#or one of the descriptions of Mabeuf's gardens

[secretmellowblog]

hey love your blog!

i’ve got a really random specific question.

so I read les mis over 10 years ago and there was a passage in it i’ve been trying to find since but i just can’t… it was a description of a garden and i remember it being soooo lyrical and beautiful but for the life of me i can’t find it again …. any chance it rings a bell????

Gardens are a big motif in Les Mis, and there are lots of lyrical descriptions of gardens in the book! So it is hard to say, but- I'll put other possibilities in the tags, but I think the most likely candidate is probably the longest and most lyrical garden description we get in the book-- the description of the garden in the Rue Plumet, where Jean Valjean lives with Cosette. This is Volume IV, Book 3, Chapter 3, "Foliis Ac Frondibus":

There was a stone bench in one corner, one or two mouldy statues, several lattices which had lost their nails with time, were rotting on the wall, and there were no walks nor turf; but there was enough grass everywhere. Gardening had taken its departure, and nature had returned. Weeds abounded, which was a great piece of luck for a poor corner of land. The festival of gilliflowers was something splendid. Nothing in this garden obstructed the sacred effort of things towards life; venerable growth reigned there among them. The trees had bent over towards the nettles, the plant had sprung upward, the branch had inclined, that which crawls on the earth had gone in search of that which expands in the air, that which floats on the wind had bent over towards that which trails in the moss; trunks, boughs, leaves, fibres, clusters, tendrils, shoots, spines, thorns, had mingled, crossed, married, confounded themselves in each other; vegetation in a deep and close embrace, had celebrated and accomplished there, under the well-pleased eye of the Creator, in that enclosure three hundred feet square, the holy mystery of fraternity, symbol of the human fraternity. This garden was no longer a garden, it was a colossal thicket, that is to say, something as impenetrable as a forest, as peopled as a city, quivering like a nest, sombre like a cathedral, fragrant like a bouquet, solitary as a tomb, living as a throng.

In Floréal this enormous thicket, free behind its gate and within its four walls, entered upon the secret labor of germination, quivered in the rising sun, almost like an animal which drinks in the breaths of cosmic love, and which feels the sap of April rising and boiling in its veins, and shakes to the wind its enormous wonderful green locks, sprinkled on the damp earth, on the defaced statues, on the crumbling steps of the pavilion, and even on the pavement of the deserted street, flowers like stars, dew like pearls, fecundity, beauty, life, joy, perfumes. At midday, a thousand white butterflies took refuge there, and it was a divine spectacle to see that living summer snow whirling about there in flakes amid the shade. There, in those gay shadows of verdure, a throng of innocent voices spoke sweetly to the soul, and what the twittering forgot to say the humming completed. In the evening, a dreamy vapor exhaled from the garden and enveloped it; a shroud of mist, a calm and celestial sadness covered it; the intoxicating perfume of the honeysuckles and convolvulus poured out from every part of it, like an exquisite and subtle poison; the last appeals of the woodpeckers and the wagtails were audible as they dozed among the branches; one felt the sacred intimacy of the birds and the trees; by day the wings rejoice the leaves, by night the leaves protect the wings.

In winter the thicket was black, dripping, bristling, shivering, and allowed some glimpse of the house. Instead of flowers on the branches and dew in the flowers, the long silvery tracks of the snails were visible on the cold, thick carpet of yellow leaves; but in any fashion, under any aspect, at all seasons, spring, winter, summer, autumn, this tiny enclosure breathed forth melancholy, contemplation, solitude, liberty, the absence of man, the presence of God; and the rusty old gate had the air of saying: “This garden belongs to me.”

It was of no avail that the pavements of Paris were there on every side, the classic and splendid hotels of the Rue de Varennes a couple of paces away, the dome of the Invalides close at hand, the Chamber of Deputies not far off; the carriages of the Rue de Bourgogne and of the Rue Saint-Dominique rumbled luxuriously, in vain, in the vicinity, in vain did the yellow, brown, white, and red omnibuses cross each other’s course at the neighboring crossroads; the Rue Plumet was the desert; and the death of the former proprietors, the revolution which had passed over it, the crumbling away of ancient fortunes, absence, forgetfulness, forty years of abandonment and widowhood, had sufficed to restore to this privileged spot ferns, mulleins, hemlock, yarrow, tall weeds, great crimped plants, with large leaves of pale green cloth, lizards, beetles, uneasy and rapid insects; to cause to spring forth from the depths of the earth and to reappear between those four walls a certain indescribable and savage grandeur; and for nature, which disconcerts the petty arrangements of man, and which sheds herself always thoroughly where she diffuses herself at all, in the ant as well as in the eagle, to blossom out in a petty little Parisian garden with as much rude force and majesty as in a virgin forest of the New World.

