#1.2.13

[secretmellowblog]

I love how the parallel between Valjean’s crisis after the Bishop and Javert’s crisis after the barricades is so strong that their thought processes are often described with nearly the exact same metaphors.

The musical conveying this by having them sing the same melody is such a perfect translation of the way their dialogue/descriptions echo each other in the novel...Like:

Valjean: 

“Is it true that I am to be released?” he said, in an almost inarticulate voice, and as though he were talking in his sleep.

Vs Javert: 

As though in a dream, (Javert) murmured rather than uttered this question: “What are you doing here?”

—

Valjean:

Like an owl, who should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded, as it were, by virtue.

Vs Javert: 

He perceived amid the shadows the terrible rising of an unknown moral sun; it horrified and dazzled him. An owl forced to the gaze of an eagle.

—

Valjean:

He no longer knew where he really was. 

Vs Javert:

Where did he stand? He sought to comprehend his position, and could no longer find his bearings.(…) He no longer understood himself. 

Valjean: 

At times he would have actually preferred to be in prison with the gendarmes, and that things should not have happened in this way; it would have agitated him less.

Vs Javert:

But then, why had he permitted that man to leave him alive? He had the right to be killed in that barricade. He should have asserted that right. It would have been better to summon the other insurgents to his succor against Jean Valjean, to get himself shot by force.

—

Valjean:

He actually saw that Jean Valjean, that sinister face, before him. He had almost reached the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was horrified by him. 

Vs Javert:

He conceived a horror of himself. 

—

Valjean:

He could not yield to the evidence of what was going on within him. He hardened himself against the angelic action and the gentle words of the old man.

Vs Javert:

He had not yielded without resistance to that monster, to that infamous angel, to that hideous hero, who enraged almost as much as he amazed him. 

Valjean:

 By one of those singular effects, which are peculiar to this sort of ecstasies, in proportion as his reverie continued, as the Bishop grew great and resplendent in his eyes, so did Jean Valjean grow less and vanish. After a certain time he was no longer anything more than a shade. All at once he disappeared. The Bishop alone remained; he filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a magnificent radiance.

Vs Javert:

Then his reflections reverted to himself and beside Jean Valjean glorified he beheld himself, Javert, degraded. (…)

Javert, the spy of order, incorruptibility in the service of the police, the bull-dog providence of society, vanquished and hurled to earth; and, erect, at the summit of all that ruin, a man with a green cap on his head and a halo round his brow; this was the astounding confusion to which he had come; this was the fearful vision which he bore within his soul.

—

Valjean:

That which was certain, that which he did not doubt, was that he was no longer the same man, that everything about him was changed, that it was no longer in his power to make it as though the Bishop had not spoken to him and had not touched him.

Vs Javert:

All that he had believed in melted away. Truths which he did not wish to recognize were besieging him, inexorably. Henceforth, he must be a different man.

Valjean:

He examined his life, and it seemed horrible to him; his soul, and it seemed frightful to him.

Vs Javert: 

He felt himself emptied, useless, put out of joint with his past life, turned out, dissolved. Authority was dead within him. He had no longer any reason for existing.

Valjean:

Did he have a distinct perception of what might result to him from his adventure at Digne? Did he understand all those mysterious murmurs which warn or importune the spirit at certain moments of life? Did a voice whisper in his ear that he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny; that there no longer remained a middle course for him; that if he were not henceforth the best of men, he would be the worst; that it behooved him now, so to speak, to mount higher than the Bishop, or fall lower than the convict; that if he wished to become good he must become an angel; that if he wished to remain evil, he must become a monster? (….) did he catch some shadow of all this in his thought, in a confused way?

Misfortune certainly, as we have said, does form the education of the intelligence; nevertheless, it is doubtful whether Jean Valjean was in a condition to disentangle all that we have here indicated. If these ideas occurred to him, he but caught glimpses of, rather than saw them, and they only succeeded in throwing him into an unutterable and almost painful state of emotion.

