#is this becoming a bit of an au or something? unclear I’m just drawing vibes

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

Sonic may not be going home but Shadow sure as heck ain’t letting him stay here by himself

I dunno, happens after this one

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Brickclub: 3.7.1

God I love this chapter. I think if I ever had to compile a list of 'most Victor Hugo chapters ever,' this would rank pretty high. It's beautiful and complex and profound and just a little bit obscure. It's got light symbolism and hints at drowning and some serious Dante vibes and historical references and, just, everything. I have so many things I want to talk about, and I don't think there's a way to make it not scattered, so have some section headers instead!

Hugo's philosophy and overall point:

Breaking it down, the general thrust of Hugo's argument here is that ideas run through society like mine tunnels run through the ground. They're there, twisting atop each other, intersecting with each other, drawing from each other, all there for those with the knowledge and the inclination to find them. (And, I would argue, that we can take this one step further, and say that it is entirely possible to accidentally step too hard on a piece of ground and punch through into a mine shaft you didn't even know existed, and that this is what happened to Marius.) The tunnels closest to the surface of society are made up of good ideas and philosophies, and the further down you dig the more shadowy and nefarious the ideas and their diggers become, until you hit the bottom, where there is no darkness at all, only Abyss.

I'm really intrigued by the stratigraphy Hugo draws up, the one that goes Jan Hus, Martin Luther, Descartes, Voltaire, Condorcet, Robespierre, Marat, Babeuf. I was hoping Donougher would have a helpful footnote, but she does not, and I don't really have time to do enough of my own research into it to really get what Hugo was going for. But I feel like, for his readers at the time, this list would have been a very, very clear philosophical statement about what Hugo values. (She does say that Hus was a priest who challenged the authority of the pope and the church during the middle ages, which fits well with Hugo's general opinions about the church and its hierarchy.) I'll get more into the Dante vibes in a sec, but this is definitely part of what pinged that for me -- this method of using very real people with very real ideas as a way to explain and illustrate Hugo's social values and priorities.

The unknowable vastness of nature:

Hugo talks about the earth here the way he usually talks about the ocean. It's actually kind of notable to me that this is not an extended ocean metaphor, because that's usually his go-to for this kind of thing. But I guess he wanted to emphasize that, unlike the ocean and its vastness and uncaring, alien nature, the tunnels beneath society are manmade and, to a degree, under man's control. It's a metaphor of Progress, linking intellectual and social movements (religion, philosophy, Revolution, etc) with technological progress (mining and drilling and digging). He's got a light touch with it, which is actually less unusual for him than we usually give him credit for, but that link is definitely there. Progress means both the progression of ideas and the progression of technologies and, for Hugo, you really cannot separate the two. (Also, this chapter could honestly be a Combeferre speech? I don't know if he would have used the exact same stratigraphy of philosophies or not, but the overall tone and message is so, so Combeferre.)

But here's the thing. Yes, the tunnels are made by men, but they are still deep in the earth, and the earth is ultimately more powerful than man. And, like the ocean, the deeper down you get the darker and more crushing the earth becomes. I really love this quote, which really sums up the dangers in trying to master nature too much: "There is a point where depth is tantamount to burial, and where light becomes extinct." And this doesn't even seem to be a warning about digging too deeply, more just a statement of fact about what happens if you sever your connection to the sky too strongly. It reminds me of the last time we were completely buried, during Jean Valjean's nightmare. The lack of light is not itself evil, but men without access to light will almost inevitably feel evil growing inside of them. Which brings us to our next point:

Light symbolism

So honestly the light symbolism here is pretty straightforward and we don't really need to break it down. We're reinforcing the idea that light is good and darkness is bad, and continuing to directly tie light to the heavens. We also have people and ideas who generate their own light and bring it with them, but they don't seem to be entirely capable of transmitting their light to others. We get this really intriguing bit: "Surely, although a divine and invisible chain unknown to themselves, binds together all these subterranean pioneers who, almost always, think themselves isolated, and who are not so, their works vary greatly, and the light of some contrasts with the blaze of others. The first are paradisiacal, the last are tragic." I'm not entirely sure what Hugo means by 'first' and 'last' here, because the obvious implication is that those who emit light are paradisiacal and those who blaze are tragic, and that feels very odd. I think, given the rest of the paragraph, that he may be referring more to those closer to the sky and those farthest away from it, but it's oddly unclear which means that I think he's working on levels that I do not understand.

We get even more explicit about this when we get into this business of men with starry eyes and men with shadowy eyes. It's a pretty straightforward concept, and a phenomenal piece of worldbuilding for some kind of specfic, either an LM AU or something wholly original. Honestly, this whole chapter is great worldbuilding for a specfic piece, and I'm honestly kind of tempted to poke at it.

Dante

This isn't explicit, but I'm getting a lot of Inferno vibes, with this whole underground society that gets darker and deeper and more malicious the further you get from the surface. Because this is Hugo, I'm actually inclined to suggest that the Dante vibes are part of why he chose this particular metaphor, rather than sticking to the ocean or the forest or something. Like I said, I don't think it's his only reason for reaching for something manmade, but Hugo is fully capable of working on multiple levels, and allusions to classic literature is one of those levels.

Words:

This is also, just, a beautiful chapter. I'm pulling from Hapgood right now, because I'm at work, but I wanted to share some of the quotes that made me go, "oh."

-The Encyclopedia, in the last century, was a mine that was almost open to the sky.

-For in the sacred shadows there lies latent light. Volcanoes are full of a shadow that is capable of flashing forth. Every form begins by being night.

-Jean-Jacques lends his pick to Diogenes, who lends him his lantern.

-Utopias travel about underground, in the pipes.

-This communicates with the abyss.