some_stars: (kids! stay in school!)fifty frenchmen can't be wrong ([personal profile] some_stars) wrote,
@ 2013-01-25 09:14 am UTC
  • Previous Entry
  • Add to Memories
  • Tell someone about this!
  • Next Entry
Crossposts:http://some-stars.livejournal.com/2249421.html
Les Mis progress: I have met a main character!! Only just barely--he hasn't even stolen the silver yet--but I really, really like him. I also really like the book. It's so nineteenth century AND so good, that is a killer combination.

Next time I post about this book, I will try to collate more than one thought together for an actual post with content. However I can promise nothing.

--ahahaha, the narrator has just informed me that there is "room for a brief parenthesis" on the subject of bread theft. And it was actually brief. Don't pander to me, Hugo! Write that eighty-page monograph on the history of bakery break-ins! I can take it!

(4 comments) - (Post a new comment)
(Flat) (Top-level comments only)

antisoppist: (Reading)


[personal profile] antisoppist
2013-01-25 04:49 pm UTC (link)
Wandering past via network and laughing because I am at exactly the same point. Last time, decades ago, I was defeated by the interminable digression into the Battle of Waterloo but this time I am determined. Hugo is just working me up to it gradually.

(Reply to this)  (Thread) 


some_stars: (default)


[personal profile] some_stars
2013-01-26 05:11 am UTC (link)
I'm going to skip Waterloo. I mean, I'll go back for it later, because I'm sure there's some delightful stuff in there, but I am giving myself blanket permission to skip anything I need to that's not plot-related the first time through, and I'm not even going to try the Waterloo stuff. I am heading right on past to where the plot is. Sorry, Victor.

(I am, however, very excited to give my full attention to the part where he talks about poop a lot. I think I've mentioned this to someone already, that's how excited I am.)

(Reply to this)  (Thread from start)  (Parent)  (Thread) 


ellen_fremedon: a page from the Beowulf manuscript, on a maroon ground (illumination)


[personal profile] ellen_fremedon
2013-01-26 05:37 am UTC (link)
There is plot in the very last chapter of Waterloo! And, actually, to really get what's going on in that plot, you need to read Chaper IX, "The Unexpected," which is about the cavalry charge into the sunken road to Ohain and actually a pretty stunning piece of writing.

(You could also read Chapters XIV and XV, "The Last Square" and "Cambronne," about how the guy who shouted Merde! at the English TOTALLY WON WATERLOO, but they're not essential.)

And then the chapter with actual plot-plot is XIX, "The Battlefield at Night."

The rest of Waterloo you can totally skip if you're not into it.

(Reply to this)  (Thread from start)  (Parent)  (Thread) 


some_stars: (default)


[personal profile] some_stars
2013-01-26 01:27 pm UTC (link)
oh, good to know, thanks! I think I can handle two chapters of it. :)

(Reply to this)  (Thread from start)  (Parent) 


(4 comments) - (Post a new comment)
(Flat) (Top-level comments only)