marius you fucking idiot

Here’s my impression of what book Grantaire would sound like in the modern day, as he posts incoherent “media analysis/philosophy/traumadumping” video content on his YouTube channel:

"Aren't memes a form of modern dadaism? 'I can haz cheesburger" edits are relics of history, as is the work of Duchamp. Duchamp made that famous urinal. Perhaps memes are but the urinal of the human race. All of art is but humanity’s sewage, our waste. But can sewage be fertilizer? There was a waste treatment scandal in the early 1980s, when a sewage company did not properly clean the water, and people became sick. Many of our rivers are unclean because of corporations polluting them. Chicago has creeks that are still bubbling with the remnants of the old slaughterhouses. Carl Sandburg wrote a poem where he is achingly horny for the city of Chicago, and its hog-butchers: "Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning." That poet’s love for his anthropomorphic city was never requited; he was disdained by his deity, which could not love him, being mostly smog and steel. But his poem is now a meme for its homoeroticism. Thus all art is coarse pollution, sewage, wastewater, memes!"

Happy Julius Caesar gets stabbed day! Here’s a Les Mis take on the subject, courtesy of Grantaire’s Drunken Rambles:

Whom do you admire, the slain or the slayer, Cæsar or Brutus? Generally men are in favor of the slayer. Long live Brutus, he has slain! There lies the virtue. Virtue, granted, but madness also. There are queer spots on those great men. The Brutus who killed Cæsar was in love with the statue of a little boy. This statue was from the hand of the Greek sculptor Strongylion, who also carved that figure of an Amazon known as the Beautiful Leg, Eucnemos, which Nero carried with him in his travels. This Strongylion left but two statues which placed Nero and Brutus in accord. Brutus was in love with the one, Nero with the other. All history is nothing but wearisome repetition. One century is the plagiarist of the other. The battle of Marengo copies the battle of Pydna; the Tolbiac of Clovis and the Austerlitz of Napoleon are as like each other as two drops of water. I don’t attach much importance to victory. Nothing is so stupid as to conquer; true glory lies in convincing. But try to prove something! If you are content with success, what mediocrity, and with conquering, what wretchedness! Alas, vanity and cowardice everywhere. Everything obeys success, even grammar. Si volet usus, says Horace. Therefore I disdain the human race.

Cosette perception of the average physical capabilities of men is ridiculously skewed due her Dad being Frances Buffest Man and it doesn’t come up for ages but one day one of their children gets stuck on the roof or something and Cosette is deeply sceptical of Marius claiming that he can’t scale the outside of the house to fetch them.

Happy Julius Caesar gets stabbed day! Here’s a Les Mis take on the subject, courtesy of Grantaire’s Drunken Rambles:

Whom do you admire, the slain or the slayer, Cæsar or Brutus? Generally men are in favor of the slayer. Long live Brutus, he has slain! There lies the virtue. Virtue, granted, but madness also. There are queer spots on those great men. The Brutus who killed Cæsar was in love with the statue of a little boy. This statue was from the hand of the Greek sculptor Strongylion, who also carved that figure of an Amazon known as the Beautiful Leg, Eucnemos, which Nero carried with him in his travels. This Strongylion left but two statues which placed Nero and Brutus in accord. Brutus was in love with the one, Nero with the other. All history is nothing but wearisome repetition. One century is the plagiarist of the other. The battle of Marengo copies the battle of Pydna; the Tolbiac of Clovis and the Austerlitz of Napoleon are as like each other as two drops of water. I don’t attach much importance to victory. Nothing is so stupid as to conquer; true glory lies in convincing. But try to prove something! If you are content with success, what mediocrity, and with conquering, what wretchedness! Alas, vanity and cowardice everywhere. Everything obeys success, even grammar. Si volet usus, says Horace. Therefore I disdain the human race.

caesars assassination but with empty cardboard tubes

Les Mis spoilers:

Napoleon loses the battle of Waterloo

Ahhh I just wanted to say congrats on finishing the “brickclub” posts for all of Les Mis !!!!! I’m so impressed by the amount you managed to write, and you’re very insightful/gave me a new perspective on a lot of things!

