#lm 1.1.14

[lesbianvaljean]

extremely enjoying the no-spoilers @lesmisletters discussions in which we all collectively pretend the whole brick is about Bishop Myriel.

having finished A Just Man (Bishop Myriel 1), am now looking forward to the following chapters:

2 Bishop 2 Myriel

Bishop Myriel: Digne Drift

Bishop & Myriel

Bishop 5

Bishop Myriel 6

Myriel 7

The Fate of the Bishop

B9

[lesmisletters]

Congratulations, Les Mis Letters readers, on finishing Book 1 of Les Mis!

[secretmellowblog]

Book 1 of Les Mis ("A Just Man") was all about Bishop Myriel, who I'm assuming is the novel's main character, so I'm excited to see how his journey continues in future books. Here are some predictions of future Les Mis Book titles, from the @lesmisletters discord server:

Les Mis Book 2: Myriel Goes to the Big City

Myriel 2: Electric Boogaloo

Bishop Myriel: The Winter Soldier (the soldier is the Conventionist G--.)

Bishop Myriel: The French Empire Strikes Back ("somehow, Napoleon returned." The story of the 100 days.)

The Bishop of the Digne: Return of the King (the king has returned for real this time we swear no more revolutions.)

Bishop Myriel and the Chamber of Secrets

Bishop Myriel and the Chambre Introuvable

Bishop Myriel and the Prisoner of Toulon

Myriel: Folie a Deux (somehow a musical book starring lady Gaga as the love interest, the bandit Cravatte)

Glass Onion: A Bishop Myriel Mystery

Bishop Myriel: Attack of the Clones

Myriel 2: the Wrath of Khan

Bishop Bienvenu: Fury Road

Man of Silver

Myriel vs Count of Monte Cristo

Just Man League

(this entire post)

Madame Magloire: Origins

Bishop Myriel: Across the BishopVerse

[lesmisletters-daily]

What He Thought

Les Mis Letters reading club explores one chapter of Les Misérables every day. Join us on Discord, Substack - or share your thoughts right here on tumblr - today's tag is #lm 1.1.14

One last word.

Since this sort of details might, particularly at the present moment, and to use an expression now in fashion, give to the Bishop of D—— a certain “pantheistical” physiognomy, and induce the belief, either to his credit or discredit, that he entertained one of those personal philosophies which are peculiar to our century, which sometimes spring up in solitary spirits, and there take on a form and grow until they usurp the place of religion, we insist upon it, that not one of those persons who knew Monseigneur Welcome would have thought himself authorized to think anything of the sort. That which enlightened this man was his heart. His wisdom was made of the light which comes from there.

No systems; many works. Abstruse speculations contain vertigo; no, there is nothing to indicate that he risked his mind in apocalypses. The apostle may be daring, but the bishop must be timid. He would probably have felt a scruple at sounding too far in advance certain problems which are, in a manner, reserved for terrible great minds. There is a sacred horror beneath the porches of the enigma; those gloomy openings stand yawning there, but something tells you, you, a passer-by in life, that you must not enter. Woe to him who penetrates thither!

Geniuses in the impenetrable depths of abstraction and pure speculation, situated, so to speak, above all dogmas, propose their ideas to God. Their prayer audaciously offers discussion. Their adoration interrogates. This is direct religion, which is full of anxiety and responsibility for him who attempts its steep cliffs.

Human meditation has no limits. At his own risk and peril, it analyzes and digs deep into its own bedazzlement. One might almost say, that by a sort of splendid reaction, it with it dazzles nature; the mysterious world which surrounds us renders back what it has received; it is probable that the contemplators are contemplated. However that may be, there are on earth men who—are they men?—perceive distinctly at the verge of the horizons of reverie the heights of the absolute, and who have the terrible vision of the infinite mountain. Monseigneur Welcome was one of these men; Monseigneur Welcome was not a genius. He would have feared those sublimities whence some very great men even, like Swedenborg and Pascal, have slipped into insanity. Certainly, these powerful reveries have their moral utility, and by these arduous paths one approaches to ideal perfection. As for him, he took the path which shortens,—the Gospel’s.

He did not attempt to impart to his chasuble the folds of Elijah’s mantle; he projected no ray of future upon the dark groundswell of events; he did not see to condense in flame the light of things; he had nothing of the prophet and nothing of the magician about him. This humble soul loved, and that was all.

That he carried prayer to the pitch of a superhuman aspiration is probable: but one can no more pray too much than one can love too much; and if it is a heresy to pray beyond the texts, Saint Theresa and Saint Jerome would be heretics.

