I'm so glad you reposted this, because I had half-forgotten it as a discrete essay, and I love it. I LOVE ALL OF IT.
My thanks go out to fandom too for the Lallemand revelation -- the first time, I just read straight past that, as I did with so many other details. I mean, of course I did, because one can't pause to google every single reference in this book, at least not while also keeping the rhythm of, well, reading a book. (One can come back and research all the things, if one has sufficient patience -- hat-tip to swutol-sang-scopes, e.g. -- but it's a very different experience.) But presumably it would've been well known to at least some of his audience, and yeah, it SAYS A LOT. Wheelbreaker indeed.
I also really love the contradiction inherent in Bahorel, as you spell out here. They're all contradictions, of course, every character and certainly every Ami in this quick succession of intro infodumps -- because humans are, and because Hugo especially loved his contradictory juxtapositions. But tying it back to the central thesis of Les Mis is so key, because YEAH. YEAH, perfect clay for the devil made into a great guy by his connections, by the people around him, by the uses he puts himself to, by the fact that he has leisure and breathing space to put himself to those uses. He has parents who respect him, he has money to pay rent and buy food and keep clothes on his back -- okay, in his case with plenty left over after he does all that -- and so he can afford to be cheerfully flagrantly generous to friends and to strangers, he can afford to be a great guy, because he has the elbow room to do that instead of spending every scrap of energy grubbing for a little more coin and a little more warmth. If Courfeyrac is Tholomyès with the soul of a paladin, what's Bahorel -- a Gueulemer with brains and good company?
...And now I really kind of think so, because in checking Gueulemer's name, I came across the actual passage of his intro: "A quartette of ruffians, Claquesous, Gueulemer, Babet, and Montparnasse governed the third lower floor of Paris, from 1830 to 1835. Gueulemer was a Hercules of no defined position. For his lair he had the sewer of the Arche-Marion. He was six feet high, his pectoral muscles were of marble, his biceps of brass, his breath was that of a cavern, his torso that of a colossus, his head that of a bird. One thought one beheld the Farnese Hercules clad in duck trousers and a cotton velvet waistcoat. Gueulemer, built after this sculptural fashion, might have subdued monsters; he had found it more expeditious to be one. A low brow, large temples, less than forty years of age, but with crow's-feet, harsh, short hair, cheeks like a brush, a beard like that of a wild boar; the reader can see the man before him. His muscles called for work, his stupidity would have none of it. He was a great, idle force. He was an assassin through coolness. He was thought to be a creole. He had, probably, somewhat to do with Marshal Brune, having been a porter at Avignon in 1815. After this stage, he had turned ruffian." WELP.
Hercules in a cheap velvet waistcoat, huh. You could just as easily say that Bahorel could have been a monster, but found it more satisfying to subdue them.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-03-29 09:49 pm (UTC)My thanks go out to fandom too for the Lallemand revelation -- the first time, I just read straight past that, as I did with so many other details. I mean, of course I did, because one can't pause to google every single reference in this book, at least not while also keeping the rhythm of, well, reading a book. (One can come back and research all the things, if one has sufficient patience -- hat-tip to
I also really love the contradiction inherent in Bahorel, as you spell out here. They're all contradictions, of course, every character and certainly every Ami in this quick succession of intro infodumps -- because humans are, and because Hugo especially loved his contradictory juxtapositions. But tying it back to the central thesis of Les Mis is so key, because YEAH. YEAH, perfect clay for the devil made into a great guy by his connections, by the people around him, by the uses he puts himself to, by the fact that he has leisure and breathing space to put himself to those uses. He has parents who respect him, he has money to pay rent and buy food and keep clothes on his back -- okay, in his case with plenty left over after he does all that -- and so he can afford to be cheerfully flagrantly generous to friends and to strangers, he can afford to be a great guy, because he has the elbow room to do that instead of spending every scrap of energy grubbing for a little more coin and a little more warmth. If Courfeyrac is Tholomyès with the soul of a paladin, what's Bahorel -- a Gueulemer with brains and good company?
...And now I really kind of think so, because in checking Gueulemer's name, I came across the actual passage of his intro: "A quartette of ruffians, Claquesous, Gueulemer, Babet, and Montparnasse governed the third lower floor of Paris, from 1830 to 1835. Gueulemer was a Hercules of no defined position. For his lair he had the sewer of the Arche-Marion. He was six feet high, his pectoral muscles were of marble, his biceps of brass, his breath was that of a cavern, his torso that of a colossus, his head that of a bird. One thought one beheld the Farnese Hercules clad in duck trousers and a cotton velvet waistcoat. Gueulemer, built after this sculptural fashion, might have subdued monsters; he had found it more expeditious to be one. A low brow, large temples, less than forty years of age, but with crow's-feet, harsh, short hair, cheeks like a brush, a beard like that of a wild boar; the reader can see the man before him. His muscles called for work, his stupidity would have none of it. He was a great, idle force. He was an assassin through coolness. He was thought to be a creole. He had, probably, somewhat to do with Marshal Brune, having been a porter at Avignon in 1815. After this stage, he had turned ruffian." WELP.
Hercules in a cheap velvet waistcoat, huh. You could just as easily say that Bahorel could have been a monster, but found it more satisfying to subdue them.