Nothing is small, in fact; any one who is subject to the profound and penetrating influence of nature knows this. Although no absolute satisfaction is given to philosophy, either to circumscribe the cause or to limit the effect, the contemplator falls into those unfathomable ecstasies caused by these decompositions of force terminating in unity. Everything toils at everything.Algebra is applied to the clouds; the radiation of the star profits the rose; no thinker would venture to affirm that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who, then, can calculate the course of a molecule? How do we know that the creation of worlds is not determined by the fall of grains of sand? Who knows the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely little, the reverberations of causes in the precipices of being, and the avalanches of creation? The tiniest worm is of importance; the great is little, the little is great; everything is balanced in necessity; alarming vision for the mind. There are marvellous relations between beings and things; in that inexhaustible whole, from the sun to the grub, nothing despises the other; all have need of each other. The light does not bear away terrestrial perfumes into the azure depths, without knowing what it is doing; the night distributes stellar essences to the sleeping flowers. All birds that fly have round their leg the thread of the infinite. Germination is complicated with the bursting forth of a meteor and with the peck of a swallow cracking its egg, and it places on one level the birth of an earthworm and the advent of Socrates. Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two possesses the larger field of vision? Choose. A bit of mould is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an ant-hill of stars. The same promiscuousness, and yet more unprecedented, exists between the things of the intelligence and the facts of substance. Elements and principles mingle, combine, wed, multiply with each other, to such a point that the material and the moral world are brought eventually to the same clearness. The phenomenon is perpetually returning upon itself. In the vast cosmic exchanges the universal life goes and comes in unknown quantities, rolling entirely in the invisible mystery of effluvia, employing everything, not losing a single dream, not a single slumber, sowing an animalcule here, crumbling to bits a planet there, oscillating and winding, making of light a force and of thought an element, disseminated and invisible, dissolving all, except that geometrical point, the I; bringing everything back to the soul-atom; expanding everything in God, entangling all activity, from summit to base, in the obscurity of a dizzy mechanism, attaching the flight of an insect to the movement of the earth, subordinating, who knows? Were it only by the identity of the law, the evolution of the comet in the firmament to the whirling of the infusoria in the drop of water. A machine made of mind. Enormous gearing, the prime motor of which is the gnat, and whose final wheel is the zodiac.

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 4.2.3 ‘An apparition to Father Mabeuf’

Mabeuf is fading, and his vain hopes for the future and total lack of planning are disturbing. He pawned his copper plates first, and they were what he would have needed to get his book printed, which is his only source of income. It feels very specific to his character that he cut ties with the most generative thing he owned first.

This book doesn’t have a lot explicitly to say about what provisions society should make for the elderly, but Mabeuf’s story says clearly there should be something. He’s eighty; he should be allowed to rest without worrying about starving, or about having no one around who can water his garden. Myriel had Hugo’s idea of a perfect death, but there has to be some recourse for poor people who don’t have that.

This is the beginning of Mabeuf’s selling himself off piece by piece, like Fantine.

Like Myriel said, the beautiful is as useful as the useful--maybe more so. But Mabeuf is in desperate need of the basics, and in the absence of them he’s clinging to flowers.

It’s like Fantine clinging to her hope of Cosette, but it also feels extremely different. Is it wrong that Mabeuf feels to me like a deluded and diluted version of her? Flowers are important in this book, but Fantine’s story was about how she kept her eye on the most important thing, always, and she fought for that to the end. Mabeuf’s clinging to the flowers feels like he’s already given up hope, and now he’s just distracting himself as best he can.

At the same time, maybe there are worse things to lose. He keeps his soul at the expense of everything else, and that’s tragic and in some ways frustrating, but--I don’t know, there are plenty of people in this book who choose to become monstrous instead.

And on that note, we meet Eponine, who has become much stranger. She isn’t monstrous in the moral sense--like, say, her parents are--but she’s stopped being quite human. Marius’s and Mabeuf’s descents are linked explicitly to each other, but she’s part of that comparison too.

We’re entirely external to Eponine here. She’s an apparition and a goblin, and--possibly--an angel. She does a good deed in watering Mabeuf’s flowers, though it’s transactional; she wants Marius’s address. But she’s noticing suffering and alleviating it, and that’s huge.

And yet, as we’ll see throughout, she seems to have separated herself from the normal, mortal world in order to do it. We’re already getting that eldritch, ring-wraith quality to her, and a feeling that whatever agency she’s gained by this point in the novel, she gave up her humanity to get it.

Hugo said--entirely inexplicably--in his description of Marius:

We must not suppose that his reason was disordered. Quite the contrary. He had lost the capability of work, and of moving firmly towards a definite end, but he was more clear-sighted and correct than ever. Marius saw, in a calm and real light, although a singular one, what was going on under his eyes, even the most indifferent facts of men; he said the right word about everything with a sort of honest languor and candid disinterestedness. His judgment, almost detached from hope, soared and floated aloft.

And that doesn’t describe Marius at all, but it’s not a bad description of what Eponine has become. The “moving firmly to a definite end” is up for debate--she’s very definite and effective in what she does, but at the same time, like with Mabeuf, there’s no endgame here. None of her plans lead to a better future, or any kind of future. Her power comes from a sense of futurelessness--she’s already dead.

And it’s interesting that that happens entirely off screen. We have an outline of what happened to her--she left her sentry duty to go off with Montparnasse; she was arrested and jailed and eventually released. She was asked to investigate the Rue Plumet house and lied about it.

But she was a girl before, if a strange and sick and uncanny one. Suddenly she’s something else.

Did she die? Did she sell her soul? What DID this?

[astarion-dekarios]

Ask game! Either... mainstream choice: Jean Prouvaire or oddball choice: Mabeuf

Aw, neither of those are oddball!

Jean Prouvaire

First impression: Hmm, I guess I was really taken by the description of him as someone who is sort of... very physically self-conscious? The blushing easily, the deliberately speaking in a soft voice (which became “suddenly manly”), etc. I liked him but I didn’t have that many opinions about him I guess.

Impression now: I really like him! I feel like I need to read more about Nerval to help me flesh out my characterisation of him, but I think he’s really interesting. I actually think he and Enjolras would get along quite well; they are both “visionary” type characters.

Favorite moment: His death scene .... unfortunately.