He inclined towards all that groans and all that expiates. The universe appeared to him like an immense malady; everywhere he felt fever, everywhere he heard the sound of suffering, and, without seeking to solve the enigma, he strove to dress the wound. The terrible spectacle of created things developed tenderness in him; he was occupied only in finding for himself, and in inspiring others with the best way to compassionate and relieve. That which exists was for this good and rare priest a permanent subject of sadness which sought consolation.

There are men who toil at extracting gold; he toiled at the extraction of pity. Universal misery was his mine. The sadness which reigned everywhere was but an excuse for unfailing kindness. <i>Love each other;</i> he declared this to be complete, desired nothing further, and that was the whole of his doctrine. One day, that man who believed himself to be a “philosopher,” the senator who has already been alluded to, said to the Bishop: “Just survey the spectacle of the world: all war against all; the strongest has the most wit. Your <i>love each other</i> is nonsense.”—<i>“Well,”</i> replied Monseigneur Welcome, without contesting the point, <i>“if it is nonsense, the soul should shut itself up in it, as the pearl in the oyster.”</i> Thus he shut himself up, he lived there, he was absolutely satisfied with it, leaving on one side the prodigious questions which attract and terrify, the fathomless perspectives of abstraction, the precipices of metaphysics—all those profundities which converge, for the apostle in God, for the atheist in nothingness; destiny, good and evil, the way of being against being, the conscience of man, the thoughtful somnambulism of the animal, the transformation in death, the recapitulation of existences which the tomb contains, the incomprehensible grafting of successive loves on the persistent <i>I</i>, the essence, the substance, the Nile, and the Ens, the soul, nature, liberty, necessity; perpendicular problems, sinister obscurities, where lean the gigantic archangels of the human mind; formidable abysses, which Lucretius, Manou, Saint Paul, Dante, contemplate with eyes flashing lightning, which seems by its steady gaze on the infinite to cause stars to blaze forth there.

Monseigneur Bienvenu was simply a man who took note of the exterior of mysterious questions without scrutinizing them, and without troubling his own mind with them, and who cherished in his own soul a grave respect for darkness.

[cliozaur]

The last, though not at all brief, attempt to unveil the character of Bishop Myriel before we leave him for some time. He is not a thinker but a doer. “There are on earth men who—are they men?—perceive distinctly at the verge of the horizons of reverie the heights of the absolute, and who have the terrible vision of the infinite mountain. Monseigneur Welcome was one of these men; Monseigneur Welcome was not a genius. He would have feared those sublimities whence some very great men even, like Swedenborg and Pascal, have slipped into insanity.” He was ready to observe the sublime, but he did not need to overthink it. The world is full of suffering, and his role was to help those in need (though we can doubt the effectiveness of the charity he represented). I was glad to see the mine metaphor, which is quite different from the mine metaphor in Volume 3! The image of M. Myriel toiling “at the extraction of pity” is amazing!

[thevagueambition]

les mis 1.1.14 thoughts

Extremely on brand for Hugo to start this chapter which does, in fact, include several pages with -- you guessed it -- several words on them, with "one last word"

This chapter really drives home how Myriel -- or rather, what he represents -- is "not enough" to solve the issues of our society. Myriel is a doctor treating wounds, not a safety inspector demanding working conditions which do not result in as many injuries

Frankly -- and this is definitely not what Hugo wants me to take from this -- Myriel incapsulates a lot of my feelings about Christianity. Loving your neighbour is paramount, but Christianity wishes to treat wounds, not change the circumstances that cause us to be injured

[dolphin1812]

“He inclined towards all that groans and all that expiates. The universe appeared to him like an immense malady; everywhere he felt fever, everywhere he heard the sound of suffering, and, without seeking to solve the enigma, he strove to dress the wound. The terrible spectacle of created things developed tenderness in him; he was occupied only in finding for himself, and in inspiring others with the best way to compassionate and relieve. That which exists was for this good and rare priest a permanent subject of sadness which sought consolation.”

I love this quote for encapsulating the bishop’s character, but I also think it highlights something bittersweet about Les Miserables in general? The focus on poverty and its consequences keeps the book from every being super happy for long, but we also see the kindness that gives them moments of happiness (both the joy of showing compassion and of receiving it). Of course, it’s also frustrating to know that this kindness can only do so much without real change (hence the “permanent sadness;” the book is still necessary in Hugo’s time and our own, as we know from the preface). But the kindness – that consolation – still means something.

