in which JVJ, who has never once opened up to another human being, a single time, ever.... talks about the scary nun for the rest of his life (?)

The one, in which Valjean and Cosette find themselves in “a sort of garden.” That’s a fitting characteristic of the place. It seems that this ‘garden’ is a wild mixture of plants, ranging from forest trees to fruit trees and beds of vegetables.

Cosette is still dead-scared of Mme Thénardier—thank you Valjean, for adding to the child’s trauma. They try to hide even within the shelter they have found: “A man who is fleeing never thinks himself sufficiently hidden.” Soon we’ll have the convent digression, and the “celestial, divine, ineffable, ravishing” sound they hear serves as the first nod in that direction. It's a hymn sung on the night of Valjean’s entering the convent, marking the beginning of a series of sounds associated with this place. I am always fascinated by the fact that a nunnery can contain such an intricate soundscape despite being perceived as a silent place.

Feeling normal about Javert and Eponine today

[Image transcription: “Ah! Monsieur Leblanc”]

yo mister white

sorry for the spam this is the shiniest new meme we’ve had in a while

1862

2023

So when your friend Jonathan Harker goes on a trip and tells you all the details about the places he visits, he's an "adorable dork" and you "can't wait for his next email", but when I, Victor Hugo,

my favorite thing about les mis is that every couple of chapters Victor Hugo likes to go oh! who is that mysterious old man?? who could it be???? its a mystery! he's super buff btw, but who is it! Oh! sacre bleu! It's Jean Valjean! who would have ever guessed!

I did, Victor. I guessed.

Oh good! Fantine's happy. It was a tough story but we got there! Good job everyone, novel's over, everyone go home!!!!!

les mis letters has reached the waterloo chapters

starting to suspect reading les mis in small daily doses is going to be less of an "updates from my good friends jonathan and mina" vibe and more of a "victor hugo barges into my house at lunchtime every day and begins debating me on a topic I absolutely did not ask him about"

Carlo Chiostri Valjean Teaches Cosette to Read

Another reason I dislike Les Mis adaptations that make Jean Valjean constantly openly angry/violent is because they miss that Jean Valjean is not allowed to be angry. The fact he is forbidden from expressing anger is, I argue, actually a very important part of his character in the novel!

One of the subtler political messages of the story is that some people are given freedom to express anger, while others are forced to be excessively meek and conciliatory in order to survive.

Wealthy conservatives like Monsieur Gillenormand can “fly into rages” every five minutes and have it treated as an endearing quirk. Poor characters like Fantine or Jean Valjean must be constantly polite and ingratiating to “their superiors” at all times, even in the face of mockery and violence, or else they will be subjected to punishment. If Gillenormand beats his child with a stick, it’s a silly quirk; if Fantine beats a man harassing her, she is sentenced to months in prison.

(Thenardier and Javert are interesting examples of this too. Thenardier acts superficially polite and ingratiating to his wealthy “superiors” while insulting them behind their backs. Javert, meanwhile, is completely earnest in his mindless bootlicking. But I could write an entire other post on this.)

The point is that….Jean Valjean has to be submissive and self-effacing, or he puts himself in danger. He can’t afford to be angry and make scenes, or he will be punished. The only barrier between himself and prison is his ability to be so “courteous” that no one bothers to pry into his past.

Jean Valjean is excessively polite to people, in the way that you’re excessively polite to an armed cop who pulls you over for speeding when you secretly have a few illegal grams of marijuana in the your car trunk. XD It’s politeness built on fear, is what I mean. It’s politeness built on a desperation to make a powerful person avoid looking too closely at you.

It’s politeness at gunpoint.

Jean Valjean has also spent nineteen years living in an environment where any expression of anger could be punished with severe violence. That trauma is reflected in the overly cautious reserved way he often speaks with people (even people who are kind and would never actually hurt him.)

So adaptations that have Jean Valjean boldly having shouting matches with people in public and beating cops half to death without worrying about the repercussions just make go like “???”

Because that’s part of what’s fascinating about Jean Valjean to me? On one hand, he is a genuinely kind compassionate person, who cares deeply about other people and behaves kindly out of altruism. But on the other hand, he was also “beaten into submission” by prison, and forced into adopting conciliatory bootlicking behaviors in order to survive. And it can sometimes be hard to tell when he is being kind vs. when he is being “polite” — when he is speaking and acting out of earnest compassion vs. when he is speaking and acting out of fear.

The TL;DR is that I think it’s important that even though Jean Valjean is very (justifiably) angry about the injustice that was inflicted on him, his anger is harshly policed at all times— by other people, and by himself. He has been told his anger is wrong/selfish so often that he believes it. His anger takes weirder more unhealthy forms because he has no safe outlet for it. His rage at society becomes a possessiveness towards Cosette and silent hatred of Marius, but primarily it becomes useless self-destructive constant hatred of himself. And while I might be phrasing this wrong, I think that’s what’s interesting about Jean Valjean’s relationship with anger— the way his justified fury at his own mistreatment gets warped into more and more unhealthy forms by the way he’s forced to constantly repress it.

Jean Valjean, inspired by this line from his introduction chapter:

It was, moreover, a firm, energetic, and melancholy profile. This physiognomy was strangely composed; it began by seeming humble, and ended by seeming severe. The eye shone beneath its lashes like a fire beneath brushwood.

(I'm working on a series of stained glass paintings for Jean Valjean's different names/titles/identities; here's a link to the previous painting in the series)

Two days late, but:

Congratulations, Les Mis Letters readers, for surviving the Battle of Waterloo! 🎉