for the Jazz Age, you know? They'd all grown up with this image of the Emperor, this larger than life figure, and then POP he was gone--but he left a really massive legacy effect, not just on the macro level of new alliances, national borders, etc, but in the daily life of every French person, thanks to the Napoleonic Code (the effective legal system for AGES) , major changes that he had set up in society, etc.

which all leads to :

Literary Point A: one of the big themes going on in Les Mis is that it's time to move on from the concept of the Great Man of History and focus on regular people. That history is and should be made now by just people, that Jean Valjean is as important as Napoleon. So as you read the Waterloo section, look for the way Hugo talks about why Napoleon loses-- the emphasis on weather , on the way Napoleon treats his conscripted peasant guide, on how the effect he's having on history is out of favor with God.

Making this argument , Hugo still grants Napoleon and the French a LOT of glory, here. Saying "only GOD could stop Napoleon" is pretty complimentary, after all! And there's plenty of praise for individual leaders in the French army. Which brings us to...

Historical Context B: When Hugo wrote Les Miserables, he was in exile, an opponent of the current ruler of France , Napoleon.

...well , Napoleon III, Louis Bonaparte.

which leads to

Literary Point B: Hugo and his publisher were both sincerely concerned that Les Miserables might get banned in France, or be so heavily censored that it would effectively be banned. This had already happened with some earlier work he'd written in exile!

And Les Miserables is, frankly , a call to revolution , of one sort or another. It's extremely pro-socialism and pro-republic, and France was operating with neither system at the time. It is super political and Hugo's politics were Not Welcome with the people currently running the country.

But! the Waterloo section of Les Mis was really super positive about France and Napoleon's army, even while denouncing Napoleon as incompatible with Progress. Hugo actually pushed for the Waterloo section to be released if anyone wanted a preview , saying :

“If we give quotes, insist on Waterloo, bring out (focus on) what the book has of the national (cause/identity), what stirs the French fibers(/soul), make Persigny ashamed to stop a book in which justice is finally done to Ney, grandfather of his wife, make the seizure impossible by saying it is the battle of Waterloo won by France, etc…”

( more of that letter, and more on those background politics, here!)

As I say at that link, I don't think Waterloo is just chaff for the censors; Hugo didn't say anything he didn't mean to say. But the way he said it was always , of necessity, with consideration of his chances of publishing legally. (Hugo wasn't new to this. Writers in 19C France were always working around censors from one government or the other. It's a fun thing to think about when considering Why X Said It That Way! ) Waterloo is very relevant to that!

And, just for fun, Purely Literary Point C :

Les Mis looooves its parallels and antitheses. That's Hugo's stylistic jam. Les Mis reflects on itself and outwards in endless fractals. So Waterloo is this big grand last stand marking the end of an era... and then one of the major sequences in the narrative's present is a big grand last stand marking not an ending, but hopefully the beginning of a beginning. To be direct: keep an eye on the details in Waterloo, they will echo and counter-echo in surprising ways on the barricade.

(Also you can check out this fantastic post about it! it really helped me understand the emotional core of this section way back when)

(and all this said.... skip Waterloo entirely if you need to. The most immediately relevant chapter is the last one, with the post-battle looting. You can come back and read it later, with the rest of the book fresh for making connections, and it will still be good! But all this makes the whole digression a lot more interesting for me now. )

so part 2 is called Cosette

why the fuck am I reading about Napoleon for ages

[beatx-mavie-archangelx]

there should've been at least a full view of Fíli's body in the funeral scene

"Fíli you didn't deserve any of this" we all say in unison

[fictionadventurer]

So many types of books that have strong summertime associations that I spend all my time cycling through cravings for certain genres or books.

Within the last month, I have wanted to read/reread:

Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery

The Electrical Menagerie by Mollie E. Reeder

Valiant by Sarah McGuire

Retellings in general (especially Cinderella retellings)

Golden Age mysteries, especially Josephine Tey and Agatha Christie

The Moon-Spinners by Mary Stewart

Books set in locations that are not America or England, especially warm climates

Books set in wintery/cold weather settings

Science fiction/space opera

Superhero stories

Civil War history/Presidential history

D.E. Stevenson books (and other mid-tier vintage light fiction)

Wilkie Collins books

Graphic novels

And I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting

[fluentisonus]

I think I mentioned this before in my post a little while ago abt valjean not talking, but reading the barricade section just now & he talks so little. I think the only things he says the entire time is to ask for a gun to shoot down the mattress and to ask for javert & then say he's shot him -- people talk to him plenty but he never replies. and this taken with the fact that it's such a long section without his pov at all it I feel like really shows how much of a sort of. social/communicative wall I guess? he can & does put up sometimes, and how impenetrable & unreadable (& in marius' case disconcerting) it comes across. like even we as readers who know him really well are not getting much from this at all about what he's thinking or feeling or planning, he's incredibly hard to read without that element of internality

