Les Miserables, book 3 "Marius"
Jan. 11th, 2013 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnOh yaaaaay skygiants has posted on "Marius" here and now I can blabber on about this book, which I loved so much! (I seem to have loved much the same parts as skygiants, but not totally identical!)
"Marius" was a really fun book for me to read. I don't know if it's me or Hugo or both, but I was cheering Hugo on in his digressions -- this was the first book of Les Mis where I didn't find any of it a slog at all. I suspect it's because he's not trying to Make a Point about either Anyone Being Super-Good or The Ways In Which Being a Woman in Nineteenth-Century France Sucks; he's much more playful in this section. But also maybe because it was about college kids and how awkward boys in love are and cheerful street urchins, which are always fun!
I just want to talk on and on about this book!
-The digression on the Parisian gamin (street urchin) was actually fun to read! Until reading "Cosette," where the Thenardiers have this infant son, I'd totally forgotten that Gavroche is, in book canon -- spoiler that has, in fact, no relevance whatsoever to plot as far as I remember -- the Thenardiers' son. It made a nice bookend for the beginning and end of the book. UNLIKE ALL THE OTHER BOOKS. Just saying that I prefer this to how both the Bishop of D---- and Waterloo never really show up again!
-The only digression I didn't like was the one where Hugo does this extended mining/cave metaphor that makes absolutely no sense at all. Are we mining for stuff or just making large holes in the ground? If large holes, why? Are we trying to light the caves from below or above? Both, depending on what part of the digression we're reading! Neither! We don't know! At least it was short. The whole time, though, I was all "WHAT is this, Hugo?"
-The Friends of the ABC are even more awesome than I remembered! I had no idea, for example, that their title is a pun: ABC sounded out in French sounds like "abaisse," so they're really the friends of the abased ones -- AWESOME. In general they are completely awesome because they are so college students, all idealistic and having fun at the same time, talking past each other, egging each other on -- and complete with Bossuet (Laigle), who stole my heart by getting kicked out of law school because he was impersonating Marius so Marius wouldn't get kicked out of law school, despite not ever having met him before.
-Oh, Marius. I heart Marius SO MUCH, you guys! He's so stiff and earnest and socially awkward and overly idealistic and everyone laughs at him and his painful little idealistic rants. I also love that even though we are obviously supposed to sympathize at least somewhat with Marius, Hugo is very honest about realizing that yes, Marius is kind of ridiculous and everyone else in the world thinks so too. There's a great scene with the Friends of the ABC where Marius starts really revving up on how awesome Napoleon is, and then Combeferre deflates him with one line, and then he gets revved up again and is all NO WAIT LET ME REBUT YOUR ONE-LINER, and when he's done he looks around and not only is no one paying attention to him, everyone has left. Oh, Marius.
Marius and Courfeyrac have a friendship that is just awesome to read about, because it's so generously humorous on Courfeyrac's side and so prickly on Marius', and I just feel for Marius so much because I was there when I was an adolescent, I was totally the kind of prickly kid who was all you're not really being friends with me, are you? you're just making fun of me, right? You can't actually like me! and my awesome friends were patiently all Yes, of course I'm making fun of you, that's because I like you, okay? Man. It's a wonder I exited adolescence with any friends. (Here I make a sad face for Marius. At least my friends did not get themselves mixed up in revolutionary hijinks and get themselves all killed off!)
I also love that whenever Marius gets dressed up, everyone who even faintly knows him gets totally weirded out, and when he gets dressed up three days in a row, the lady who sweeps his floors tries to spy on him to find out why because it's such a weird thing. NEVER CHANGE, MARIUS.
I also like awfully that when Cosette becomes all beautiful, Marius totally doesn't notice her until That Fateful Day When Their Glances Cross. Go self-absorbed!Marius! Also, there is this super-hilarious bit:
VALJEAN: *drops handkerchief by mistake*
MARIUS: This must be the handkerchief OF MY LOVE!
MARIUS: *cuddles handkerchief*
COSETTE: ...Do you have some sort of handkerchief fetish I need to know about, or a crush on my dad? Because this is getting weird.
Yeah, Marius is not too nice to his grandfather (but man, grandfather dissed his father but hard, so I really can't blame him -- let me say that I heart Baron Pontmercy Sr. MORE THAN ANYTHING), and he's terrible to Valjean in the end -- but I still just want to pat him on the head and give him a big hug, because no one ever gave him one as a little boy and he clearly needs one!
One more thing: There's a big thrilling scene in this book that is only present in a couple of lines in the musical, where Thenardier begs an old rich man for alms and then recognizes him as Valjean --that's what the musical shows, but in the book there's this whole thing where Thenardier invites Valjean back to a very dark isolated room and jumps on him with his ten best gang friends, demanding a huge ransom. Here is where Socially Awkward St. Valjean shines, though! It turns out he carries a concealed saw on his person, and also that he is willing to brand himself with a hot coal for no other reason to prove a point about how he seriously does not care what they do to him. Socially Awkward St. Valjean is MY FAVORITE EVER.
During this whole bit, Marius is, I admit, despite my Marius-love, being kind of completely annoying. He goes to Javert and tells him about the whole Thenardier thing -- that part is great -- and Javert tells him to fire a pistol when everyone's there and Javert can capture everyone. But when Thenardier reveals his name -- recall that the whole 60 pages on Waterloo was for the plot purpose of pointing out that Thenardier saved Marius' dad's life, if only by accident while he was robbing him -- Marius can't decide whether to save Valjean or Thenardier. I mean, I respect that! It's a valid hard decision, given his incomplete information. But it's still annoying. (But Javert is so awesome!)