[vapaus-ystavyys-tasaarvo]

Les Mis Letters 1.1.14

The universe appeared to him like an immense malady; everywhere he felt fever, everywhere he heard the sound of suffering, and, without seeking to solve the enigma, he strove to dress the wound. 

I like this line, it sums up Myriel very well. Honestly both his good aspects and his lackings. But it's fine, this is his role to play. Not to solve the root causes but to help alleviate the immediate problem of suffering. A very practical approach.

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 1.1.14 ‘What he thought’

Other times I’ve read this, I've thought of Myriel as being supposed to be more perfect than he is, and so this chapter bothered me. When Hugo talks about all the mind-breaking mysteries and how Myriel stayed away from them, I thought he was saying it was better to stay away from them. In retrospect... I really doubt it.

This reading, I feel much more how this section is listing more of Myriel’s limits.

I’m fascinated by all the people this chapter put me in mind of. It feels like a palette in which all the colors that we’re going to see later are mixed together, still without clear form.

Jean Prouvaire, of course, for the pantheism, magic, mysticism, and prophesy. He feels like the closest link to a character who ventures down the paths Myriel explicitly doesn’t.

--

And Myriel’s explicit avoidance of those paths:

Abstruse speculations are full of headaches; nothing indicates that he would risk his mind in mysticism. The apostle may be bold, but the bishop should be timid. He probably would have scrupled to sound too deeply certain problems, reserved in some sort for great and terrible minds.

sounds like nothing so much as Javert's dislike of too much thought.

--

If I didn’t know where this section came from I’d think it was a description of Combeferre:

There are men on this earth--if they are nothing more--who distinctly perceive the heights of the absolute in the horizon of their contemplation, and who have the terrible vision of the infinite mountain. [...] Certainly, these tremendous reveries have their moral use, and by these arduous routes there is an approach to ideal perfection.

But there’s warning too about how staring at these sublimities drives men mad, and that also feels like Combeferre. Guys I don’t know if you all are ready for me to have a format where I’m allowed-nay-encouraged to ramble on about how unsettling I find Combeferre.

--

He cast no ray of the future onto the dark scroll of events; he sought not to condense into flame the glimmer of things; he had nothing of the prophet and nothing of the magician.

You all know who did though. Enjolras.

--

His humble soul loved; that was all.

A number of people, but mainly Fantine and Grantaire.

--

Love one another; he declared that to be complete.

Gillenormand is going to say almost exactly the same thing at his grandson’s wedding, only his use of it will be far more limited: "Love your wife and enjoy your wealth,” basically. Gillenormand’s speech is one of the last big speeches in the book, and I am willing to die on the hill that says it’s not the thematic summation of the book. (I’m looking at you, Concept Album.)

--

Are these parallels deliberate? I wonder. I suspect some of them are.

--

Also: GUESS WHO WE MEET TOMORROW.

ONE DAY MORE YOU GUYS.

[pilferingapples]

LM 1.1.14

..y' know I just don't have much to say about 1.1.14, and Halloween Festivities (so many movies!! so much candy! there was a carved watermelon!)  mean that I  am Late so I'm sure most of it's been said, so this will be...a short post? 

- " The apostle may be daring, but the bishop must be timid. "/ " L'apôtre peut être hardi, mais l'évêque doit être timide. "  -- This comparison of  bishops with Apostles is curious to me, because I just don't know enough about Catholic orthodoxy to quite get what line it's falling on here. Hugo is very definitely saying that Bishops can't / " shouldn't"  aspire to be like the Apostles, that a Bishop's role is to be more timid, but ...isn't being Like The Apostles a Life Goal? I'm sorry if that's offensive to ask, I really don't know!  Hugo does not side in general with leaders on any level being timid,   of course. He loves dramatic actions and bold leaders!  But he also loves love, and this chapter in general doesn't seem to be exactly a roast of Myriel,so I'm really curious about this? 

- Quoi qu'il en soit, il y a sur la terre des hommes—sont-ce des hommes?—qui aperçoivent distinctement au fond des horizons du rêve les hauteurs de l'absolu, et qui ont la vision terrible de la montagne infinie. 

(Be that as it may, there are men on earth — are they men? — who distinctly perceive the heights of the absolute at the bottom of the horizons of dreams, and who have a terrible vision of the infinite mountain.)