Favorite fic: [I’m inserting this question for Prouvaire specifically because I found I wanted to talk about it] I love @ratheralark’s (Eglantine)’s fic “Lightning”

Idea for a story: I’ve wanted one for a while now where Prouvaire and Bahorel write and stage a highly inflammatory play in public.

Unpopular opinion: I don’t like non-binary Jean Prouvaire. 🙃 But you knew that already, so ... ummm I think Prouvaire is older, I guess? It seems unpopular because in everyone else’s lineup he tends to be one of the younger Amis (...if not THE youngest). Based on his poem and the political references though I tend to put him around a similar age with Bahorel and like 30 at the barricade.

Favorite relationship: Poetry Smash! I just think they’re a lot of fun.

Favorite headcanon: My Prouvaire is a physically large person & that’s very much part of his general physical... maneuvering, to try to take up less space. He is awkward about it. Until sometimes he drops the awkwardness and it’s always a little surprising like, he gains several inches in height and breadth.

Mabeuf

First impression: This guy...! I literally cried over him selling his last book to buy medicine, he just breaks my heart really (still does).

Impression now: He breaks my heart even more!? He’s such an awkward, quiet guy and incredibly sweet... I saw him in the 1972 movie once we finished the subtitles and wow just, they really captured something there with the way he talks to Marius for ages and is like “Okay goodbye” & then comes back because he forgot to get to the main point of what he was trying to say.

Favorite moment: When he thinks of Eponine as a fairy. There’s other moments I like a lot but I can’t justifiably say they’re my favorites when they cause me physical pain.

Unpopular opinion: I don’t really know what’s considered unpopular about him...! I read him as gay, I guess, which I think is unpopular just as in uncommon, not that it’s inflammatory or anything. But there are some things in there. “Loved the faces of men but hated their voices, so he went to church not because he was religious but because it’s the only place where he could see men in silence” “When asked if he ever married, he said ‘I don’t remember’” Hmmmmmmm (disclaimer: not direct quotes).

Favorite relationship: With what we actually see in the text it’s gotta be Marius. The fact that he’s basically Marius’s only friend outside of Courfeyrac & like, I imagine that he actually sees him very often and they talk about Marius’s dad “from the perspective of flowers” or whatever the line is and... it’s just really sweet actually.

Favorite headcanon: Ok but... He and Georges had a really sweet relationship based on gardening, where he would give Georges fruits and Georges would give him flowers, and Georges would talk about his little son he wasn’t allowed to see and they would just be quiet companions and idk I get emotional about it & I make myself emotional about how that reflects on his relationship with Marius & talking to Marius about his father.

[pilferingapples]

Beeble Mis 5b : Who Gave You A Gun?!?

PREVIOUSLY on BBC Les Mis: it was Barricade Time, babey!

 I’m trusting people better with geographical/layout descriptions than me will take this one. But other points:

- I give Wardrobe hell in this show and I do not take it back, but also let me say they’re doing a solid job on lower-class clothing. I especially like the poor woman in the march whose outfit is almost complete but her overblouse is too small and shows the lacing of her corset at her waist-- not sexy at all, it looks exactly like what it is, not being able to make/afford a top that really fits.

- ... A Riot Occurs! And okay yeah, listen, I’ve been trying really hard to evaluate this show as This Show, just an adaptation of the book, as Davies emphasized it was. But this is a very 2012 way to film the chaos as the riot erupts. I’m not saying it’s bad! I actually think it works! I just also think it’s Very Samey, and there are other ways to film chaotic sequences.

- The worker from The Something Cafe earlier (who I think may have been the one Enjolras saved earlier too?) comes up as they’re starting to build the barricade and is all WELCOME COMRADE and they are obviously really solid with each other and why Why WHY isn’t this worker just Feuilly?!? Enjolras has a canonical Worker Activist Bestie! It would have been a fine thing to go with! 

...Were they afraid of mispronouncing “Feuilly”? because. I could understand that.  

- “There’s only one line of attack!” says Enjolras and okay this is the kind of thing that people in genre shows say before being attacked from behind but it’s also like the whole deal with the Corinthe barricade so

- there’s a flag that I *think* has the date of the July Revolution on it?  Not sure? Can anyone confirm? 

- Grantaire grabs HALF A STOOL yes very good Grantaire 

- Matelote is here! With a cockade in her hair! Slapping Grantaire in the face AS HE RICHLY DESERVES 

- I am loving this HISTORICALLY ACCURATE multiracial and multigender crowd! Thank you!

- And now it’s time for COMEDY JAVERT!!!  He is going to the barricades in his STEALTH CAP because he cannot  TRUST anyone else to apprehend Jean Valjean! Who will definitely be IN THE VERY CENTER of the rioting! At...a  small barricade..on an obscure street... with only 40-50 defenders...

you know if the IRL Official Intel had been this Hot and Happenin’, Charles Jeanne and Co. might have won:P

-BACK TO THE BARRICADE BUILDING, Gavroche steals the Mean Barber’s Plaster Head and Wig for and brings it along? for reasons?? , and then encounters Mabeuf 

--okay Mabeuf being here is a Great Example of the way this series so often brings in canon details but gutted of the context that really makes them matter. We’ve seen nothing of his slide into poverty, his struggle, his desperation; there’s no reason to think there’s anything to him showing up (with tricolor sash!) except a genuine determination to Do His Part. I’m not sorry he’s here; I’m sorry it doesn’t tie in with anything else more. 

