(no subject)

[skygiants]

So I keep wondering why Enjolras expects Marius to show up and be helpful in the Barriere du Maine scene; after all, we're told that after the Great Napoleon Debacle, Marius essentially storms off in a huff and never goes back to revolutionland again. Also, he is Marius. Myself, I can think of about four reasons:

1. Unreliable/ambiguous narrator: Marius had been hanging out with the gang before Napoleongate way more than the text implies.

2. Marius has not been hanging out with the gang, but Courfeyrac trusts him enough that he asks him to run errands sometimes when it would be useful to have an unfamiliar face show up, which he does because of the debt he feels he owes Courfeyrac, and Enjolras interprets this as Marius being way more interested in revolution than he actually is. This would actually be an interesting fic-premise -- Marius Pontmercies his way through a revolutionary errand he knows nothing about; hijinks ensue!

3. Enjolras really is JUST THAT DESPERATE. Maybe all the redshirt revolutionaries have gone home for the summer holidays. Or are dying of cholera.

4. Enjolras is not actually talking about our Marius at all, but about a friend of his named Jean or Pierre or Guifford Marius. Jean Marius has been very lax about showing up to meetings recently and we are VERY DISAPPOINTED in him.

Comments

[bobbiewickham]

I think the best explanation is a combination of 2 and the fact that Hugo does tell us Marius stays friends with the ABC bunch (not only Courfeyrac, though Courfeyrac's his only close friend among them) after the Napoleon debacle, and that he and they would do anything to help each other. IIRC, Bossuet is familiar with what Marius is up to even afterwards, and talks like he expects to see him around. Courfeyrac apparently thinks Marius knows what's going to happen at Lamarque's funeral and might actually show up there. Eponine calls them his "friends" and thinks that telling him they're waiting for him is a good manipulative move to help get him to the barricade. And it does affect him, and he does believe they're waiting for him (which: HAH! Marius, you poor sweet goof). So he's been hanging out with them on occasion, and likely he's shown flashes of republicanism that's given them hope for him.

It's definitely not out of desperation, because there are other unnamed ABC-ers, quite apart from all the non-ABC-ers at the barricade, all of whom are more committed and aware of what they're doing than poor Marius.

I like 4, though!

[skygiants]

I was going to say that Bossuet at least went to classes with Marius, which might explain their familiarity, but of course that's not so because Bossuet dropped cheerfully out of law school at the same time Marius entered it. Still, that might be a way some of them have still been seeing them around until he graduates -- he's probably been having at least a few conversations with Combeferre, because later on we find out that the ONE ACTUAL PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATION that Marius ever manages to have with Valjean goes along the lines of "hey, universal progressive education, good idea, right?" "Yes! Progressive education! Thumbs up!" And you can't imagine him picking that up from Gillenormand.

I still have a hard time reconciling Marius actually hanging out at the Musain with what we're told about his mindset after the Napoleon incident, though -- he's such a generally solitary person, and eventually a solitary and depressed person, and also one with essentially no money that he doesn't borrow from Courfeyrac. Even aside from a disinclination to voluntarily socialize, especially in a place where people laugh at HIM AND NAPOLEON, I can't see him wanting to go anywhere that he might be encouraged to spend frivolously.

[bobbiewickham]

Yeah, we're explicitly told he avoids the Musain while remaining friendly with the ABC-ers. So the hanging out must be in other settings. Maybe Courfeyrac takes him out to lunch on occasion, and sometimes one of the others comes along.

[skygiants]

"Look, okay, guys, I'm buying, but someone PLEASE come help me make sure Marius occasionally interacts with something that isn't a tree or a female figment of his imagination. Please?"

[elsane]

(Oh hi I will spam your inbox by replying to half the thread)

Ha, actually, Combeferre is one of the people I have the hardest time imagining Marius hanging out with. Partly because Combeferre was the one who delivered the most devastating lines in Napoleongate, and partly because Combeferre doesn't strike me as having that much spare time and inclination to hang around being social. I can easily see Marius and Combeferre ending up both in a large party, and Marius kind of awkwardly avoiding Combeferre while Combeferre makes gentle friendly overtures until Marius settles down a bit; but I have difficulty imagining Marius actually interacting with Combeferre in smaller groups half as much as he interacts with Bossuet and Joly, say.

Marius' timeline is really vague, but it is four years from 1828 to 1832, so things don't have to be fixed entirely over that time; and in fact Hugo does deign to tell us that after 1830 Marius has cooled down about Napoleon. His finances also go downhill after 1830. I do agree that the Musain will always be awkward for him, and not a comfortable social environment for his taste! I think laughing at him, and being reminded of his own intense past sentiments, is probably the most embarrassing part of it - his politics have gone vaguely well-meaningly republican.

ETA: Here, when he's in a good mood (word to what you and melannen were saying about depression, below) and engaging with the world, he says: "'Have you read the paper? What a fine discourse Audry de Puyraveau delivered!"' so I googled Audry de Puyraveau and discovered he's a pretty hard left politician. I... am still not quite sure how to put all of these pieces together into a coherent whole arguably Marius is not either

But perhaps it's wrong to think about the meetings at the Musain as being critical to the Amis de l'Abaissé; it's an underground organization, it's not going to be about regular formal meetings. Marius' entire social circle being comprised of revolutionaries (and Mabeuf) and revolutionary meetings taking place as casual meetups in restaurants and cafés might be enough for him to seem like an honorary member. (I still can't argue myself around to making Enjolras anymore than wildly optimistic.)

OK I'M DONE WAFFLING BACK AND FORTH.