some_stars: (no subject)

fifty frenchmen can't be wrong (

some_stars) wrote,
@ 2013-01-25 10:57 pm UTC

Crossposts:

http://some-stars.livejournal.com/2249882.html

(no subject)

More Les Mis tonight. 11% done, according to the Kindle! I feel like I've been reading it forever and also like I have continually just started. It really is inexpressibly delightful, though. No one told me how funny it is on purpose! I'm highlighting things left and right; today's favorite: "You would be charming were you not all askew. You have the air of a pretty face upon which someone has sat down by mistake."

Also it's made me almost cry twice with poignant social commentary. Also also and relatedly, holy crap Valjean is an amazing character. I am not accustomed to this much naturalistic psychological realism in my nineteenth century novels! But I like it.

Apparently I lied about waiting to accumulate more things for my book reaction posts. I promise to keep it to one a day, though. --wait, no, that's also a lie, I just made one this morning. Okay, no promises whatsoever, sorry.

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	no subject mecurtin 2013-01-26 02:46 pm UTC (link)
	Which version are you reading? The Future of Fandom is also reading it, and is very happy and impressed. She's reading the Hapgood translation via Project Gutenberg. (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject some_stars 2013-01-26 03:24 pm UTC (link)
	That's what I'm reading too. I wanted a translation that sounded properly 19th century, not modernized, since that's half the pleasure of reading old books. Also it was free. g (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject sapote 2013-01-26 03:16 pm UTC (link)
	Oh wow, I'm going to have to read faster, I've been stuck at 16% for days. Also I want to know more about you and Valjean, I am having trouble connecting with him. (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 2 comments) (Show 2 comments)

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some_stars
2013-01-26 03:39 pm UTC (link)

Okay, so I'm currently just up to the part where Javert tells him that "Jean Valjean" has been arrested--he hasn't even started to agonize over it yet--so obviously I can't speak to most of his characterization. But I loved how real he felt, that he was angry and violent and responded to kindness with rage. He actually reads like someone who's been abused and oppressed his entire life, and can't just magically start reacting to things like a normal healthy person. He asks for decent treatment without self-abnegation, he doesn't fall over himself with gratitude when someone's nice to him, he's not a Virtuous Poor. He's angry. Even when he reforms, he becomes a total saint and goes crazy overboard, breaking into people's houses to leave them money. He's really messed up in a way that feels realistic, and even most of the narrator's explanation of why he is that way comes off shockingly modern and psychologically believable. Also all the descriptions of how the criminal justice system destroys people are still appallingly relevant, so that got to me.

Basically, he is not at all what I was expecting from a mid-19th century novel, but then I've only ever read English novels before, which I guess makes a difference. Actually what it's is doing for me is basically crossing the best parts of Middlemarch (subtle psychological realism) with the best parts of everything else I read in my Victorian novel course (~DRAMA~), so no wonder I love it so much.

(Also okay yes the scene where Javert demands to be fired is kind of sexy. I can't help my predilections /o\)

(Although wow, I really have to make a post about the description of Javert as a chinless sheepdog for justice, because that was...special.)

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ellen_fremedon
2013-01-26 05:06 pm UTC (link)

OMG I love Javert's resignation scene. (And agree re: the sexy. OH JAVERT. He wears his kinks on his sleeve in a way that really shouldn't be as endearing as it is.)

And and and! The next few chapters, with the agonizing, are some of the most amazing in the book, or really, in literature. It's "The Ones That Walk Away From Omelas" only with actual people in it that you care about-- maybe the best fusion of psychological realism, drama, and philosophy that I've ever read.

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