- ...if Feuilly were here they’d be building a better barricade 

- JAVERT IS HERE! ON THE CASE! TRACKING DOWN THE NOTORIOUS REBEL JEAN VALJEAN I’m sorry this is forever hilarious ACTUAL DIALOGUE:

Javert, Super Casual: Is a man named Jean Valjean with us?  Quinnjolras, who very realistically has no idea who tf JVJ is:  Not that I know of  Javert, Super Smoothlike And Very Casual: He’ll be in the thick of it,MARK MY WORDS

Sadly then we of course cut to : Jean Valjean! or rather Cosette, trying to sneak out past Jean Valjean. And Marius! Sneaking into the Garden House! 

And it’s all very nicely paralleled with them both being quiet and Marius is looking in a window and Cosette has her hands on the doorknob to step outside 

and VALJEAN ATTACKS HER FROM BEHIND LIKE A HORROR MOVIE MONSTER 

HOLY SHIT 

she screams and begs to be let go, and he just! won’t ! he keeps Ever So Calm as he physically restrains her, calmly telling her that oh, it’s dangerous Out There, as opposed to in HERE, with a frigging superhuman keeping her restrained 

he finally lets her escape back up the stairs and she yells I HATE YOU which is honestly seeming less Spunky Teen and more TOTALLY JUSTIFIED ACT OF BRAVE DEFIANCE  holy shit 

holy shit 

I hate this Valjean so much y’all, this is so bad  

the camera pulls away and shows us he is A Sad but !! I don’t care! Don’t PHYSICALLY RESTRAIN YOUR TEENAGER AND LOCK HER IN THE HOUSE 

at this point in the recap I actually had to take a break and get some tea because holy shit  

but okay. Okay. I’m back. 

--and the scene is MERCIFULLY back to the House With Gardens In, where Marius is having an Existential Crisis and Eponine...is trying to convince him to live? and hook up with her?  But she Name Drops the Chanvrerie Barricade apparently by mistake, here because this is the Les Mis where Women Aren’t Given Much to Thinking, and so Marius goes off to Die , as Marii do

then it’s back to the barricade! Where Courfeyrac , Mabeuf and Gavroche arrive at the head of a bunch of new recruits! Through the alley....into the barricade with only One Line of Attack...hhhhyeahhh. I . I get where like you couldn’t do a MASSED charge from that alley but it would be REAL easy to do a smaller distraction sortie? I think? 

eh, I’m not Battle Tactics Blogger , back to the plot. 

Gavroche spots Javert and immediately rumbles him; Enjolras and Courfeyrac and Not!Feuilly etc seize him and take him hostage. Go Team! 

And then it’s evening,and all across Paris the lights are...doing things and people are singing!

But There is No Joy in Corinth, Except For Me! because Javert is tied to a post! and HILARIOUSLY YELLING ABOUT JEAN VALJEAN.

Actual Dialogue: WHERE IS HE! YOUR LEADER! JEAN VALJEAN!

I’m glad Quinnjolras thinks this is as funny as I do 

Javert, to a group of armed revolutionaries: You’re mistaken, my friend! You’ve ALL BEEN LED ASTRAY. 

Javert, my guy, I hate this Valjean too, but I don’t think he’s behind POLITICAL ISSUES IN PARIS. 

Quinnjolras gets a We’re Not Assassins line when Gav makes to shoot Javert; I am pleased!

Meanwhile Not!Feuilly and Friends are outside watching the barricade; they call that the first charge is coming. 

The first charge goes pretty well, Dramatic Fight Scene wise! Quinnjolras gets the barricade to use Good Bullet Economy, and is convincing as a combat leader, at least in this moment. Courfeyrac...gives the impression of being someone totally new to this, but getting the hang of it. Gavroche is Super Pumped and kills someone with Javert’s musket I think? (WHO GAVE HIM A GUN). (Bossuet I am pretty sure is killed.) And Grantaire, who has a gun somehow (WHO GAVE YOU A GUN)...gets an actual look at violence and shuts down. For any of the others,I’d be deeply annoyed by this, but it’s a good way of showing the basic Issue here: Grantaire has no real violence in him. He can be a jerk , but he doesn’t have the conviction to carry himself over the horrors of dealing real harm or real death--or seeing it come to others. War is genuinely awful! and he’s really not capable of this.  It’s a good moment, and fits with the new way they’re doing his arc so far. 

...and then as I’m appreciating this, and as the barricade is celebrating, it’s time to Raise the Flag! And Mabeuf volunteers! And Quinnjolras is like”hahah no grampa it’s fine” and Mabeuf says “I said I’ll do it”, and climbs up the barricade all awkward. And Not!Feuilly looks over at Enjolras like ??? and Enjolras does that shrug that means ‘Hey I Tried But Grampa Won’t Stop’ and Mabeuf puts up the flag and everyone goes YAAAAAY and Marius sneaks onto the barricade and Mabeuf gets shot. 

And I just...it’s Shocking and it’s Sad  in a Hey An Old Man Died sort of way, but it’s All Wrong for tone and context. The raising of the flag is supposed to be an obviously dangerous, essentially suicidal  act of courage, that requires stepping into the line of open fire ; something even Enjolras hesitates to do.  Mabeuf’s courage terrifies  everyone , terrifies Enjolras ; Mabeuf inspires them all by his willing sacrifice, and becomes to the barricade a reminder of the courage of the Grand Revolution. 