The " are they men"  line in this is really striking to me!  First of course because the other place I remember seeing it is in Cosette's comment on the chain-gang later. But on its own it's interesting! Does visionary mode make people Not Human ? if so, is it the same way that social condemnation makes them Not Human? are all forms of dehumanization to be seen as linked in this narrative structure? Thinking about it, there's probably a strong argument for it, given the various examples of who turns to stone and/or cryptids! But this feels really big to me somehow, and I'm gonna have to think about it for a good while. 

- I'm sure Hugo really does despise his idea of what atheism is- but i also wonder if his repeated disavowals and denunciations of it are partly an effort to establish the he (genuinely!) is not one himself, and stave off at least that attack. If so, it did not exactly work, but I am curious about the politics of it!

[fremedon]

Brickclub I.1.14, “What He Thought”

I think @everyonewasabird is right on the money here about all the other characters the bishop prefigures here. What jumped out most to me is the way this chapter prefigures “Mines and Miners.”

The mysteries the Bishop does not get into are compared over and over to depths: “Abstruse speculations are full of pitfalls” “A sacred horror hovers near the approaches to mysticism; somber openings lie gaping there, but something tells you, as you approach the brink, Do not enter” “the fathomless depths of abstraction and pure speculation” “the unfathomable depths of abstraction, the precipices of metaphysics” “sinister depths, toward which are drawn the gigantic archangels of the human race; fearful abyss that Lucretius, Manou, St. Paul, and Dante contemplate...” And that’s not counting all the references to dizzying heights, which use some of the same language--recalling that inverted sky image that we’ll see when Valjean and Javert perceive bottomless depths above them.

These depths, full of pure philosophy, we are told over and over that the bishop avoids. But how does he look at the universe?

“The universe appeared to him a vast disease; he perceived fever everywhere, he auscultated suffering everywhere, and, without trying to solve the enigma, he endeavored to stanch the wound. [...] There are men who work for the extraction of gold; he worked for the extraction of pity. The misery of the universe was his mine.” 

The bishop isn’t in the deeper mine with the revolutionaries; he isn’t trying to undermine and rebuild society, any more than he is trying to understand philosophical abstractions. But he is still a miner.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Brickclub: 1.1.14

This is a heck of a chapter to do in the morning before work... Let’s see if I can wake up enough to say anything interesting about it.

The way Donougher translates this chapter suggests to me that it’s one of those that soars in French. I don’t have time to read it right now, but it definitely feels like one of those time when Hugo lets everything out and goes full on prose-poetry on us. Finding those moments is my favorite part of reading Hugo, shallow as that might sound.

So the Bishop, despite his everything, is still a good Christian, and adheres to doctrine without worrying too much about it. Normally this kind of thing would annoy me, but Hugo lays out a pretty good case for it. It’s not that Myriel doesn’t understand that there are bigger questions, just that he actively chooses to focus on more earthly concerns. His solution to the problem of good and evil seems to be to acknowledge that it exists and to then ignore it completely because there’s work to be done.

I do have a few issues with this bit: “Certainly, these powerful conceits have their moral usefulness and by these arduous paths one may approach ideal perfection. But he took the shorter path: the Gospel." I get what Hugo’s doing, i.e. reinforcing that the Bishop is still within doctrine (and therefore not some weird proto-hippy that can just be written off, and therefore a direct challenge to Hugo’s middle class readers), but the entire reason that thinkers go off on these apocalyptic spiritual journeys is because they have found the gospel to be insufficient. I don’t like the implication that those journeys are somehow irrelevant, or that they will only ever lead you somewhere you could have gotten anyway.

Here Hugo spells out what we’ve been talking about for a few chapters now, that the Bishop looks at the symptom of poverty and chooses not to look past it to the root cause. It’s likely that his doctrine would tell him that the root cause of poverty is God, who is Unknowable, and so he doesn’t ask further. This is the Bishop’s conservatism, and it ties back to this whole idea being presented here, that he does not seek to explore. We’ve gotten hints of this before: he does not study plants, he likes flowers. He does not study God, he yielded before Him. Myriel is not a scientist, not as we would think of one. And that same tendency to embrace rather than to question is why he is not a revolutionary either.

I wish the senator had a name. I assume he doesn’t get one because Hugo doesn’t like him enough to dignify him with one, but I wish he did. But, after having been a strawman atheist a few chapters back, he is here a strawman pessimist. ‘Why bother?’ he asks. ‘There will always be suffering, and it’s too big to fix.’ And the Bishop’s answer, basically, is, ‘and that is exactly why it is so important.’ It’s a philosophy I can get behind.

