#3.8.19

"Shades Of Purple"

Okay, so I let this sit in my inbox for a couple of days because I wanted to listen to the podcast and get everything in context. Yes, I made myself listen to it and I wish I could flush my ears out of D*n’s voice. Okay so here are my thoughts (under the cut, cause this got very long):

Hugo is going full on with the symbolism here, with Thenardier being compared to a demon with a red and blue light shining from the brazier. Moonlight and the air are called the heavenly symbols, so it feels like the moonlight might help against the criminals but in the next moment the moonlight is aiding Madame Thenardier to see without a candle, so I’m not sure if that is what Hugo is going for. Perhaps the moonlight is only looking down as a neutral character as in Waterloo. I like the descriptions of the moonlight with the red light making the Thenardier place look like Hell.

An old lantern of a Diogenes turned Cartouche was placed there. Diogenes gets another mention after the mines chapter. This time with Cartouche who was a criminal. Diogenes’ whole thing was using a lantern as an allegory of his search for an honest man but instead here he has found Cartouche. That’s a very nice turn of phrase Hugo.   But also, that that lantern is being used for evil purposes. Light becomes sinister when used by people who would only employ it for those purposes. 

The moonlight is enough to obscure Marius in his hiding place but also shows Madame Thenardier the way. The candle also illuminates the angles in Thenardier’s face making him look even more sinister. This light magnifies Thenardiers and their evil.  Marius also learns that they bought some items with his five francs, which include some tools that he is not sure about and some rope ladder.

3.8.18

The dark lantern and the light is really working as a signal between Madame Thenardier and Thenardier. The light falls on her while making sure that the benefactor cannot see the signals. Light is being used for evil purposes here it seems to me. The red light in the streets also confirms the fact that this is one of the circles of Hell that they are in.

The whole atmosphere is pretty eerie and gothic. The white snow and the moonlight, the red glow inside, the light from a single candle throwing darkness everywhere inside the rooms. The Gorbeau house itself having a deserted barren look. Jondrette with his sinister smile and Madame Jondrette compared to a she-wolf. Jondrettes have been compared to wolves quite a lot. The stage is set for something which will go very wrong, especially since the Jondrettes also stole Marius’ chairs. But Marius is waiting hidden behind the partition hoping for information about his sweetheart somehow in the middle of a robbery/serious crime in the desolate landscape of the Gorbeau tenement. Marius always has his priorities right.

3.8.19

Madame Thenardier reveals Jondrette’s name, which probably alerts the Monsieur Leblanc but then Jondrette tries to cover up the slip up. They are not particularly good actors though. M Leblanc notices the criminals slipping quietly inside the house even though Fabantou pretends they are friends who are chimney sweeps. Monsieur Leblanc obviously suspects that is not the case, but he is still sitting very composed. Thenardier tries to sell him a terrible painting, the inn sign of Waterloo, which is pretty much worthless. Thenardier’s art is still of the superficial nature.  

Thenardier also renounces Revolution/anarchism. Donougher has anarchism but Hapgood has Bousingot which was associated with Romantics, especially Petit Cenacle who called themselves Jeunes-France and were called Bousingots, or rabble rousers by the public, O’Neddy wrote a letter explaining this. Bousingot for Thenardier would roughly mean a young revolutionary in 1830s.  So Thenardier is rejecting both Romanticism and Revolutionary fervour in favour of classicism in his art.  That still doesn’t stop Jondrette from asking for three thousand francs outrightly.

He talks about the box trade, fourteen hours to only earn four sous seems like a valid complaint to make, except Thenardier never had any intention to work and he dragged his family into his activities, and this is just filler conversation (although it is interesting to note that gifts were only exchanged on New Years and not on Christmas), till Thenardier asks whether Monsieur Leblanc recognises him.

A couple of illustration heavy chapters! Ward has really been getting his chiaroscuro on in Book 8.

This scene of Leblanc walking into the garret reminds me of Aslan walking to the White Witch to be sacrificed in Narnia. With a little less unmitigated Jesus imagery. This is undoubtably influenced by the stunning lion imagery for Valjean in the Arai manga. Valjean also always seems to be going up against dogs and wolves, continuing the theme found in his very first chapter when he is chased out of a doghouse.

“Marius, moreover, was experiencing nothing but an emotion of horror, not fear.” Please keep Pontmercy away from the Lovecraftian. There’s still a whiff of dramatic irony in that we know Jondrette is really Thenardier and Marius remains unaware. While the tension for the characters in the scene revolves around the upcoming deeds, our tension comes from waiting for this information to be revealed.

I want to quickly check in with tracking Marius’s thematic and personal development since he’s changed in a lot of subtle ways over the past months of book time. He’s gained a very strong inclination toward the individual good and individual action without the shitty “personal responsibility” narrative that typically accompanies that (liberal capitalism). He’s in a state where if he sees need right in front of him, he offers the help he can, thwarting a crime he has knowledge of, joining the barricade effort when the opportunity is thrust upon him and he sees no better option, etc. Marius just doesn’t always see the intangible needs that exist on a structural level. Anyways, we continue.

Valjean takes it upon himself to judge others for using layers of fake names. Urbain Fabre, sir, you have no foundation.

Thenardier makes an excellent argument for elevation of the poor, “I am no brawler, I wish them no harm, but if I were the minsters, upon my most sacred word, it would go differently.” He says he would like his daughters to learn a trade. It’s a pity he doesn’t mean any of it, since he obviously has a keen eye for the structural problems that plague the working classes.

Things get overt enough for Leblanc to not only take notice, but take caution, even if he has not already recognized the “tavern sign” Thenardier insists on showing him. It must be the very same painting that once hung outside his inn in Montfermeil, To The Sergeant of Waterloo. The more Leblanc realizes his situation, the more Fabantou becomes Thenardier. Valjean has no doubt been on his guard for any sign or recognition from the police or the authorities but he might not have considered that the shadier phantoms of both his and Cosette’s past could pose any comparable threat. He’s maybe made the same mistake as Thenardier in potentially underestimating the threat, but to be fair, no one could ever anticipate the Hugonian level of coincidence this encounter displays. Especially with Marius behind the wall and Javert waiting in the street.