Here, putting up the flag is A Bit of A Chore; no one seems very tense about it; everyone’s watching calmly and laughing and cheering as it goes. Mabeuf’s death is Shocking, a Reminder that There Is Danger , not a foregone conclusion (and of course  there’s no mention of the original Revolution as a positive inspiration). We, the viewer, don’t know about Mabeuf’s downward spiral in life, so we can’t link it to this decision, can’t see this as an act of protest and despair.  Courfeyrac doesn’t know Mabeuf, so he doesn’t correct Enjolras on Mabeuf’s politics; he just seems shaken and lost by this Unexpected Death.

Mabeuf’s death is, essentially, reframed, from being a conscious, heroic , inspiring sacrifice to group of fighters who felt their courage wavering, to a Sad Loss That Awakens Everyone to The Horror Of Battle. Someone might like this choice of approach more; but it IS a choice, and a heavy one in terms of symbolism (even as it loses the commentary on symbolism!).

Anyway. Next wave of combat happens, Grantaire Nopes Out into the Corinthe (WHO GAVE YOU A BOOZE), Gavroche heads back into combat with a pistol (WHO GAVE YOU YET ANOTHER GUN)  Marius RAUUUUGHS up and into Battle with the Gunpowder. It’s good! Kind of hilarious but good! The Barricade Is Saved and also happy about it  instead of scolding him! GOOD ! 

and then Marius has a whole “it’s EASY when you DON’T VALUE YOUR LIFE” bit and Quinnjolras is like “Ungroovy , Comrade Buddy” and Marius walks down to the street level and a guard is Still Alive!1!1, and shoots at him! and hogad, Eponine sort of . Hurls herself across screen and falls in a heap RIGHT AT THE FOOT OF THE MAIN PASSAGE ON THE BARRICADE and Enjolras shoots the guard and is like “see some of us still value your life you drama llama” and i just 

are they gonna move her or 

--anyway , her Death Scene is very good until the odd change in final line; the shift from “I believe I was a little bit in love with you” to “I really did love you” is actually! a pretty major shift! but whatever  ; Erin Kellyman did a wonderful job with the whole scene and for once I believe this Marius is truly sad at the passing of a life

The next bit with the letter is really cool! Let me give credit for that!  Marius reads the letter Eponine gave him, while Valjean discovers Cosette’s blotter and reads it in a reflective plate-- a nice bit of symmetry and a cool way to use a book detail to unite the branches of the story! Valjean realizes Cosette is already lost to him-- “in her heart she’s gone” -- and I could not care less for the grief of Shouty Dragsalot, but it’s well acted for the person this Valjean is. 

...and then Gavroche shows up with Cosette’s letter, and we get THIS 

as Valjean JUMPS AT AND GRABS A CHILD and rips the note from his hand, and then growls at him to “hop it” until Gavroche does, in what is a really nasty echo of the Petit Gervais scene 

and of course he reads Cosette’s letter and grabs a knife (WHO GAVE YOU A KNIFE), and heads to the barricade, where Javert lifts his head, alert, as his Valjean sense activates again.

...y’all I’m making as many jokes as I can but I am grieving for how horrible this Valjean is and how much more Cosette has to endure because of it?? this is grim.  And while I know of course this series will stick to the plot of the book, it really would feel the most consistent for this Valjean to just flat out commit some good ol’ muderin’. 

Well maybe JAVERT, SUPER POLICE PRESENCE will stop him!   And save the poor barricade fighters from his malign influence! and then everyone can go get some cake with Cosette and Eponine and Mabeuf will make a Miraculous Recovery!  That’s probably how it will go. No need to worry! 

[centrifuge-politics]

Brick Club 4.11.5, 4.11.6

Adding a minor tw this chapter for discussion of suicide, in more of an academic, sociological tone, but still there, starting in the third paragraph.

The Child Wonders At The Old Man and now we meet The Old Man. “We must tell what happened.” Please, do. Hugo says Mabeuf is an octogenarian, but he also said Gillenormand was an octogenarian after telling us he was ninety-one. But, yes, do continue.

Mabeuf, in the company of this revolutionary cadre, gains an unusual steadiness, “having at once the motion of a man who is walking, and the countenance of a man who is asleep. ‘What a desperate goodman!’ murmured the students.” Now, I said a good while ago, that Marius might be the poster child for anomie, a feeling of being helplessly adrift in a time of severe social upheaval, with no established set of social norms to cling to, often leading to anomic suicide. In this case, Mabeuf represents the opposite problem, he becomes overly integrated and bound to the social group he’s found himself in. He begins fatalistic, having sold his last book and having no other means by which to continue paying for the privilege of living. Hearing the encroaching conflict, he wanders out, surrendering his life to the whim of fate. However, it’s this encounter in this chapter that turns him to what Durkheim call altruistic suicide. Academically speaking, this phenomenon arises from a state of high social integration, when the group overwhelms the individual (the spiritual opposite of egoistic suicide, which Marius also dabbles in). This type of suicide is most commonly seen in elderly members of the community who sacrifice themselves for the greater good of their community. Like fatalistic suicide, this happens most often in times of hardship for a particular community.

Mabeuf, seeing this eclectic collection of young, bright-eyes revolutionaries is inspired with a sort of grim conviction. We also see a similar mindset in Valjean when he makes the decision to go to the barricade, and it’s even starker in the musical—“He is young, he’s afraid…and I am old, and will be gone.” The difference is Mabeuf is fully integrated into the group mindset, in which that the individual is not as important as the group, whereas Valjean is only focused on Cosette’s wellbeing and everything else is just a means to that end.