Im glad to have your posts around for this new round of Les Mis letters, so I can reblog them or link them in the discord whenever the chapter becomes relevant! XD.

But yeah, I’m really impressed by the level of thought and dedication you put in— I still need to catch up to reblogging all of em! 😂

ahhh thank you so much! I’m so grateful for the community around this (and for your work in building that!) – I’ve learned so much from reading your posts and those made by others, and the collaborative aspect of this, as we can all build on each other’s ideas, has been a wonderful experience

Today's chapter really is like... Excuse me she's literally dying over there can you two please have some decency and figure your shit out outside.

But jokes aside, we have here two motifs that keep repeating themselves, an echo of the Conventionist, of words and reactions spoken between life and death, and this theme of Divine authority versus mundane authority. Fantine is the conventionist and Valjean is the bishop come to bless her but being the one who is blessed

And since Javert instinctively obeys the highest authority in the room because he's literally a dog (and at this point they thought this was how dogs worked) he obeys Valjean's divine mandate. Tho also he had an iron bar with him, you get my point.

It's very interesting how Javert's loyalties change because he doesn't think for himself and only reacts to outside forces. This character is fascinating as like an idea. I've seen this idea play out in Stefan Zweig's The Royal Game but it isn't the only time I've seen it, it's also a repeated theme is the Star Trek original series, to name a couple examples.

It's also something that ties into orientalism (I've been reading Edward Said shh) and like this contrast of the learned enlightened Western man versus the base, thoughtless, purely instinctual and reactive Oriental. And the oriental of course is not a set thing but a vague definition that can change meanings depending on context. For Stefan Zweig this man is represented by an eastern european peasant contrasted to an intellectual austrian royalist. The entire novella is about the futile battle between the two extremes, the internal journey and the purely external. In Star Trek the contrast is between a being of pure unfeeling logic, a computer, and its inherent inferiority to a man according to Roddenberry's point of view. The computer always loses to the greatness of man's empathy and instinct. It's also like, wish fulfillment. To try to make yourself believe you can't be replaced by a computer.

Anyway this was a bit of a tangent because I have some thoughts about Star Trek's orientalism re: Spock. But also because Hugo looooooves an illuminism VS barbarism contrast and he loooooves orientalism. And I argue that Les Mis is actually a turning point for him. Because if you read Toilers of the Sea what you get is actually a kind of reversal or culmination of his ideas on the grotesque and the barbarian. Maybe because he left France and actually saw that there are other people in the world with different worldviews and he was able to grasp them because they were still European

edit: Edward Said talks a lot about Victor Hugo, Flaubert and Nerval in Orientalism btw and an attentive reader can very clearly see the aspects of orientalism that stil permeate Les Mis even when he isn't even talking about the orient itself. The orient presents itself as a dramatic trope or a creation of the ""West"" for their dramas... Good book btw

This will be short, since the chapter itself is. I guess Valjean did request a simple grave, but it’s sad that there’s not even a name. The verses suggest that Marius and Cosette visited, but it’s still a melancholy ending.

Valjean’s joy and confusion is so sweet and so sad. His rambling speech is clearly that of a misérable as he dies, but he’s also just so disoriented in a way that he hasn’t been since the bishop at the beginning of the book? It’s like he once again grew so unaccustomed to kindness that he struggles to process it even as a gift from God.

He sees it as a “pardon,” too, framing Cosette and Marius’ presence as a legal decision for a criminal.

For once, thanks to Marius for pointing out that “embarrassment” is a very strange reason for withholding important information!

The bishop being present is so moving!!

At least he tells Cosette her mother’s name? His silence on his past and hers remains frustrating, but learning about her happier parts of childhood – like how she would put cherries behind her ears – is cute.

His death is still so tragic, as it feels so preventable. The angel imagery calls to mind Fantine, who similarly died of despair even more than of disease.

I’ve never been so happy to see Thénardier, if only for a break from Valjean’s depression. I hate, though, that Marius still feels responsible for him. Similarly, a “short digression” was a joyful line to read, because I’d rather have a distracted Hugo right now. Unfortunately, the digression feels rather anti-Semitic, with how Hugo addresses this Jewish man as a “creature.”