Vs Javert:

God, always within man, and refractory, He, the true conscience, to the false; a prohibition to the spark to die out; an order to the ray to remember the sun; an injunction to the soul to recognize the veritable absolute when confronted with the fictitious absolute, humanity which cannot be lost; the human heart indestructible; that splendid phenomenon, the finest, perhaps, of all our interior marvels, did Javert understand this? Did Javert penetrate it? Did Javert account for it to himself? Evidently he did not. But beneath the pressure of that incontestable incomprehensibility he felt his brain bursting.

..And these are only the lines I've caught tonight. I don't know, as much as Les Mis adaptations love to focus on Valjean and Javert (often without understanding them cough bbc les mis cough) I feel like there are very few that Get how much both of them were broken by the same prison system, and how the trauma of that makes them view themselves and their own feelings through similar lenses.

#les mis #les mis letters #lm 1.2.13 #1.2.13 #but yee!!!! #valjean/javert parallels #javert #valjean #anyway feeling sad about valjean hours 2nite

[lesmiscollageproject]

He began to walk again, then quickened his pace to a run, and from time to time stopped and called out in that solitude, in a desolate and terrible voice: “Petit Gervais! Petit Gervais!”

#les miserables #les mis #les mis letters #les miz #jean valjean #1.2.13 #petit gervais

[jelepermets]

More light and shadow stuff in 1.2.12 "The Bishop at Work" and 1.2.13 "Petit-Gervais". I am never letting go of this motif:

"'Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!'"

"The child turned his back to the sun, which made his hair like threads of gold and flushed the savage face of Jean Valjean with a lurid glow." [This one seems especially notable, since Petit Gervais is the incident that truly changes Valjean, truly brings him to the light so to speak]

"In a few minutes the boy was gone.

The sun had set.

The shadows were deepening around Jean Valjean." [Again, this push and pull for Valjean's soul/goodness. Him going after Petit Gervais - following the light - is crucial to his character.]

"The countryside was desolate and gloomy. There were vast open stretches on all sides, nothing around him but a shadow in which his gaze was lost and a silence in which his voice was lost."

"He was just out of that monstrous, somber place called prison and the bishop had hurt his soul, as too vivid a light would have hurt his eyes on coming out of the dark. [...] Like an owl seeing the sun suddenly rise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded by virtue."

"However that may be, this last offense had a decisive effect upon him; it rushed across the chaos of his intellect and dissipated it, set the light on one side and the dark clouds on the other, and acted on his soul, in the state it was in [...]"

"He saw himself then, so to speak, face to face, and at the same time through that hallucination he saw, at a mysterious distance, a sort of light, which he took at first to be a torch. Looking more closely at this light dawning on his conscience, he recognized it had a human form, that it was the bishop. [Again the motif of conscience as light that we saw when Valjean was going to steal the silver]

[...] He filled the whole soul of this miserable man with a magnificent radiance. [...] While he wept, the light grew brighter and brighter in his mind - an extraordinary light, a light at once entrancing and terrible [..] all returned and appeared to him, clearly, but in a light had never seen before. He could see his life, and it seemed horrible; his soul, and it seemed frightful. There was, however, a gentler light shining on that life and soul. It seemed to him that he was looking at Satan by the light of Paradise."

#I swear I need a tag just for this motif #light and shadow #les miserables #les mis letter #1.2.12 #1.2.13 #jean valjean #m myriel #petit gervais #bern speaks

[lesmisletters]

January 27th

Today was the end of Vol 1; Book 2!

27 chapters read, 338 chapters left

7.4% thru the brick

#milestone #1.2.13

[thesebloodydays]

I really enjoy these chapters where Valjean’s psyche is explored because you can really see how Hugo would influence Dostoevsky later on. It’s also interesting that Hugo mentions that it’s probable that Valjean had a fever, since Dostoevsky beats you over the head with fever=guilt metaphors in crime and punishment.

#les mis letters #1.2.13

[la-pheacienne]

On the meaning of "Misérable"

"The point of departure, like the point of arrival, for all his thoughts, was hatred of human law; that hatred which, if it be not arrested in its development by some providential incident, becomes, within a given time, the hatred of society, then the hatred of the human race, then the hatred of creation, and which manifests itself by a vague, incessant, and brutal desire to do harm to some living being, no matter whom. It will be perceived that it was not without reason that Jean Valjean’s passport described him as a very dangerous man".