It’s interesting that Marius and Mabeuf, despite the parallels of their story lines, are really at opposite ends of this particular spectrum. Marius is really only concerned with himself throughout his time on the barricade while Mabeuf gets swept into the collective. Actually, the women Gavroche passed in the street earlier might do well to take Mabeuf as an example. It’s all well and good to try and stay out of conflict, take refuge in a garden, books, political ignorance, complaining at how noisy the revolution is, until one day you realize you’ve reached the end of your line. Suddenly all the noisy politics seem very relevant and you don’t have a choice but to take a side. First they came for the poor and I said nothing, etc. For Mabeuf, this comes rather too late and he finds himself between the potential suicide mission of the barricade or slowly starving on the streets. Given the option between a fatalistic or altruistic fate, he chooses the later. It’s no joy, just an inevitability.

(Is that Enjolras in a cap?? Love it).

Hugo insists on maintaining the charade that we can’t immediately recognize any of his characters on description. “A man of tall stature, who was turning grey” with “rough and bold mien” joins the procession and Courfeyrac swings by his rooms (to pick up a hat, very important) to find a “young working-man…who had rather the appearance of a girl in boy’s clothes” asking for Marius.

Everyone is heading for the namesake of this volume, “without really knowing how.” It’s hardly the determined, directed march of “One Day More” but you take it where you can get when the émeute is in motion.

[aflamethatneverdies]

4.2.2

This chapter solidifies what we have been told from the mines and Miners chapter, that the crime is aided by the authorities. I also find it interesting to parse the title as Hugo’s opinions on prisons being incubators of crime, which they are in many cases and why he insists on education for the gamin to prevent him from going to prison for crime.

This relationship between crime and authority are very interesting because the relationship seems to run both ways. The authorities want the escaped prisoner because he was valuable to the criminals and criminals help find people who are valuable to the authorities. It makes the links between the Patron Minette and the police of which Javert is a part that much deeper and lends a much more sinister air to the likes of Claquesous, who we are told mysteriously vanished.

It is interesting that Javert is not surprised by it, leading to the conjecture that the police is too inefficient and easily corruptible if it lets criminals escape so easily, but he is annoyed that Claquesous was not tracked down and caught because he was too valuable. He was valuable because he was more villainous, which makes for good agents. Similar to there being no good lawyer in canon era. Javert too views lawyers through that lens where he thinks Marius too innocent to be one.

Eponine seems to be doing so many errands for the Patron Minette, now she is taking messages from Magnon to spy on a house in Rue Plumet, but here we see her take agency and of her own accord tell Patron Minette that the house was a biscuit. She could have chosen not to do this. She is trying like Gavroche to make her own decisions and live her own life in what little way she can, and I love her all the more for it.

4.2.3

Marius and Mabeuf are directly compared again. Their lives are increasingly running towards desperate circumstances down towards darkness. It is also heart-breaking that all that desperation has created a rift between Marius and Mabeuf, because of their poverty. Father Mabeuf is also stubbornly carrying out his indigo plant experiment. I know that Hugo wanted to emphasise the beautiful as being useful but for Mabeuf, his not relying on the community around him and not using his garden to grow food or even doing something else that would give him a little bit of money for a while, is thrusting him deeper into poverty and desperation.

His obsession with the indigo seems to me to closely mirror Marius’ obsession with Cosette. Both are things outside their reach currently and they both are neglecting to eat to focus on it. Father Mabeuf seems a dreamer in much the same way as Marius and a warning to him.  

I also find the emphasis on Eponine as a supernatural creature in this chapter really fascinating. Father Mabeuf seems to rely on superstition, which is not deemed to be such a good thing since Hugo has already said much about superstition in his convent chapters and so thinks of her as a fairy, supernatural creature.

But the way the narration describes Eponine as a wild creature reminds me of the werewolf child description from Cosette’s chapter. Eponine also seems to be described as an evening flower manifestation. So, her appearance puts her outside society and within nature. Nature for Hugo can be unforgiving but also better in some ways than civilisation.

It’s also interesting that we do get that description of nature with Mabeuf gazing heavenward at the stars while the sky is a mixture of twilight and fading light, though his gaze seems more a plea from Providence than the bishop’s philosophical contemplations.

For Mabeuf though she is a fairy and Eponine does a little kindness for the old man showing as in the last chapter that she does good for people, that she needs that recognition and is kind, despite having worked for Patron-Minette, she is not a monster or a devil even though she says so, but an angel for Mabeuf who watered the plants for him. In return she asks for a favour, not for herself, but to find Marius.

4.2.4

Marius has gone back to his translation work but he still has the haze around him and is still distracted from work and makes promises to do work but doesn’t which is relatable. 

Eponine seems to move towards the metaphorical light and becomes beautiful. I wonder if it also mirrors how Fantine was described as beautiful even when she was dying. Eponine is both dying and is aware of how much she is ‘a specific sort of woman’ yet with the kindness to Mabeuf and the kindness to Marius, all she is asking for is, in my view, some form of sympathy, kindness and friendship in return. 

She is compared to Ophelia without being driven mad by her love of Hamlet, so Hugo too rejects the angle of love perhaps.  Also, in this chapter she is painfully aware of the difference/distance between their social situations because she talks about Marius being a Baron and therefore an important person. 

But she did not have to help Marius by giving him Cosette’s address and she does. Despite her being described as supernatural and outside society, she still is making an effort to separate herself a little from Patron Minette and especially her father.

She is moving towards goodness whereas for P-M, I don’t really think there is any hope at this point that they could be rehabilitated into better people, they have sunk too low among the mines.