“Monseigneur Bienvenu was simply a man who noted the mysterious questions from the outside, but without studying them, without debating them and without troubling his own mind over them, and who had in his soul a serious respect for the unknown."

This is a great sentence. Yeah, yeah, ‘serious respect for’ is a modernism, but it doesn’t ruin the flow. I do have one quibble with the translation, and it’s how she translates the last word. The French, for comparison, goes like this: “Monseigneur Bienvenu était simplement un homme qui constatait du dehors les questions mystérieuses sans les scruter, sans les agiter, et sans en troubler son propre esprit, et qui avait dans l'âme le grave respect de l'ombre."

In French, the last word is ‘ombre,’ or ‘shadow’ which Hugo uses as synonymous for a lot of things in this book. An entire dissertation could be written about Hugo’s use of light and shadow in LM. Translating it as ‘unknown’ is not inaccurate, since Hugo is indeed using it to mean that here, but it strips away the layers, and especially the very light foreshadowing. Jean Valjean is extremely frequently associated with ‘ombre’, with darkness of the spirit and soul. Like, I think there’s at least one chapter straight up called JVJ in shadow or something like that. So here, the Bishop is said to have nothing but the most solemn respect for the shadows, which lays the groundwork for how he receives Valjean. It’s both actual and symbolic foreshadowing, as well as being a good summation of his character as a whole.

Next up, book 2!

[dolphin1812]

Hugo’s Romanticism really shone through today, there were so many references to “genius” and the “sublime.”

[pilferingapples]

Les Mis 365, retrobricking, 1.1.13, 1.1.14

1.1.13

Ahahah we have more physical description of the Bishop, and lo, WHAT HORIZON-- we have our first official Hugo Forehead! Congratulations, Myriel!  

Also, the focus on old guys with all their teeth! Oh...kay? I guess Myriel's simple diet might in fact make it more likely.Hugo draws us this image of a cute healthy old guy and then allows that HE HAS A BENT BACK BUT IT TOTALLY DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING and I'm both rolling my eyes because OF COURSE IT DOESN'T and forced to acknowledge that in Certain Genres it totally WOULD, and also laugh because Hugo totally just put that in there to be snitty about Gregory XVI.  There's maybe no greater argument made for potential character reform in this section than the revelation that in his youth, Bienvenue was not just passionate and wordly ( nudge nudge wink wink)  but VIOLENT. Hugo is incredibly uncomfortable with violence (and I'm uncomfortable with his kind of uncomfortable) but here we see a character-- and  an incredibly good and fair and above all loving and kind character-- who WAS violent, and has learned compassion and forgiveness through the experiences of his life. Don't think for one second I won't be coming back to this about multiple characters; Valjean is only the most obvious.  

Mostly I'm cheering this chapter because it has one of the key points of the book spelled out, the refutation of cynicism that people still love to trot out against the story (and in general) now. Myriel is kind and loving and " sensible"  people call that weakness or ignorance or vulnerability.  But of course it's his great strength, and the only enduring strength that carries through the book. Love isn't shown as solving all problems in Les Mis, and, you know, GOOD, because that would be a lie. It's not proof against disaster; but it is, ALWAYS, a STRENGTH, not a weakness, a sometimes terrifying strength, and the ignorance is on the part of people who dismiss it. 

We also get our DEFINITIVE stars-and-gardens philosophy circuit here, which will of course show up again with multiple characters. The stars above, the earth below, and humanity in the middle, is a bit of imagery that always really gets me through the novel, and I really need to get back to trying to illustrate these chapters, because AUGH. 

... However, I cannot support this book's anti-spider stance. We do not need to pity spiders! They are awesome! ROCK ON SPIDERS, YOU ARE LOVELY AS YOU ARE. 

 1.1.14 This chapter, geez. LOVE EACH OTHER, in case anyone missed it, is the drive of Myriel's practice. Hugo's gonna prove a champ at not discussing specific theory throughout the book, but here it really is beside the point for the Bishop.  And probably that's important too, because it means that the power to change the world is being moved away from just the few elite scholars; if the way forward is just to act in love, then it's a lot more accessible than if people have to draft a manifesto and understand five semesters of social theory and get proper credentials to have an opinion. But this is a story of and for fallible people who act, not flawless saints or pure thinkers*.  And the story is almost over, and it's about to really start. 

* and by LM standards, such Pure Thinkers have a LOT of problems on their own. But more on that, even aside from the " madness"  issue, as the book progresses.