Les Misérables, Volume 1, Book 2, Chapter 7, The Interior of Despair

"First of all, even before examining himself and reflecting, all bewildered, like one who seeks to save himself, he tried to find the child in order to return his money to him; then, when he recognized the fact that this was impossible, he halted in despair. At the moment when he exclaimed “I am a wretch!” he had just perceived what he was, and he was already separated from himself to such a degree, that he seemed to himself to be no longer anything more than a phantom, and as if he had, there before him, in flesh and blood, the hideous galley-convict, Jean Valjean, cudgel in hand, his blouse on his hips, his knapsack filled with stolen objects on his back, with his resolute and gloomy visage, with his thoughts filled with abominable projects. Excess of unhappiness had, as we have remarked, made him in some sort a visionary. This, then, was in the nature of a vision. He actually saw that Jean Valjean, that sinister face, before him. He had almost reached the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was horrified by him".

Les Miserables, Vol. 1, Book 2, Chapter 13, Little Gervais

Continuing my post on the greek translation of the title of Les Misérables, what's interesting here is the phrase "I am a wretch!". It's interesting because in french it's "Je suis un misérable!". The greek translator chooses to use the greek word "athlios" here, the same one he used for the title of the book, and I think that was a good choice. I don't understand why the english translator replaced the word "miserable" with the word "wretch", probably because the word "miserable" does not exactly convey what Valjean describes himself as in this particular chapter? "Miserable" does not necessarily have a deeply pejorative connotation, whereas the word "wretch" means both "an unfortunate or unhappy person" and "a despicable or contemptible person". Maybe the differences are small but in my mind the two words just feel different. Here the french word "misérable" is used in the latter sense, I think (= despicable and contemptible person) so "wretch" does feel closer to that.

However, it would be important to use the same word as the title, because Hugo clearly wanted to associate both Valjean's particular state of mind and the objective situation he was in with the title of the book. That's why Valjean exclaims "Je suis un misérable!". That's what the book is about. And what is that? A "very dangerous man", a "hideous" ex convict with "abominable" thoughts, a man "horrified" by himself. He's not just miserable, he's not just poor, he's not even just an outcast. He's not just rejected by society because it's not just society that hates him. It's that he has truly actually become a hateful human being, capable of the worst, so much that he is horrified by himself. He is a man who steals little kids and attacks the only person that has treated him with kindness, contemplating whether or not to crush his skull. That's the very essence of what a "Misérable" is in the context of this book.

Final note (disclaimer, I'm not at all specialized in translations or in languages, that's just my superficial opinion): After a brief comparison of the greek and the english translation with the french text, what I can say is that globally the use of some words, phrases, expressions in greek just hits different in ways the english vocabulary can't always convey, and that's probably because of the particularity of the greek language, mainly the syntactic versatility and the richness of the vocabulary. That is why it is practically impossible to find the exact equivalent of "Athlios" (greek word for misérable) in english because that word alone has a very particular magnitude, meaning both miserable and despicable in equal measure. However, what the english translator maybe lacks in "depth", he gains in rigor and scrupulousness, I think, because our guy is not very meticulous lol (not a surprise culturally we are not famous for that). So I definitely do not want to discredit the english translation.

#lm 1.2.7 #lm 1.2.13 #les miserables #les mis letters #the brick #les mis translations #aspa reads les mis #jean valjean #i mean i'm not saying anything new compared to my last post #i'm just repeating myself #i just found more receipts

[the-wraxall-illustrations]

#my posts #les mis #les miserables #victor hugo #lascelles wraxall #wraxall translation #lynd ward #lm 1.2.13 #bishop myriel

[cliozaur]

This is such a beautiful chapter in terms of presenting the inner turmoil of a man who is going through a revelation and a transformation. It is a bit similar to the "Javert Derailed" chapter (but this one is much shorter).

Rereading it this time, it dawned upon me that Jean Valjean’s revelation about his former self stayed with him for the rest of his life. He will always see himself the way he saw himself after the Little Gervais incident:

"At the moment when he exclaimed 'I am a wretch!' he had just perceived what he was, and he was already separated from himself to such a degree that he seemed to himself to be no longer anything more than a phantom. It was as if he had, there before him, in flesh and blood, the hideous galley-convict, Jean Valjean, cudgel in hand, his blouse on his hips, his knapsack filled with stolen objects on his back, with his resolute and gloomy visage, with his thoughts filled with abominable projects."

