Les Miserables, version brick, Installment 2: Volume 2, Book 7

[elsane]

Alternate post title: well, that made for an argumentative plane ride.

I have actually been hugely enjoying the infamous digressions, after setting aside a certain allowance for the rolling of eyes. One of the side benefits of reading La Brique electronically is that I feel blissfully at liberty to scribble mad quantities of notes and arguments in the margins. Well, the last couple of chapters I have stopped to comment on every paragraph, because these are the chapters where Hugo decides to go into great detail about how atheism destroys society.

For now I have to go be productive and stuff, so I leave you with two thoughts.

• Dear Hugo,
  
  Your "proof" of the existence of a divine essence is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the mathematical concept of infinity.
  
  Very nettled love,
  -me.
  
  
• "To place the infinity here below in contact, by the medium of thought, with the infinity on high, is called praying." (Vol II, Bk 7, Ch V.)
  
  Not so, sir! It’s called science.
  

(General book logging as well as a post on Waterloo: coming when things calm down a bit I swear no really)

Comments

[cordialcount]

Applause for a proper distinction between infinity as a metaphysical concept and infinity in its various mathematical definitions. /chinhands for more thoughts in lieu of actually reading the Brick

[elsane]

Yes! And it's a rhetorical sleight of hand to mix and match. I SAW THAT, HUGO. Hugo is remarkably good at the having-his-cake-and-eating-it-too type of arguments, and since he makes them with such panache and such brilliant phrasing, it's surprisingly fun to read along. Like, why yes, I will put up with you making logical fallacies in my general direction because you do it so entertainingly, please tell me more about monastic living! And just when you're about sick of it he throws in some intriguing bit characters and everything is sparkly again. It's a truly unexpected degree of fun.

(If you like reading history books and/or essays in addition to novels with brilliantly realized, sympathetic characters, La Brique is potentially right up your alley. I'm just saying.)

[genarti]

Heee. I think I'm glad that I haven't felt the urge to argue with Hugo much, because I'm not sure how one ever stops! (Certainly he doesn't stop arguing with the world, and also with himself.) Which is not to imply that I agree with him about everything; I just text skygiants with "And now he's talking about [atheism/nuns/Waterloo/love]. OH VICTOR HUGO." a lot.

So, er, yes, I have given in and joined in the great Les Mis reading! And am surprising myself by devouring it, although I'm also finding all the recent recap posts handy in knowing what to expect next, especially during the bits I'm less interested in. (Marius. Sorry, Marius.) Right now I'm probably about 2/3 of the way through! ONWARD TOWARDS THE GLORIOUS DEATH OF ALMOST EVERYBODY.

[elsane]

YAY another one bites the dust! Hee :)

It's the fact that he doesn't stop arguing with the world (and with himself OH GOD SO MUCH WITH HIMSELF) that makes the boundless opining readable for me, I think? The fact that I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind a vigorous debate makes me feel unexcluded, and comfortable about arguing with him. Or something along those lines. And even the really egregious statements are so beautifully phrased. I am having so much fun.

(Oh man I can't wait to get to the revolutionaries. But I don't particularly want to hang around with Marius. And I don't want the book to be over. I'm feeling kind of conflicted about this.)

[genarti]

I totally have. *laughing* It's fun to be doing it at the same time as so many people interested in talking meta! Even if I keep feeling vaguely sheeplike for being part of the vast group of people reading it in the wake of the movie. But whatever, I'm having fun and I'm getting meta.

Right! If it were just a polemic, I would get bored much faster. But he keeps enthusiastically arguing at least three sides of most arguments, and the main point he consistently agrees with himself about is that it's important to feed and educate everybody to a minimum level as much as possible, which I find it hard to disagree with as a philosophy.

And yes, the phrasing is beautiful. I didn't expect that to make as much difference as it does! Often I'm stuck going "yes, the prose is beautiful, but I HATE EVERYONE AND I'M BORED STIFF." And instead I keep turning pages.

(Marius is such a glorious idiot, I can't even. I keep wanting more revolutionaries though; we get a tantalizing scene, and then it's back to Marius pining around the streets or Victor Hugo's Admittedly Interesting Thoughts On Street Children or whatever.)

[elsane]

Oh yes, I feel like such a sheep, but I'm having way too much fun to care! And I'm so happy to be reading it while people are interested in discussing it.

Yes! Education and a basic living standard for all! And along similar lines, though he's not great about women or The Masses or foreigners, every single person in the book is a human being first and foremost. It's hard to get overly upset with someone whose single guiding star is basic human dignity. (not to mention the special eminence of France, but, y'know: oh, Hugo.)

Hugo's sweeping abstractions strike me like a mallet to a gong. Great sweeping abstractions are my kryptonite; I am terribly vulnerable to them, especially when they're stated like poetry. Though I don't think I would make it through if it were all great sweeping abstractions; I find the characters amazingly human and sympathetic. (I'm starting to suspect I'll even find Marius sympathetic this time around. This feels like a betrayal of my teenage self.)

(ah I am not yet even to this point in the book and already I am dreadfully wistful that the long midquel about Les Amis fighting in the 1830 revolution and reacting to its aftermath does not exist. woe.)

