more Les Mis spam

[elsane]

I'm reading Les Miserables (very slowly). I've read excerpts from it before, usually in watered-down French -- my high school French teacher was notable for migraines, scattershot lesson planning, and deep, disorganized passions for Hugo and Impressionists -- but I've never tackled the whole thing. It's great fun though I haven't hit the parts with Marius yet. I have the itch to live-blog every other page and argue back at Hugo, which I have been heroically repressing.

Here, have a fic rec: Dolce et decorum est, featuring Les Amis in Temeraire!verse. Enjolras is captain to the dragon Patria, deadly earnest human and draconine republicanism abounds, and so does gleeful gender confusion. Clever, cracky, and fun.

And another one: With Faith Unfearful, by carmarthen. It's not very easy to write believable ship fic for Enjolras and Grantaire and stay true to their canon dynamic, but this works beautifully well, partly by not being the sort of thing one would ordinarily call ship fic.

Something about Enjolras lends itself to genderfuck remarkably easily, and I think I know why. Enjolras is one of the Les Mis characters who's halfway to being a symbol, and symbolic embodiments of abstract virtues are female in Western thought. Think of Liberty, leading the people, and Marianne; the Virtues, the Graces. Enjolras is written to be the embodiment of the revolutionary spirit, and his appearance, his demeanor, all hark back to those feminine abstract archetypes. He was gender-bent from the beginning; no wonder he bends back so easily.

More links: today I was amused to note that as part of the New York Times' ongoing "Disunion" Civil War history project, posted today was an article about how Les Miserables, hot off the presses, was received in the US. Not much has changed: "The New York Times called the novel 'remarkable' and 'brilliant, but in the same notice labeled Hugo 'a prosy madman.'" It's fascinating to read reviews from the Southern side and see the doublethink involved, as Hugo and his messages were fairly obviously abolitionist; this is only briefly touched on in the article, and it would be interesting to read more.

So the thing about writing people who started out as Enjolras (this overly punctilious approach to naming brought to you by the fact that I know full well my people are mutating away from Hugo's bases), is that you realize they really aren't going to live very long, even when you try to give them a nice victory to start out with.

In other words, April 1960 is more like 1830, and 1832 is still coming.

But there gets to be some Orestes and Pylades first, and more than two years, so the story is that much different.

...in other news. Uh. So, does anyone want to watch Sandglass with me?

Comments

[elsane]

Heh, yes, just having something be canon setting really isn't a guarantee it will be in character. It seems to help mitigate iffy characterization a little bit, though? Maybe just by providing a bit of camouflage, but at the very least it's trying to meet the characters halfway, by putting them into a setting that isn't your everyday life. Modern AUs of the student/coffee-shop kind don't even manage that.

(It sounds fascinating, though! Aw, you are kind :) I do hope it does wind up being interesting to anyone who isn't me, heh. Poking at it leaves me with the sense of having my nose rubbed in the fact that Hugo is a better writer than I am, which is kind of obvious and not helpful.)

I think a lot of people map them because they think "oooh, college activists," but I'm not sure I can get from violent 19th century revolution to Occupy Wall Street, personally.

Yeah, there is a certain gravity of purpose which doesn't map well, and it ends up diminishing the characters, almost invariably. I have discovered that apparently my ship in this fandom is Les Amis/democratic revolution.

I think I have read and very much enjoyed some of those Tortall divergence AUs! And yes, no changed-setting AUs at all. (perhaps because Tortall is fairly lightly sketched in? So It's not hard for inexperienced world builders to play in?) It's interesting how different fandoms lend themselves to different kinds of AU. Saiyuki has almost no divergence AUs, probably because the major ongoing plot is so open in structure, but tons and tons of reincarnation/different setting AUs.

[carmarthen]

Maybe just by providing a bit of camouflage, but at the very least it's trying to meet the characters halfway, by putting them into a setting that isn't your everyday life. Modern AUs of the student/coffee-shop kind don't even manage that.

*nods*

I think Hugo is a better writer than just about everyone, and we all just have to cope.

Yeah, there is a certain gravity of purpose which doesn't map well, and it ends up diminishing the characters, almost invariably. I have discovered that apparently my ship in this fandom is Les Amis/democratic revolution.

Which is not to say I think social issues today aren't important, but...well, here's some really good meta on Tumblr that explains it better than I can.

perhaps because Tortall is fairly lightly sketched in? So It's not hard for inexperienced world builders to play in?

I think that may be part of it--plus canon is pretty contradictory, so we can make shit up with more impunity. But I do think the lack of a visual interpretation full of pretty actors is a big part of it--Aubrey & Maturin fandom is relatively free of crappy modern AUs as well, I think because the movie wasn't popular enough to overwhelm the book fans who looooove Age of Sail. Whereas I'd say Les Miz only grew a ton of modern AUs after the 2012 movie, and they're almost all focused on pretty boys sexing. I do not think this is a coincidence.

[elsane]

Oh, that's great meta -- thanks for the link! (I am somewhat dismayed by how much interesting Les Mis content seems to be on Tumblr.) Though I disagree that the violence is intrinsic; the wholehearted commitment to something that could cost your life is, but I don't think that this necessarily implies a commitment to perpetrating violence. The AUs I want are mostly historic:
* Solidarnosc
* Tiananmen Square
* Russian revolution -- but -- only if the writer really, really knows what they're doing, and kept Les Amis on the side of democracy and freedom, and this one would still get dark very fast.
* I would absolutely love to see other, present-day AUs from places around the world still fighting for self-determination today, like Iran or Tunisia or Myanmar or..., but there is no way I can even start to think about what that would be like.