It speaks volumes about his self-loathing. And then:

"His past life, his first fault, his long expiation, his external brutishness, his internal hardness, his dismissal to liberty, rejoicing in manifold plans of vengeance, what had happened to him at the Bishop’s, the last thing that he had done, that theft of forty sous from a child, a crime all the more cowardly and monstrous since it had come after the Bishop’s pardon—all this recurred to his mind and appeared clearly to him, but with a clarity which he had never hitherto witnessed. He examined his life, and it seemed horrible to him; his soul, and it seemed frightful to him. In the meantime, a gentle light rested over this life and this soul. It seemed to him that he beheld Satan by the light of Paradise."

This is exactly how he will see himself for the most part in the future, despite all his good deeds, generosity, kindness, and redemption. And this is how he will present himself to Marius in the last chapters of the book. It is profoundly sad.

#les mis letters #lm 1.2.13 #les miserables #jean valjean #javert

[pureanonofficial]

Okay now that we’ve gotten to LM 1.2.13 in Les Mis Letters, I have to post my absolute favorite take on the Petit-Gervais scene — it’s so good that I’ve been thinking about it ever since I first saw it. It’s from the first episode of Les Miserables 1967, a BBC miniseries.

I love how brusque and rude Valjean is — how little he is listening to Petit-Gervais, and how clearly he is wrapped up in his own thoughts. I love the horrified shock of realization he has when he sees he stepped on the coin. I love how desperate his cries of “Petit-Gervais!” are. I love how he stumbles and falls over himself. 

But the best part of this scene is the way he cries.

Depictions of emotional male grief are rarer than they should be in visual media, and that makes this scene even more powerful. Valjean in this scene cries — no, gutturally sobs for a full 45 seconds, to the end of the episode in fact. We are not spared from his grief —we are not allowed to look away. He sobs, horribly, brokenly, in the way we have all cried, when we’ve done something wrong, and know there is no way of fixing it. It is an incredibly powerful scene, especially when taken in context with the rest of the episode. Frank Finlay’s Valjean is very internal and rough until this scene — this is the first real part we see him break.

Although I have seen many takes on this scene, 1967′s unflinching depiction of Valjean’s grief makes this the most memorable for me.

#Les Mis Letters #LM 1.2.13 #Les Mis #Les Miserables #Les Mis 1967 #Les Miserables 1967 #Jean Valjean #Valjean #Petit-Gervais #Frank Finlay #John Gulgoka #video #1967 is flawed but man oh man when it hits it hits.

[dolphin1812]

I really hope that Mme Magloire and Mlle Baptistine sleep as peacefully as the bishop does, because after being robbed, I don’t think they deserve the scare of waking up at three in the morning just to realize the man who stole from them is right outside their door.

#les mis letters #lm 1.2.13 #magloire #baptistine #jean valjean

[pilferingapples]

LM 1.2.13 History Notes: Petite Gervais, and Savoyards

Haven't seen this in the tags, and I still think it's really interesting context, so here, have a post about Petit Gervais before he's completely Gone from our narrative! (note: this is largely taken from Graham Robb's The Discovery of France: From the Revolution to The First World War , a book I definitely recommend to anyone wanting more French History Context!): Petit Gervais is definitely a chimney sweep. Hapgood's translation cuts that specific phrase out (others leave it in!), but to someone in Hugo’s era, even without the specific mention of him being a chimneysweep, it would be obvious that was his line of work, because that’s what migrant Savoyard boys were. Every year, a large migration of new kids headed north, towards Paris. When they got there: 

...they split up into village groups. Each had its own dormitory and canteen. A Spartan building in a  particular street might look like a part of Paris when in fact it was a colony of Savoy controlled by a Savoyard sweep-master. The master might also sell pots and pans or rabbit-skins and keep an eye on the boys as they went about the city shouting “Haut en bas!” (”Top to bottom!”). If a boy stole money or misbehaved, he was punished according to Savoyard traditiion. Boys who fled into the back streets were always found; chimney sweeps knew the city as well as any policeman and better than most Parisians…

