Brick Club 5.3.3, 5.3.4
To Spin a Thief. How admirable of the attentive and hard-working police of Paris can still find it in themselves to chase down petty thieves even while the military guns down civilians in the streets. Ah, civil war. Iâd say I was surprised Javert is back on the case, like, an hour after getting off the barricade except Iâm super not. It is kind of amusing that he gave up the call to extraordinary duty so readily and went right back to ordinary duty. And because this is Hugoâs Land of Grand Coincidence, heâs on the scent of Thenardier again. âThe reader would perhaps recognise these two men, if he saw them nearer.â Perhaps I would.
âTotal eclipse of the man in the blouse.â Victor Hugo was a known fan of Bonnie Tylerâs âTotal Eclipse of the Heartâ and we can see him paying tribute to yet another poetic luminary with this allusion. Do you think thereâs anything to the fact that Thenardier escapes Javert in the same way Valjean escapes the National Guard? This must be an intensely frustrating couple of days for Javert. âThe man folded his arms and looked at the grating reproachfully. This look not sufficing, he tried to push it; he shook it, it resisted firmly.â Man vs. nature at its most intense and griping. Javert cannot catch a fucking break, he loses the barricade, Valjean, Thenardier, and now against sewer grating. We are approaching the man vs. self singularity.
We come back to this, âand this place, like the sea, is one full of water where you cannot drink.â I made this reference before oh so long ago but âWater, water everywhereâŠâ The albatross isâŠMarius? He Too Bears His (Albat)cross. I donât think I can make this metaphor map. Valjean certainly hates him like one.
Speaking of maps, we spend a dense chunk of paragraphs tracking Valjeanâs exact progress through the sewers and Iâm pretty sure Hugo just did all this research and just couldnât bear to leave a single bit out. RelatableâI literally spent hours researching eight pound cannons and artillery physics for the last book.
He mentions âthe Abattoirâ and Iâm trying to figure out if that was a literal abattoir in Paris proper emptying into the sewersâbecause thatâs a horrifying imageâor if this is just a localism. Because itâs not bad enough traipsing through your average ordinary everyday sewer, we have to throw in an abattoir. Honestly, we might call the barricades themselves abattoirsâa quintessential shot of any Les Mis adaptation is rivers of blood running through cobblestonesâŠand emptying into the sewers. (I did not find an actual abattoir in Paris, but there is a CafĂ© des Abattoirs which isnât maybe the most appealing name, but I also ate at Les Deux Magots so).