I also want divergence AUs! Like one where the Amis aren't shot when the barricade is taken, which was after all a bit of an aberration, but are rounded up as political prisoners... but unlike other fandoms brainstorming more elaborate ideas tends to turn into straight-up alternate history very fast, and is daunting, heh.

But I do think the lack of a visual interpretation full of pretty actors is a big part of it-...Les Miz only grew a ton of modern AUs after the 2012 movie, and they're almost all focused on pretty boys sexing. I do not think this is a coincidence.

Ah. Yes. Excellent point.

(I am now trying to imagine an Alanna movie and getting my brain very blown.)

I'm even a bit guilty of this myself, as movie gif-sets and cherry-picked quotes made me think that E/R was something fun to poke at and got me going down this road, but, no, now that I've been digging deeper I basically want ALL THE GEN, WITH PHILOSOPHY IN. /nerd

[carmarthen]

I am somewhat dismayed by how much interesting Les Mis content seems to be on Tumblr.

Join the club. :-/ I have broken and actually started using Tumblr because of it, bleh. Anyway, I think if you just follow hernaniste, hoflords, and axmxz you've probably got a good chunk of the meta covered (general more scholarly Hugo meta hernaniste, the Javert show for the other two), although if you're interested in Amis, you might want to follow someone who talks about them in contexts other than who bottoms (I can't think offhand of who would be the best bet who doesn't constantly repost gifs and fanart).

I might try doing some kind of weekly Tumblr meta roundup, I dunno.

Agreed on the not necessarily committing violence. I would also like to see all those AUs, but I think they're hugely fraught to write, especially for people not from the countries and cultures whose history they are--especially the more recent stuff. 1832 is far enough in the past that I think fucking it up, while still potentially offensive, is less likely to hit raw wounds (I may be wrong, though).

I also want divergence AUs! Like one where the Amis aren't shot when the barricade is taken, which was after all a bit of an aberration, but are rounded up as political prisoners... but unlike other fandoms brainstorming more elaborate ideas tends to turn into straight-up alternate history very fast, and is daunting, heh.

Yeah, it really does. I am contemplating a divergence AU right now, but what started out as a simple idea is growing tentacles (not in the kinkmeme way) and IDEK.

(I am now trying to imagine an Alanna movie and getting my brain very blown.)

People keep doing fancasting, and I just...can't. I can't imagine Hollywood not completely fucking it up.

There is nothing wrong with shipping the pretty boys sexing (or in my case, the fucked up old dudes sexing, I guess)! But gosh, I do love me some philosophizing and history.

(My last fandom was a book/movie fandom, and I was one of the handful of fans who heavily overlapped the two. The book fandom had almost NO modern AUs, and was full of people who loved history. The movie fandom was full of modern AUs and was full of people who loved the actors and didn't have much interest in the historical setting or how it might shape the characters. A lot of the modern AUs were thinly veiled RPF or based on other roles of the actors. It was...contentious. At least Miz fandom mostly seems to get along better, although sometimes I think the Amis-centric part will eat its young. At least it's not full--so far--of people bitching about how history is boring and stupid and oppressive, so I am counting my blessings.)

[elsane]

so, I made a Tumblr (berrysphase is me). So far things have gone pretty well, in terms of getting the content and not the wank? Despite being in the Amis part of the fandom, and despite Tumblr making me feel remarkably like a mammoth fumbling around in the dark. Stupid non-obvious platforms. I haven't really hit Javert in the brick yet! I expect once I do so I will have suddenly more emphatic feelings for him, but so far I am all about the revolutionaries, predictably enough.

I would love to see the weekly Tumblr meta roundup.

Oh, I would love to hear more about your divergence AU /heartsineyes I'm sorry I'm not really one for crackfic, occasional diversions into mpreg aside /cough

Re Alanna, I agree, I can't imagine Hollywood's take on her, or Delia, or Buri and Thayet, except in the "train wreck waiting to happen" kind of way. I mean, I know, Pierce's story has all sorts of issues, but at least they are not the obvious ones?

[carmarthen]

I think the more meta-y canon-era part of Amis fandom is pretty non-wanky, although also kind of tight-knit and intimidating. If you're not following them yet, edwarddespard and amarguerite are both interesting.

Eh, I really only like crack-played-straight, like silly ideas but written out seriously? And fusion AUs. Which I guess is not what most people think of as crack, I dunno, but either way not to everyone's taste.

(I am not sure I want to talk about the divergence AU because I'm afraid if I do I won't write it, but the basic idea is that Eponine goes with Valjean and Cosette to England, Marius has a crisis of conscience on the barricade, and nobody dies, but this doesn't necessarily make everyone happy.)

I agree, I can't imagine Hollywood's take on her, or Delia, or Buri and Thayet, except in the "train wreck waiting to happen" kind of way. I mean, I know, Pierce's story has all sorts of issues, but at least they are not the obvious ones?

Right? I think I'm glad it's terribly unlikely to happen.