Les Miserables, book 2 "Cosette"
Jan. 8th, 2013 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnskygiants' post is here and has all kinds of delightful things about Socially Awkward St. Valjean!I don't have nearly as funny things to say as skygiants, but here are my reactions:
-Waterloo was not nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be! I think because it was similar in length to the Bishop of Digne section, and I was steeled against it being much longer. However, I can't say that I read it super carefully. I also had this feeling like I needed visuals to really figure out what the heck he was saying for most of it.
-I keep worrying about Cosette having long-standing emotional issues because of her emotional (and physical) abuse by the Thenardiers! I guess, you know, she married Marius, which maybe is the answer to that. (Though I have always had a soft spot for stiff overly-idealistic socially-awkward Marius! No one else seems to, but I do! (Not that I'd want to marry him or anything, eek, but I just want to pat him on the head like a little puppydog, sort of the way Enjolras does in the musical.) We'll see what I think on this readthrough.)
-The convent section was a hard slog, even though I thought it was more interesting than either Waterloo or the Bishop. I think because I'd been steeled against Waterloo, and then to find out there was another long digression... Also, I had never read the bit about Madame Albertine before! Mme. Albertine is a mysterious nun who never speaks -- except one day when the young Duc de Rohan (peer, Prince, and eventually Archbishop) comes to preach, and she cries, "Ah, Auguste!" And that's all! Albertine never speaks again, and Hugo goes on to natter about something else. I NEED TO KNOW THE REST OF THIS STORY! I'm okay with never knowing what happens to Valjean's family, or the kids in the elephant, perhaps because I've known there was no resolution to those stories since I was a kid. But ALBERTINE! WHAT WAS HER DEAL?
-M. Fauchlevent is the best! There's this hilarious bit where the nuns are questioning Valjean to see if he would fit in the convent, and Fauchlevent answers all their questions, and Valjean doesn't say anything at all, and the nuns are all, "Valjean, what a great conversationalist!"
-I really enjoyed the bit where Hugo compares convents to prisons (...they're both damp impoverished places where people's freedom is extremely restricted, except the motivations and therefore results are totally different), which I found really interesting.
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Date: 2013-01-09 01:50 am (UTC)YES THE PEOPLE WHO MADE IT CLEARLY READ AND LOVED THE BOOK, it is the best! The further I get into the book the more I'm like OH SO THAT'S WHERE THE MOVIE PEOPLE GOT XYZ FROM!
And yes, I have discovered that I did indeed grow up with Michael Ball. (I had to do some sleuthing to figure out, because my recording was a Definitely Not Bootlegged From My Best Friend set of burned dics.) Idk, I think I'd have to go back and relisten to Heart Full of Love. It's possible I'm a little hard on him; he does do quite a lot pretty well. He just doesn't make me particularly like him at all.
I CAN'T WAIT TO GET TO THAT SECTION!
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Date: 2013-01-09 02:08 am (UTC)ETA: I think "Heart full of Love" is a terrible song as a song, and I spent most of my childhood loathing it -- but on this reread I'm totally impressed by how much it actually... does... capture the complete awkwardness of Marius/Cosette :)
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Date: 2013-01-09 02:15 am (UTC)And yeah, Heart Full of Love (and most of the Cosette/Marius romance) was 100% the most uninteresting part of the musical for me, growing up. I've grown more fond of it, though, since seeing the new movie! I think you will appreciate the way they do Heart Full of Love. :)