les_miserables | Entries tagged with *canon version: book

So I took a lot of notes on my Kindle while reading the Brick and apparently a lot of my Valjean and Javert feels are wrapped up with Hugo's symbolism, which I guess is no surprise because Hugo is not exactly subtle there. Umm. I feel like this has probably all been said a billion times already because Hugo is just that unsubtle, but as I am late to the party and Tumblr must just be the worst place possible to find old meta, feel free to point out if I'm wondering about stuff that has been rehashed a hundred times already.

( Read more... )

thjazi

Wow it's really quiet around here.

Uh.

So.

HOW ABOUT HUGO SHIFTING OVER ALMOST ALL HIS RADICALS TO BEING STUDENTS, WHAT'S UP WITH THAT.

(it's either that or I start trying to talk about Communion Meal parallels between dinner at the Bishop's and breakfast at the Corinth which is admittedly my current focus but I'm not sure how to even launch into that)

(if this were Tumblr I could tagnatter as I flee but it's not so BALL'S IN YOUR COURT GEN)

Current Mood: confused

kerrypolka

Has anyone seen any reviews of the most recent translation by Christine Donougher, which came out this month? It's titled "The Wretched", and here's its page on Penguin.

I've been thinking of attempting a proper readthrough of the brick for the first time since high school, and new translations are exciting! (It's also on Kindle which is a big selling point for me.) However, I haven't seen any reviews or discussions about the new translation at all - has anyone heard anything about it? (Possibly it's just too early, as I think it came out a week or two ago.)

genarti

Okay, I have a question for the Catholics and/or historical scholars around these parts! I am working on a fic, and the one scene that's keeping it from being finished is hung up on the fact that I know nothing about what confession would have been like for a Sister of Charity in France in the 1820s. I don't mean the exact rite -- I can find the Latin, but I can also write around that part; what I need to figure out are the relevant attitudes.

Google is no help, or I am insufficiently good at Google, because all I can find are a) very general modern explanations of confession, or b) equally modern encouragements for Catholics to go to confession more often. And being raised Episcopalian is in this case no use at all. So I turn to fandom at large.

My question is, of course, about Sister Simplice. My story picks up right after she tells her one major lie on Valjean's behalf, and covers some time afterwards, and it necessarily involves her going directly to talk to the curé of the parish about Valjean's money and Fantine and so forth. I don't need to write the confession scene, necessarily, but I need to know if she would have immediately taken confession about her lie, or what.

How does this work if you repent the sin but don't regret the act? What counts as contrition for this purpose? Are there other dimensions to consider in the church structure, with a non-cloistered nun and a parish priest, which would affect the timing or the fact of the confession? HOW DOES THIS WORK I DON'T KNOOOOW. I don't need 100% certainty, but I do need general plausibility, and I don't feel at all secure about what is and isn't plausible. All assistance gratefully welcomed! (All tangents also welcomed, on general principles.)

genarti

This is a crosspost from tumblr, edited slightly to be a coherent single post instead of a reblogging reply. (There's a thing called Brick!Club which is people reading through the book, one chapter per week, and blogging about their thoughts and meta and so forth; this comes from that.) The question that spurred it was about the fact that Valjean stays (reluctantly) in the honeymoon suite at the Thénardiers' inn when he comes to retrieve Cosette. The gist was (from

vivelafizz and

pilferingapples) along the lines of "Oh geez, does that mean what I think it means, if so that's UNNECESSARY AND SKEEVY, HUGO."

And then I waxed long-winded in reply, and thought it might be worth porting over here too:

( My long-winded rambling musings on the subject of nuptial symbolism here )

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.

lannamichaels

I've got a weekend family thing happening, so naturally I want to bring the Brick with me and hopefully finish the parts of it I haven't read yet. I've been reading the Hapgood translation on Project Gutenburg, but that's an ebook. I've got the following dead tree translations on hold at the library and was wondering which is considered the best/you like better?

Charles E. Wilbour
Julie Rose
Norman Denny

melannen

I have just conquered Waterloo!

What Hugo seems to be trying to say in these chapters, as best I can tell (in that he says it outright over and over in slightly different words, although this being Hugo he also says many other things some of which are contradictory) is that the outcome of the battle was due, not to one general being better than another or one army being stronger, but due to the fact that Fate had turned against Napoleon (fate/destiny/luck/the will of God/natural law/the Force/narrative causality/the balance of the universe/whatever you want to call it.)

And ignoring if I can the question of actual reality - which apparently has only a loose relationship to Hugo's Waterloo anyway - I am fascinated by this argument, ( and especially the way we get it right after Valjean's desperate ride to Arras. )

Anyway! I have many thoughts on Waterloo! Does anyone have any thoughts on Waterloo to share?

(Also other people should post other stuff to this comm or else it'll just be me going on about Waterloo until I'm worse than Victor Hugo! I can post on Waterloo all week if you make me. I HAVE THE MATERIAL.)

Current Mood: unexpected waterloo feels
Current Music: Blucher! *horse neighs in the distance*

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

Let's all be miserable together!

Entries tagged with *canon version: book

Javert and Valjean and Redemption meta

(no subject)

New translation by Christine Donougher?

Question about 1820s Catholicism

Meta: the honeymoon suite

(no subject)

English translations

Faut-il trouver bon Waterloo?

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