The sweeps who avoided asphyxiation, lung disease, and blindness, and who never fell from a roof, might one  day set up on their own as stove-fitters.  Nearly all of them returned home to marry. Their tie to the homeland was never broken.  When he emerged from the chimney onto the roof of a Parisian apartment -block, a Savoyard sweep could always see the Alps.” - Graham Robb,  The Discovery of France

 So Petit-Gervais– and other Savoyard children like him (it was supposed to be just boys, but of course some girls joined too, with all the extra risk that entailed)  isn’t just a randomly wandering parentless kid. He’s a boy learning a trade, and he’s either off to Paris to essentially serve his apprenticeship, probably working for his money along the way,  or coming back home from Paris. Given how young sweeps were when they aged out of the job (only REALLY little kids can fit in chimneys, after all) and how much money Gervais is carrying, I’d *guess* he’s on the way home from the big city, but it could be seen either way. 

Anyway, point being, Petit-Gervais isn’t some Random Encounter with a poor kid; he’s part of an organized child workforce, with parents who probably lived through the same thing--a workforce that took on an enormous amount of risk, as Hugo shows, however cheerful they might be.

#les mis letters #Petite Gervais #LM 1.2.13 #Savoyards #not gonna get emotional on this post!! not this time!! #Les Mis

[thishumblesoul]

Did a voice whisper in his ear that he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny; that there no longer remained a middle course for him; that if he were not henceforth the best of men, he would be the worst; that it behooved him now, so to speak, to mount higher than the Bishop, or fall lower than the convict; that if he wished to become good, he must become an angel; that if he wished to remain evil, he must become a monster?

- Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862)

#Les Mis 1.2.13 #Brick Quote #Victor Hugo #Victor Hugo Quote #Les Mis #Les Miserables #Literature #Quote #French Literature

[lesmiscollageproject]

At the very moment when he exclaimed, “I’m such a miserable man!” he saw himself as he was, and was already so far separated from himself that he felt he was no more than a phantom and that he had there before him, in flesh and bone, stick in hand, a shirt on his back, a knapsack filled with stolen articles on his shoulders, with his set and gloomy face and his thoughts full of abominable projects, the hideous convict Jean Valjean.

#stylistic inspiration: Merz collage pieces by Kurt Schwitters #les miserables #les mis #les mis letters #1.2.13 #jean valjean

[jelepermets]

Very tired so will put thoughts tomorrow but can’t believe book two is already over😭😭😭

#les miserables #les mis letters #1.2.13 #bern speaks

[katenepveu]

Today's Les Mis Letters, 1.2.13, is actually where I left off listening in the audiobook when I was getting ahead—more specifically, I left off just a bit into the chapter, when Jean Valjean has just stolen the boy's coin. I stopped there because I'd finished whatever household task I was doing, and wanted to switch to reading because the audiobook, while very skillfully narrated, was not the optimal experience for me. And then, because I was far enough ahead and wanted to go back to my other giant 19th c. novel, Moby Dick, I stayed partway through the chapter until today.

And I really didn't know what would happen! A couple of weeks ago, I visited @bookelfe and @artificialities and told them, I just don't know what to expect, I have the vague impression that he's going to be redeemed, but has this been enough or is there more—this book is called "The Fall," after all? And they exercised excellent poker faces and said not a word. (I genuinely know almost nothing about this book's plot.)

So now I know! And what I said yesterday about needing to spend time with the Bishop to believe that this would happen—it applies even more to today.

I very much like this description:

He felt indistinctly that the old priest’s forgiveness was the greatest assault and the most deadly attack he had ever been rocked by; that if he could resist such clemency his heart would be hardened once and for all; that if he gave in to it, he would have to give up the hate that the actions of other men had filled his heart with for so many years and which he relished; that this time, he had to conquer or be conquered and that the struggle, a colossal and decisive struggle, was now on between his own rottenness and the goodness of that man.

Do I agree with it? Not sure! But it's good prose.

Finally, I like that he could not find Petit-Gervais.

It'll be interesting being no longer ahead! Though I may read ahead this weekend, as I have train rides, and daily reading is easy to get behind on.

#les mis letters #les miserables #lm 1.2.13 #Julie Rose translation #mine-ish

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