#did i re-read the last flight and write down nearly 5 pages of notes for this... maybe

[ghostwise]

I've been working on something exciting for @dragonageannual ✒️💚

[wellntruly]

Mis more

Aaand I also read the first six books of Volume 4—it was a long flight! This volume though, is longer; we’ll be here some time more.

Vol. IV: Saint-Denis: Begun

Book 1

“An attempt has been made, and wrongly, to make a class of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie is simply the contented portion of the people. The bourgeoisie is the man who now has time to sit down. A chair is not a caste. But through a desire to sit down too soon, one may arrest the very march of the human race. This has often been the fault of the bourgeoisie.”

—Sometimes you just read a bit of political theory by M. Hugo and think, dang! Absolutely LOVE re-framing categories, frankly.

The rest of this book then slides into another history lesson, I would say “devolves into” but the reemergence of that very present past-tense he used in Vol. I, Book Third, Chapter I - ‘The Year 1817’ can be nothing but evolving into imo. (I love it!!)

And then as if 170 pages have not passed without them, we spring back upon Enjolras and his lieutenants for one chapter, this whole brief bit just coming in like a bolt from the deep blue:

Astonishing scenes.

Book 2

Rather overloads one to then open the next book with Marius, nervily run out of his own room as the feeling has at last overtaken him, as it eventually takes over all who cross paths with him: “I think I should desperately avoid Inspector Javert,” arriving at Courfeyrac’s door, and by way of flustered greeting simply saying, and I quote:

“I have come to sleep with you.”

It’s exquisite.

We’re getting rather closer or nearly into recognizable musical plot at this point and perhaps that’s why my notes peter off a little—familiarity. But Eponine is dashing around in this section like a manic, off-kilter angel of the gutter, and I did write down at one point “aw, sweetheart :(“

Book 3

Floreal mention!! Check check ✓✓! We are two out of twelve for the Jacobin calendar seasons!

Anyway, Cosette POV for how she's experienced the last handful of years. LUSH secret garden she and Jean Valjean have these days, reveal that she has as awkward & insane a crush on Marius as he has on her (I mean thank god), and also this in every way thrilling confirmation of Valjean’s suspicious feelings about Marius ‘Lurking hard or hardly lurking’ Pontmercy:

“Nevertheless, it came to pass that Jean Valjean sometimes espied him. Marius’s manners were no longer in the least natural. He exhibited ambiguous prudence and awkward daring. He no longer came quite close to them as formerly. He seated himself at a distance and pretended to be reading; why did he pretend that? Formerly he had come in his old coat, now he wore his new one every day; Jean Valjean was not sure that he did not have his hair curled, his eyes were very queer, he wore gloves; in short, Jean Valjean cordially detested this young man.” [italics mine]

Book 4

Just a wild little eight page Montparnasse-Valjean-Gavroche interlude with roses in mouths and purses in bushes that I struggle to recollect as real and not an effect of the altitude.

Book 5

Fourteen pages this time but HEY they MEET! Just a couple of swooning little incredible weirdos, they’re actually rather perfect for each other. For instance—

“Beneath a veil of incomparable sweetness, he had something about him that suggested death and night. His face was illuminated by the light of the dying day, and by the thought of a soul that is taking flight. He seemed to be not yet a ghost, and he was no longer a man.”

—actually really figures that Our Little Cosette would fall in love with a ghostboy, of all boys.

Book 6

“Gavroche persisted, ‘What are you up to tonight?’ Again Montparnasse took a grave tone, and said, mouthing every syllable, ‘Things.’”

Someone please let me know if the original French was also one syllable long, please god I want that.

Vol. IV, Books 1-6 ✓✓✓✓✓✓

[Brickolage]