maybe not the absolute best thing about les miserables the novel (it’s a long book) but the one that stood out the most to me and has remained with me most strongly is that when the book is explaining to us the plight of fantine, who basically like finds herself poor and knocked up bc iirc she hooked up with some fuckboy who was never gonna stick around, victor hugo really takes pains to be clear that fantine did a lot of really dumb shit. she made stupid ass choices. she was naive and impulsive and unwise and myopic. it’s not a story where a tragic heroine did everything right and still got screwed. but the moral argument put forth by, i mean, to some degree the entire novel but particularly (to my recollection) by this section is essentially like, isn’t it so fucked up that we live in a society where someone can be functionally condemned to a life of suffering for the crime of being a fallible human being in their youth? isn’t being young and stupid and getting to move on from that a human right that we are denying people? shouldn’t you be allowed to be kind of an idiot without ruining your entire life? it’s such a clearly and expansively empathetic view and it’s an idea that people obviously continue to struggle with based on Any Time Anything Happens Ever and also one that i feel like continues to be rare in narrative art or media, at least expressed this fully or strongly.

I am waiting for the new voicemail from my friend Jonathan while reading Les Miserables what's your impression and favorite characters so far?

I'm so sorry, this ask came in May 23... But hey, at least events have swung back around to the point when we are waiting for another Jonathan voicemail! (and wondering... will we ever hear from our good friend again, or did he not survive the climb/vampires/wolves/etc.?) So, at least it's still kinda topical!

I read Les Mis once before, back when I was twelve or thirteen, I'd say? So I'm going into this with a basic idea of the plot, but most of it has been fun re-discovering and I'm really only remembering moments as we get to them at best. I think one thing I'm noticing especially is how well Hugo writes this certain type of punchy line. I keep noticing it. He builds up a longer scene, paragraphs or sometimes even into chapters long, and then crystallizes an idea with a very short sentence that carries a strong emotional weight to it. Often this undercuts whatever was being said before, or at least provides a new perspective that changes how you view it. I could try and dig up a couple examples, but I'm sure you know what I mean, it has been happening a lot!

As far as the actual story goes, it's once again really engaging and interesting, but so far at least in a way where I don't typically feel a huge need or ability to verbalize my interpretations so much? I've really been enjoying reading others but I just haven't done too much myself. Part of that is because I'm so hazy on a lot of the story while others aren't and part is most of my meta brain being caught up in Dracula at the moment and part is probably even it coming in daily without any breaks but also I'm just... I dunno, enjoying the ride more quietly I guess.

That said, I absolutely love Jean Valjean, and Fantine, and while I don't feel like I really know teenage Cosette yet I want to make sure she's safe and have so much love for her as a child that it carries over. I noticed a lot more details about Javert that really inform his character and actions (his own criminal family background, the layers of power in his relationship with Valjean when he was mayor and after, etc.) that I definitely missed age 12, which make him way more interesting to me. In contrast Marius is honestly not super interesting to me? I definitely felt awful for him learning about his father (and for his father of course) but so far it's probably the least emotionally engaging part of the book for me. I guess Waterloo was at times a little more of a slog since there weren't characters in the vast majority of that section who we knew personally, but otherwise, eh. So far all the younger characters haven't fully made their impact, to be honest.