"Marius" was a really fun book for me to read. I don't know if it's me or Hugo or both, but I was cheering Hugo on in his digressions -- this was the first book of Les Mis where I didn't find any of it a slog at all. I suspect it's because he's not trying to Make a Point about either Anyone Being Super-Good or The Ways In Which Being a Woman in Nineteenth-Century France Sucks; he's much more playful in this section. But also maybe because it was about college kids and how awkward boys in love are and cheerful street urchins, which are always fun!
I just want to talk on and on about this book!
-The digression on the Parisian gamin (street urchin) was actually fun to read! Until reading "Cosette," where the Thenardiers have this infant son, I'd totally forgotten that Gavroche is, in book canon -- spoiler that has, in fact, no relevance whatsoever to plot as far as I remember -- the Thenardiers' son. It made a nice bookend for the beginning and end of the book. UNLIKE ALL THE OTHER BOOKS. Just saying that I prefer this to how both the Bishop of D---- and Waterloo never really show up again!
-The only digression I didn't like was the one where Hugo does this extended mining/cave metaphor that makes absolutely no sense at all. Are we mining for stuff or just making large holes in the ground? If large holes, why? Are we trying to light the caves from below or above? Both, depending on what part of the digression we're reading! Neither! We don't know! At least it was short. The whole time, though, I was all "WHAT is this, Hugo?"
-The Friends of the ABC are even more awesome than I remembered! I had no idea, for example, that their title is a pun: ABC sounded out in French sounds like "abaisse," so they're really the friends of the abased ones -- AWESOME. In general they are completely awesome because they are so college students, all idealistic and having fun at the same time, talking past each other, egging each other on -- and complete with Bossuet (Laigle), who stole my heart by getting kicked out of law school because he was impersonating Marius so Marius wouldn't get kicked out of law school, despite not ever having met him before.
-Oh, Marius. I heart Marius SO MUCH, you guys! He's so stiff and earnest and socially awkward and overly idealistic and everyone laughs at him and his painful little idealistic rants. I also love that even though we are obviously supposed to sympathize at least somewhat with Marius, Hugo is very honest about realizing that yes, Marius is kind of ridiculous and everyone else in the world thinks so too. There's a great scene with the Friends of the ABC where Marius starts really revving up on how awesome Napoleon is, and then Combeferre deflates him with one line, and then he gets revved up again and is all NO WAIT LET ME REBUT YOUR ONE-LINER, and when he's done he looks around and not only is no one paying attention to him, everyone has left. Oh, Marius.
Marius and Courfeyrac have a friendship that is just awesome to read about, because it's so generously humorous on Courfeyrac's side and so prickly on Marius', and I just feel for Marius so much because I was there when I was an adolescent, I was totally the kind of prickly kid who was all you're not really being friends with me, are you? you're just making fun of me, right? You can't actually like me! and my awesome friends were patiently all Yes, of course I'm making fun of you, that's because I like you, okay? Man. It's a wonder I exited adolescence with any friends. (Here I make a sad face for Marius. At least my friends did not get themselves mixed up in revolutionary hijinks and get themselves all killed off!)
I also love that whenever Marius gets dressed up, everyone who even faintly knows him gets totally weirded out, and when he gets dressed up three days in a row, the lady who sweeps his floors tries to spy on him to find out why because it's such a weird thing. NEVER CHANGE, MARIUS.
I also like awfully that when Cosette becomes all beautiful, Marius totally doesn't notice her until That Fateful Day When Their Glances Cross. Go self-absorbed!Marius! Also, there is this super-hilarious bit:
VALJEAN: *drops handkerchief by mistake*
MARIUS: This must be the handkerchief OF MY LOVE!
MARIUS: *cuddles handkerchief*
COSETTE: ...Do you have some sort of handkerchief fetish I need to know about, or a crush on my dad? Because this is getting weird.
Yeah, Marius is not too nice to his grandfather (but man, grandfather dissed his father but hard, so I really can't blame him -- let me say that I heart Baron Pontmercy Sr. MORE THAN ANYTHING), and he's terrible to Valjean in the end -- but I still just want to pat him on the head and give him a big hug, because no one ever gave him one as a little boy and he clearly needs one!
One more thing: There's a big thrilling scene in this book that is only present in a couple of lines in the musical, where Thenardier begs an old rich man for alms and then recognizes him as Valjean --that's what the musical shows, but in the book there's this whole thing where Thenardier invites Valjean back to a very dark isolated room and jumps on him with his ten best gang friends, demanding a huge ransom. Here is where Socially Awkward St. Valjean shines, though! It turns out he carries a concealed saw on his person, and also that he is willing to brand himself with a hot coal for no other reason to prove a point about how he seriously does not care what they do to him. Socially Awkward St. Valjean is MY FAVORITE EVER.
During this whole bit, Marius is, I admit, despite my Marius-love, being kind of completely annoying. He goes to Javert and tells him about the whole Thenardier thing -- that part is great -- and Javert tells him to fire a pistol when everyone's there and Javert can capture everyone. But when Thenardier reveals his name -- recall that the whole 60 pages on Waterloo was for the plot purpose of pointing out that Thenardier saved Marius' dad's life, if only by accident while he was robbing him -- Marius can't decide whether to save Valjean or Thenardier. I mean, I respect that! It's a valid hard decision, given his incomplete information. But it's still annoying. (But Javert is so awesome!)
