cahn

Wow, this one was long! And the only book that isn't named after a main character. And also, surprisingly after how much I loved all the digressions in "Marius," the digressions in this book I honestly found less engaging than Waterloo. Though they were all shorter than Waterloo, I think! As usual,

skygiants has much more interesting and profound thoughts than I have, but here are some brief thoughts:

This was the book where I totally lost patience with Marius. I didn't, surprisingly, have problems with how he treated Eponine -- it wasn't all that nice, and maybe he should have remembered that she was a Thenardier with the whole life-debt thing going , yes? But this just made me roll my eyes at Marius rather than be actively angry at him. But M. Mabeuf! M. Mabeuf, you guys, made me seriously angry at Marius. Recall that Mabeuf and Courfeyrac are Marius' only two friends in the world.

Let's say you have two friends in all the world, and one of them is in reduced financial straits that may become dire. Do you:
a) Try everything you can to get help for your friend, perhaps hitting up some well-heeled friends of friends to see if they might help as well
b) Keep visiting your friend, and try to help out as you can even if it only means buying him a cheap dinner once in a while
c) Maybe you honestly are this close to being completely broke yourself, but you keep visiting to at least show support for your friend
d) Meet this girl and forget all about your friend, never visiting him again or even thinking about him, while he is pretty much literally starving to death

Yeah, Marius is all with the (d) option.

Let's try another hypothetical! Let's say that after all these events, your friend, the one who is literally starving to death, decides that as long as he's going to die he might as well do it all at once, and joins the revolution. He volunteers for a mission that is certain death. You see all this happening from a corner of the room, though he doesn't know you're there. Do you:
a) Rush in and give him a hug and apologize for your neglect
b) Realize that he is extremely emaciated and see if there's any way you can get him something to eat before talking about whether he should be killing himself
c) Try to stop him from going on this suicidal mission
d) Do absolutely nothing, waiting silently so he never knows you were even there as he commits suicide by enemy fire

...if you chose (d) as what Marius would do, RIGHT AGAIN!

There are also these tantalizing hints that there's something going on between Eponine and Montparnasse (for example, he is described as "perhaps, to some slight extent, a son-in-law of Thenardier") but which we never find out about. I WANT TO KNOW. Eponine/Montparnasse is my new Les Mis favorite dysfunctional ship! (And sooooo dysfunctional!)