Eponine’s excited chatter much like in the chapters on the Gorbeau House is heartbreaking and also in that same vein she asks to mend his shirt and wants him to laugh because she wants to see him happy. 

Marius is distant and standoffish using vous and then reluctantly tu. She is so pleased when he remembers her name but the way that she tells Marius to keep his distance is so much heartbreaking once again.  

This coupled with the fact that @akallabeth-joie mentioned that Eponine is barely a minor and that things would get grim in a couple of months, if she finds herself arrested after she turns 16 and my heart breaks all over for her.  

Marius fails to understand her, the farthest thing she wants is money for her time, that’s what people give her, Marius was her friend, Marius was kind to her. Marius’ unobservant nature and his focus on finding Cosette also makes him forget that he was going to give this money to Thenardier in prison. Marius is so quick to forget his father’s promise all for the sake of Cosette, a girl he still barely knows. 

[midautumnnightdream]

For the character meme: Fauchelevent and/or Mabeuf? :D

Ahha fun times trying to give an estimate of the hotness level of old men :p

Fauchelevent

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang

Not that he gets that much physical description, but the picture in my head is not about to win beauty contests any time soon :p

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff

He’s basically a textbook example of A Good Slytherin imho

best quality: Manages the grand feat of being clever and cunning, but also fundamentally honest about himself. This is the guy who makes grumbly remarks about popular and powerful mayor without care of how other people react, who still tries to prevent said mayor for endangering himself, while being slowly crushed to death, and who rescued Valjean and Cosette because he “found it sweet to be grateful”. This is a pretty great combination of selfishness and selflessness - probably makes him one of the most well-adjusted characters here.

worst quality: kind of a jerkass tbh :P

ship them with: Valjean! They get to have a quiet peaceful relationship, based on mutual respect and admiration and no foe yay whatsoever; they raise Cosette and take care of the garden and Fauvant keeps talking and Valjean keeps not really listening, but that’s okay. They start to rub off to each other after a while, with Fauvent taking more notice of the needs of the others and Valjean getting a bit more chill about his burden of guilt. It’s quiet, it’s kinda boring and very very therapeutic.

brotp them with: Also Valjean, I’m not picky. The Prioress - I love their interaction and… well there was an odd sort of ease to the pattern they fell into? Fauvent definitely wasn’t overawed by Authority, and the Prioress didn’t seem particularly perturbed by him? So I have to imagine that this was a Regular Sort of Deal for them and the Prioress keeps calling upon him to help with more-or-less illegal schemes in interests of the convent and it’s inhabitants. :D

(Also now I want a Superhero AU where Fauvent is the grumbly hero and the Prioress does the mission briefing)

needs to stay away from: Falling carts?

misc. thoughts: I keep wondering about his backstory - we know he was was a peasant and became a notary, then his business failed and he became a cart driver. What exactly happened there? We are told he was something of a Bonapartist and figured that Valjean was on the run for political reasons - could be he was involved in something similar at some point? Did he have a family? What became of them?

There are many a question. I’d love to hear other people’s headcanons about him :D

Mabeuf

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang

I kind of imagine him as being very adorable and sweet-looking, especially in his younger days, but never exactly handsome.

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff

This is tough, I could totally accept him as a Hufflepuff. I’m basing this on the idea that when in doubt, the sorting hat would err towards the person’s value judgments rather than personality, and he is such a supernerd

best quality: Very accepting and non-judgmental. Just look at his first conversation with Marius - it’s not just conflict avoidance - in this particular case he has no problem asking for what he wants (his personal seat in the church), but when he says “I approve of political options” he means it. He’s kinda baffled by the concept, but he appreciates that this is something that matters to other people. Also his concern for mère Plutarque - for all the he doesn’t always manage to muster up appropriate level of concern over their financial circumstances, he never throws her under the bus when it would have been easy to do so, and sells his last book to get her medicine. ;_;

worst quality: Keeping himself tethered to reality. Which to be fair, his reality kinda sucked, and there was no real way out, but he wasn’t doing himself any favours there. It’s frustrating for being very very relatable.

ship them with: A nice garden and a book collection and functional social security network ;_;

brotp them with: With Mother Plutarque  and Georges Pontmercy always, and suprising number of other people? Various Thenardier children, obviously. Also various Les Amis? I’d love to see him and Enjolras to get some actual interaction (even if it would be guaranteed to break my heart). Clearly, Courfeyrac knew him through Marius, and him and Prouvaire would get along great? Also him and Valjean? On more canon-compliant level, I just really wish Marius hadn’t drifted away…

needs to stay away from: Fucking National Guard :( Except it was never really about National Guard, that is kind of the point. Usurious book merchants.

misc. thoughts: I wonder if maybe Somewhere Beyond The Barricade he met up with his brother and Georges Pontmecy, who had made friends with an erstwhile bishop of Digne and some fella Fauvent, resulting in an Old Men Gardening and Philosophy Club, just waiting for Valjean to join them…

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 3.5.4 ‘Monsieur Mabeuf’

“A clock does not stop at the very moment you lose the key.”

That’s such a harrowing line.

We watch Mabeuf lose everything, only, he doesn’t really know it yet. Or perhaps he does, but because he experiences terror and despair through thorough dissociation--Hugo’s description of which is gorgeous and horrible--we see him continue blithely on through a cheerful fog.

It’s awful. And every line about guns is ominous foreshadowing.

I feel like this book sets up a number of potential counterarguments to its overarching message. We try other ways to do good besides revolutioning (Myriel, Madeleine, the convent), none of which solve the problem. We also see several people try to opt out of the responsibilities this book lays out, most recently Marius, who’s trying to dream his way to personal change instead of acting to promote political change.