(I do, though, like the line “If Marius had been familiar with the occult institutions of Paris,” as it implies that Hugo’s knowledge in digressions is just common knowledge that some characters have the misfortune of not knowing. And it is! To a certain class. But sometimes, it’s just really specific trivia that he’s excited to share).

I won’t go into depth about what Thénardier shares, since we already know it and it’s mostly satisfying that Marius knows it now, too. The coat strip of all things being what solves the mystery is hilarious, though. 

It’s very satisfying to see Marius yell at Thénardier, but that satisfaction is marred by him giving him money to get rid of him. That money literally fueled the slave trade, a dark ending for a horrifying character.

The title alone indicates that this chapter will be sad as Valjean’s sadness saps all of his strength. Everything in this chapter speaks of death, and it’s not even subtle; Hugo explicitly says Valjean looks like he will die even beyond his references to his growing weakness.

This passage is particularly painful:

“He was in that condition, the last phase of dejection, in which sorrow no longer flows; it is coagulated, so to speak; there is something on the soul like a clot of despair.”

I mock Hugo a lot, but he really knows how to describe grief.

Valjean’s letter explains the bead-making process he developed in Montreuil-sur-Mer. On the one hand, it’s moving to know that he made this colossal effort for Cosette’s sake, using the last of his energy to ensure that she has access to her fortune. On the other, it’s very frustrating that his last message to his daughter isn’t an explanation of himself, but a business message. And watching him succumb to yet another level of despair at the end hurts.

Seeing Valjean fall ill hurts so much, but I love how the portress explains the difference between hunger and thirst to him. There’s care there, and it’s nice to know that someone’s concerned for him at this point.

(The porter, though, sounds cruel, condemning him to death if he’s a poor man who can’t afford a doctor and then saying he’ll die regardless. I can’t tell if it’s a dig at doctors or not, but it just feels harsh. Both of them are aware, though, that sadness is what’s sapped his strength more than physical illness).

I love that the portress looks for a doctor for him anyways. She’s really trying to take care of him.

(And the doctor is aware of his grief, too).

As usual, I disagree that it’s wrong to blame Marius, I am fully blaming Marius. That said, Hugo’s implying a possible change now that he’s brought up the word “duty,” which is normally what drives Marius’ behavior. I hate how he sidelines Cosette’s love for her father, too, after love for fathers (with both Marius and Cosette) has been such a central factor in their characters. Marius is repeating to Cosette what Gillenormand did to him, and Hugo thinks it’s somewhat understandable when it’s not.

(And they even go visit Marius’ father’s grave in this chapter!)

Not to insist that the young are always responsible for elderly relatives (I would understand if Marius had permanently cut off Gillenormand), but I find Hugo’s dismissal of this behavior as “youth” frustrating, too. Conflict between the young and old doesn’t need to be inherent to society! And neglect is not okay!

This chapter remains one of the saddest things I’ve ever read. I both hate and love how Hugo takes so much time to describe Valjean’s tear as it begins to fall, letting us dwell on the depth of his despair. His failure to walk all the way is hard to read, too. The children following him calls to mind his time as Père Madeleine, but whereas they once followed him out of joy, now they follow him because they think he’s mad in his despair. It’s awful.

Hugo’s descriptions of nature here are as beautiful as they always are when he describes this garden, but that beauty is overshadowed by sadness as Cosette forgets her meeting with Valjean. And that their meetings often consist of discussions of Marius just so that Jean Valjean can make them longer.

I’m not frustrated with Valjean for focusing on Cosette’s simple lifestyle here because it’s a sign that something’s wrong. On the one hand, he saved all that money because he wanted her to live without fear of poverty, and on the other, that lack of spending combined with his further marginalization in the household (the lack of a fire, for instance) suggests another attempt to rid the house of his influence.

I hate that Marius thinks Gillenormand’s money is somehow more acceptable than Jean Valjean’s. I could accept him wanting to live off of a salary (it’d still be strange, but strange in a Marius-is-prideful kind of way), but he knows that Gillenormand’s money is a form of control. 

Watching Valjean slowly retreat even more is so painful.