#3.8.12

The Thenardier women find comfort in the clothes unlike Thenardier who is only interested in making plans involving violence to the rich benefactor/philanthropist. He is so consumed by his plan that he stops Madame Thenardier from getting food, and instead wants to use that money to harm the man.

Thenardier however is not the only one thinking about violence, we see that Madame Thenardier too turns her hatred into a violent destructive wish of kicking/harming Cosette physically and rendering her less attractive and less womanly. I like the parallels between how Marius reacts to Cosette and how Madame Thenardier does as well. She gets the eyes of the tigress, tigers being a metaphor for cunning according to the cats in Les Mis post by @pilferingapples.

Once again Thenardier’s my little Romantic beard is another allusion to the showy exterior/aesthetic having nothing of substance inside and therefore a critique on art/drama.

Jondrette/Thenardier’s complaints are valid about either being able to satisfy his hunger or his cold, which is the state society left him in, but he wants to be a millionaire.  Thenardier seems to me to be someone who was so full of hatred for society but did not receive any goodness in the form of someone like Bishop Myriel and now his hatred has grown too much like the other members of the Patron Minette and so he has become a symbolic archetype of a self-interested criminal. 

Although, even then only meeting the bishop wouldn’t have been enough, this would have also required effort on his part to change as well, which Valjean did even if it was not always easy, and Thenardier is not interested in that. It’s not that he’s actually making any effort to be a better person but falling into hard times, he does not even want to try to be good, only to be rich. But being rich is not going to solve his problems because he is always going to want more. I don’t know what the solution would be though.  

3.8.13

I find it interesting that Marius has moved on from describing the Thenardiers from toads among Cosette as a hummingbird- to vipers, since they are thinking of harming his beloved and her father. But also, vipers implies they intend to harm society and ‘need to be stamped underfoot’ whereas a toad does not cause harm in society, it spends time contemplating the world around it.

Marius finally decides to do something about the coming burglary and decides to finally earn all the plaudits that the narrator seems to keep bestowing on him. The perks of being the author’s favourite.   

3.8.14

This chapter is hilarious, and I need the buddy cop AU with Javert and Marius to happen. I love the initial descriptions of Javert so much too. Javert gets another mention comparing him to a guard-dog who will have to hunt a wolf. I like the contrast between Javert with his no-nonsense attitude which plays off very well with the dreamy Marius.

I love the rapid-fire dialogue here too  as everyone has already pointed out:

‘It’s about a confidential matter.’

‘Then speak.’

‘And very urgent.’

‘Then speak quickly.’

And then he’s so distracted thinking about Patron Minette that he burns his coat but treats it very casually. This is such prime comedy.

I also love the way that Javert describes Patron Minette as a cheap theatre/vaudeville act who are only shy of audiences, it’s really funny. I also love Javert giving Marius the look when Marius states the obvious that Patron Minette are dangerous. This chapter is full of hilarious stuff. 

Thenardier shares his realization with his family, seemingly as an afterthought. Mme. Thenardier doesn’t have much stake until she realizes the rich young lady was the very same Lark she abused as a child. How the tables have turned. “There are some men who do not grow old; I don’t know how they do it.” The answer is a) money and b) using up all your aging during a single traumatic court experience.

Mme. Thenardier’s anger strikes Marius as more frightening than even her husband’s; she isn’t incensed on her own behalf like Thenardier, this is the rage of a mother whose children are suffering. For all that Mme. Thenardier is, we know she truly cares for her daughters and her thoughts go to them first while Thenardier seethes about the things he wants for himself. He barely remembers to give his wife money for a fire and even this is to serve his own ends later on. “Don’t bother about eating to-day. There is better business.”

There’s something about how all Thenardier talks about is how rich he wants to be, the life of leisure he wants to have, while all of his actions fly in the face of these claims. This ties back to 3.8.8, where I said he wouldn’t be satisfied even if he got what he claimed to want and it holds true here. He wants to not go hungry, but instead opts to use Leblanc’s money to buy a weapon to try and play double or nothing. The things aren’t enough for him anymore, he wants revenge, vindication, a kind of satisfaction that he just doesn’t have the ability to feel anymore. I can’t quite put it into words, but something about Thenardier feels hollow, like he’s become a great void.

I don’t understand why, but every version of this chapter title I have read changes a letter somewhere. “Solos” versus “solus” and “cogitabuntur” versus “cogitabantur.” It seems more of a transcription error than a translation error, unless everyone is trying to correct Hugo’s Latin. The best translation I can wring out is something like “All alone, in a remote place, it is not thought of to pray to our father.”

Marius has a thought to take decisive action and heads to the police, finding more plot bunnies along the way: Patron-Minette is involved. I like this good boy Marius, though he might need to go into witness protection after all this is through. Marius has a good heart and, when he becomes aware, here in large part due to Cosette’s direct involvement, he has a good head on his shoulders as well. We will see this go awry fairly soon, but this time it isn’t actually his fault. He would’ve done so well as a proper Amis, really all he’s been missing is a real support system of friends and allies.

212 chapters read, 153 chapters left

[Skipped a week and change, because life happens, and I wasn’t up to dealing with the Thénardiers on top of everything else.]

In which Marius resumes spying on his neighbors, who appear to have recognized the ‘philanthropist’ and concealed this from him. It’s all worded carefully by Hugo to avoid revealing too much backstory to Marius (but just enough for the reader to recall Thénardier, JVJ, and Cosette from early in book 2). I’m still annoyed at how Thénardier treats the girls, though it’s milder than some of this other actions towards them: just sending them out into the cold, and getting tetchy about them ‘remembering’ a person they saw once, briefly, half-their-lifetimes ago).  Thénardier also drops hints of his impending dastardly plan: he needs a large charcoal fire and something from the quincaillier (ironmonger/hardware store), and whatever these are, they’re more important than food. For the family that hasn’t eaten in several days.

Finally catching up on sleep and brickclub.

3.8.12- Marius is still spying on his neighbors  to help them because his crush is there to learn more about the girl he stalked because his crush and/or her father might be in danger.  Thenardier, alias Jondrette et al, is planning something bad, is still being a jerk to his daughters, and lampshades something that bothered me earlier: that JVJ believes (or acts like he believes) that the family has a year's rent due on the 4th of February. I can see Thenardier lying in order to get more money (heck, he inflates the amount for that reason), but I'm surprised that he'd risk such a bald lie. Ok, he's been egregious in everything else, but a partial list of things that may tip off his mark, resulting in no money at all: that the landlord let them go a whole year without paying; the 4th of February is an odd eviction day [is it supposed to be an extension from the 1st? if so, they've a singular landlord to allow four days grace on a year's arrears]; if reckoning by quarters (the portress did mention 'quarters' rather than 'months' of rent), February is half-way between two of the traditonal quarterdays (based on my recollections of English sources). 

That was fairly incoherent. Mea culpa.

Now at least we know why Jean Valjean didn’t recognize Thénardier - because of a goatee. Although, now that I’ve thought a bit longer about this, maybe Thénardier simply didn’t seem important enough to remember, considering the odds of ever meeting him again and of Thénardier remembering and begrudging him after all this thime.