[genarti]

Exactly! I can't remember the last time I was into a fandom that had this much ongoing discussion all at once. I was (and am) into Avengers too, and spent a while wrapping my head around being part of the current juggernaut fandom, but that was much less meta-filled. Which makes sense; very little lends itself to sprawling meta as much as Les Mis, at least the book! Once we've both finished we should totally pull an Amis and meet up for more meta rambling in person and over beers or something.

And yes! As often as he annoys me with his perfect devoted angels of the house or his unwashed rough masses or whatever, he redeems himself with the little human touches. I've just come to some unexpectedly delightful bits in his treatment of Cosette, of all people. Even when I disagree with his generalizations, I do think that he wants us to take every character in the book on their own terms to at least some degree, and that makes up for a lot. And all his self-contradictions mean that even when he makes characters into symbols, he's willing to undercut that with humanity and to give us other symbol-characters in contradiction, and that makes up for a lot to me too.

(Yes. Oh man. So many things I want more details about, and know I will never get! Including things I haven't yet come to, yes, but which I already know I'm going to want. Dammit, Hugo, the book's already pushing 1500 pages; couldn't you have made it a bit longer with the stuff I want?)

[skygiants]

IF YOU PULL AN AMIS I DEMAND TO BE INVITED

....maybe by Skype, but.

[elsane]

YOU ARE TOTALLY INVITED.

You are my honorary Les Mis godmother or something, how could I not invite you.

[elsane]

...so characters who are both avatars of abstractions and simultaneously people, and then placed in situations that pull at their contradictions, are basically all of my story kryptonite distilled down into a single deadly bomb. I've never run into an author that actually manages to pull off symbolic characters who are still people. And you're totally right that a huge part of why it works is that the abstractions come in opposition, and though he loves the absolutes, his fundamental message about society is moderation.

I've thought for a while that the trick to making characterization click is "both, and" -- characters can be X and Y, even if X and Y are at times contradictory; it's the tension and the contradiction that makes the character three-dimensional and drives plots. Hugo is doing "both, and" to everything -- to all of his arguments, to history, to his philosophy of government, to his characters, and it's spectacular. Not to mention very different from the setup I'm trained to expect, which is thesis, antithesis, synthesis -- he deliberately skips the synthesis step, and says, look, here's reality, it contradicts itself sometimes, it is vast, it contains multitudes, what are you going to do about it? At the end of the day we're all human.

I was totally unprepared for Hugo to hit me in my id with such exquisite aim. I forgive him everything, even the rampant chauvinism, and the folk etymologies about his ancestors. (Did you know, Wikipedia firmly raspberries all over his etymology of Hougomont? Though I wouldn't necessarily trust Wikipedia on this point, either.)

(It baffles me utterly that the published Les Mis profic is sequels about Marius and Cosette. Who in their right mind would want sequels about Marius and Cosette when they could have 1830??? Though, given the execrations that have been visited upon Austen, perhaps it's better this way. If it were 1830, I would have to read it, and then odds are I would be extremely displeased.)

Re beers and meta, YES LET US DO THIS. I fear I am proceeding very slowly, but: YES.

[genarti]

Oh my god, yes, you have just summed it up excellently. I have a lot of story kryptonites, but characters who are avatars and also people, and who are then put in situations where their humanity shows without diminishing their embodied symbolism, is hugely appealing for me. So, uh, I love a large percentage of the cast of this book.

And yes about skipping the synthesis. I hadn't put that into words, but you're totally right. Hugo's fundamental message about every single philosophical issue he raises is "BUT GUYS IT'S MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT--" and another messy contradictory ramble on the heels of the previous. I respect that, and agree with it, much more than any sort of moral of absolutes. (And his symbol characters aren't named, like, M. Virtue and Mme. Busybody, which I am grateful for.)

Oh, the folk etymologies. I don't know much about French etymology at any level more advanced than "this clearly comes from the Latin I learned in high school," but I am not remotely surprised about the dubious veracity of any given example.

(Oh my god, are they? I mean, of course they are. But WHY, universe? I want 1830, I want 1831, I want Valjean and Fauchelevant and Cosette in the convent, I want Javert The Police Procedural. I guess that's what we have fanfic for, and you're right that hypothetical Les Mis profic would probably just be published badfic.)

>:D EXCELLENT. I have been pretty much devouring it, as much as real life allows -- I've just hit the part of the barricades where Hugo stops digressing about insurrections and stuff starts happening -- so I expect to be at your disposal whenever you like, schedules willing!

[carmarthen]

Oh good, I shall look forward to Hugo's Thoughts on Atheism, for a value of "look forward to" that will involve shrieking.

[elsane]

Hee :)

I'm not sure about your tolerance, but I found it not utterly horrid? I mean, I made ALL THE MARGINAL NOTES on the chapter where Hugo locates divinity in absolutes, and they run somewhat along the lines of two parts DEAR SIR I OBJECT, one part DEAR SIR THAT IS A COOL IDEA BEAUTIFULLY PHRASED, one part DEAR SIR YOU ARE CONTRADICTING YOURSELF, and one part "...oh hm, that says some very interesting things about the conceptual angel-nature of Enjolras". So it's fun!...for that brand of fun that is defined to contain a certain amount of "oh Hugo".