None of the alternatives work out well.

Mabeuf as a character asks--can’t a man just not be political? Can’t he opt out of all this by being gentle and raising flowers?

No, the text answers. He can’t.

Had he been luckier, he might have gone on as he was. But a notary’s mistake lost him 10,000 francs, and he’s penniless. We’ve heard plenty about lawyers recently--Marius, in fact, is one--and I feel like the total lack of any action to get back the money says a lot about the total uselessness of lawyers, or laws, or the justice system. Not that we had much faith left in that.

The lost money links him to Gillenormand in an odd way, who is also traumatized by his savings having evaporated with the stroke of a pen. Gillenormand will be fine, though. Mabeuf won’t be.

Mabeuf echoes a lot of other characters: Gillenormand’s “if only I were rich,” Valjean’s white hair, Georges’ scientific botany, the bishop’s garden, Marius’s dreaminess--only Mabeuf is the floating, inactive, gentle-to-the-point-of-toothless version of all of these--and maybe the talk of teeth and toothelessness is even meant to invoke Fantine. But if Fantine’s descent was defined by fighting tooth and nail every step down the stair, Mabeuf’s is defined by an inability to acknowledge there's a stair at all.

The character Mabeuf makes me think of most, though, is Grantaire, the other person whose life is defined by trying not to engage with the problems of the world. One is dissociated and the other dissipated, but it’s a related kind of avoidance.

Grantaire is the apolitical bourgeois comfortable enough to safely ignore suffering--except that in his heart he longs for justice and a better world, much as he tries to deny it. Mabeuf is the apolitical not-quite-bourgeois who’s forced to face the injustice of the system when it utterly fails him. He only needs books and flowers, and society takes even that.

At the end of the chapter, Mabeuf talks about a story where Buddha converts a Dragon, saying there is no more beautiful legend--but he’s mishearing a romance novel about a belle and a dragoon.

Like Grantaire, he’s turning aside from ideas of fighting and saying “the real glory is to convince.” Only, his grasp of reality is a lot weaker even than Grantaire’s. Where Grantaire grasped real truth at that moment, Mabeuf is lost in illusions.

[aflamethatneverdies]

3.3.2

Georges Pontmercy is introduced to us as a completely different man to what the rumours in the salons were talking about him. What is said about men, does play a role in how they are thought of, indeed. 

He is a bent, aged old man with prematurely white hair- it does in some way remind me of Valjean and the way he was introduced as an ordinary traveller. It is interesting that he has been introduced to us, not in terms of his military achievements but through his cultivation of flowers and his relationship with the garden.

His devotion to his flowers speaks of a nurturing nature, similar to Valjean, who was also very good at growing things in the garden. Georges focuses himself on the ‘useless and beautiful’ because he is an outcast in society- shunned by the bourgeois society when we meet him. 

Since he cannot have the necessary, which would be his child and his income, he must have the beautiful to live on. I think this seems to also be a recurring theme with Hugo, there is importance in aesthetic beauty/in art/in flowers- it makes our lives richer. He does not want to dismiss that role. Even the gamin concerned themselves with the beautiful, having been denied the necessary. The garden has been a consistent motif throughout, since the bishop’s time and it is no surprise that Georges is also cultivating a garden from which the others benefit by seeing beauty which brightens up their day.  

Georges dedicates his time completely to his garden and nurtures flowers like he would children, he seems to also have some comparisons to maternal love/motherhood since he delights in seeing children and thinks about his own child and replies to his letters in a loving tone.

‘A man who looked so much the man yet wept like a woman.’

It is interesting that Hugo brings this androgyny into play, even with Valjean taking care of Cosette, he was both father and mother but also described more in terms of a mother.  

He is also in the true Pontmercy fashion shy and dreamy and has very few friends – Abbe Mabeuf being the only one besides the poor. It is interesting that the soldier should be friends with the priest – religion and politics intermingling again maybe. The priest and soldier will also be part of the description of another character later. 

‘Fundamentally they are the same man. One has served the country in this world; the other has served the country that will be his in the next world.’

We have examples of his military prowess as well, he was a capable fighter- Hugo’s feelings about his father’s military career under Napoleon, must have also played a role in the many achievements of the Colonel, there does seem to be heroic bravery on the side of the colonel and Hugo seems to depict it all fondly as well.   

Although, maybe Georges seems to aspire to a bourgeois lifestyle or at least want one for his son, because he could have lived on half-pay, his situation is not completely like Fantine’s. 

He did not need to give up his son, although I can see that he may have wanted to have him grow up in luxury and with a bourgeois upbringing. The only thing is that Gillenormand doesn’t even have money of his own to give as we saw in the last few chapters, the money that Marius will inherit really belongs to Mademoiselle Gillenormand. I don’t understand why he couldn’t just come to an arrangement with Mademoiselle Gillenormand instead of bowing to the non-existent pressure from the grandfather, which is more of Gillenormand wanting Marius for his own whims- because he is the heir, he is his daughter’s child rather than due to any feeling or love or sacrifice.

I think someone mentioned in one of their posts but all he does is introduces Marius to the eighteenth century and makes him fearful of the nineteenth and Marius only knows what is said about his father rather than knowing about his father.

We have another estranged family here, we saw the Gorbeau House, where the father did not want to have anything to do with the son and here the father has to give up the son. The grandfather takes on the role without bringing love/maternal kindness to it.