[tharelofthewoodlandrealm]

there's this guy on Instagram making tree nets called "Charlie's webs" and i can't help but think how much they would fit the Silvan elves. like, having the trees around their homes full of net spirals and bridges and platforms to hang out on and walk from house to house and climb to the treetops for some stargazing. plus, they're bouncy so the elflings would love it

[i-cast-zone-of-truth]

ok so i Did Say that Lois does not get queers because of Bel Thorne. But she DID ALSO make a five-god pantheon in which one of the gods presides over disasters, the overlooked, the unchampioned, and the gays. this god is called the Bastard. could not possibly be better

[girlivealwaysbean]

pata hai last kuch din i was very busy with my project kyunki final dena tha and binding karni thi etc to wo karwayi then i went to the bookfair bekaar tha then parso submit karne jaa rahi to subah accident hogaya (bhai ki bike skid hogayi and we fell down) and now i have a big ass blue bruise on my upper thigh and my parents don't even know lmao and kal ek science conference thi to i had to sit in an auditorium for 6 hours listening to accomplished people speak. that's what you missed now your turn

omg i knew everything in this except for the accident cause i stalk your blog vigorously everyday are you okay!!!!!!!!!! did you get tetanus shots!!!!!!!!!! also on your upper thigh oh no that's where future jiju is supposed to write MINE na as per our beloved song guilty as sin?

[notmoreflippingelves]

[bmpmp3]

kotarou maghni ai thank GOD i literally sighed an audible sigh of relief

[jakeperalta]

got advertised a book that's described as "a modern retelling of when harry met sally" and I just feel like there should be at least a 50 year gap between the source material and the retelling

[liliavalley]

hm. not excited to hear that tbh

[supercantaloupe]

genuinely except for maybe a passing interest in seeing camelot (which is closing too soon for me to do anything about anyway) i haven't wanted to actually Go To New York to see smth on broadway since the music man. i am going to do everything in my power however to go see this cabaret tho

[catilinas]

tfw your last words in the play are low-key in the format of an epitaph

[cerbreus]

had a trainwreck of an in person consult for my sleeve tattoo yesterday only made better by the itty bitty yorkie shop dog adoring me and sitting on my lap the whole time.

[leonardburton]

as it turns out. if you were a child who loved reading so so much but grew into an adult who doesn't need it as a form of escapism that much anymore/found other forms of escapism that are easier (in the phone that is always in the pocket) but you want to read again like you used to. reading the book spinoff of the podcast that is consuming your autistic brain works wonders

[littleapocalypsekitten]

Oh, fuck, that's happened to other people? Alright, so a friend of mine with which I co-created a Legend of Zelda fanfiction showed me a YOUTUBE of a couple of guys analysing and complaining about our fic. I got the blame for it, because, while we both did the ideas for it, I wrote it out and it's under my name on Fanfiction dot net. The Great Desert - if anyone is interested. (I just waded through...so much cringe. My old fanfictions...ugh...) Anyway, I wrote a deeply imperfect fanfiction once upon a time. And, apparently a channel for Bronies of all people picked up on it, even though it wasn't MLP-related. (The fanfiction is Zelda, specifically, The Legend of Zelda as a magical western). So, this youtube review had this pair of guys talking about how the fic started out strong, but then they disagreed with some of our choices in the story to incorporate science fiction elements and an ending I rushed because I was getting tired of working on the fic and wanted to wrap it up according to the previous AOL roleplay logs between me and my friend I was working from. (Oh, yeah, this was Back in the Day). These guys concluded "SHADSIE! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!!!" because they were so upset about the sci-fi elements and the ending. My friend was annoyed at not being mentioned at all, even though I credited her on the work. She suspects that the Brony-boys left her name out of it because she'd become well-known in the MLP fandom by that time... But, yeah, they'd put our fic up on Good Reads and were criticising it like it was an actual original novella or something. I got a LOT of reviews on the damn thing after that that were very accusatory - You know, going over the problems I already knew existed in the fic and the sci-fi stuff which I do not think are problematic and enjoy having around. Very "What were you THINKING?!!!" reviews by randos as if I owed them something for a FREE fanfic posted on the Internet that they read of their own accord. Many of these happened right after that Youtube video was posted. It got to where I posted for some time, a disclaimer on my Fanfiction dot net profile (although I think I removed it eventually) that people coming to my page for The Great Desert should know that I understand the fic has some pacing problems and that no, I do not plan to change them because I've moved on to writing other things and that my library is vast, the fic was written years ago and my style has changed. Also, furthermore "What I was thinking!!!!" was "I was having fun writing a story with my friend." So, yes, I am absolutely familiar with Entitled Fan Phenomena. It is best ignored.