Les Miserables - Week 18

[Gem , Moderator]

We start this week's reading, Book II, with 15 pages of excrement and the sewers. I chuckled to myself thinking a quick summary would have done but Hugo likes to elaborate so 15 pages it is! lol

Book III picks up with Jean Valjean carrying Marius into the sewer as a mean of escape from the army at the barricade. In spite of the 15 pages I eluded to above, I do think we get an amazing sense of what Jean Valjean was experiencing from Hugo's descriptive narrative.

One of the commentaries I've been using describes Jean Valjean being in the sewer thusly:

They {the sewer} not only serve as counterpart to the passage in which he describes the "underworld mine" of criminal Paris, but provide him with a structural, picturesque, and psychological climax to a long sequence of similar scenes. Jean Valjean had fled alone in fear, carrying the beloved burden Cosette; now he flees with Marius, carrying hatred and despair on his back. He has experienced many scenes of darkness: darkness lit by a crucifix in the bishop's chamber, darkness lit by the moon with Cosette at the well, darkness lit by a flaring torch at the barricades; but now the darkness is total and absolute.

And the darkness is within his soul as well. He has saved Marius, but this has not freed his spirit. He is still drowned in hatred, and there is not a glimmer of comfort or hope upon the black path before him. Like Aeneas, like Dante, Valjean has descended into hell, but it is only a last stage on his journey into light, and as he emerges from the sewers he emerges, through prayer, from his spiritual torment also.

The deeper significance of this emergence into the light of the friendly stars is underlined by the presence of Thénardier and Javert, standing like Charon and St. Michael upon the threshold of a better life. Thénardier has always been Valjean's criminal alter ego, and even now for a moment Thénardier's evil magic seems to work again, making us wonder whether Valjean has not after all really killed Marius. But in the face of this new Valjean, Thénardier's influence ebbs, and he meekly opens the door to freedom. Javert, the avenging angel, is a more implacable doorkeeper, but judgment must always precede paradise on Resurrection Day.

I thought this description profound. What are your thoughts about this?

The rest of this chapter leaves a lot of questions to be answered. Will Marius and his grandfather reconcile? Will Jean Valjean tell Cosette of Marius' survival? And why did Javert leave Jean Valjean vs. arresting him? Any thoughts about these issues?

The end of this book is turning out to be full of suspense.

[Rafael]

This section make us rethink Javert. Why he allowed such concessions to Jean Valjean and at the end he just vanished. He could be seeking for reinforcements but he would not allow Jean valjean being unwatched. He was armed. He could just force Jean Valjean anyway.

This final sections are indeed full of suspense.

[Robin P, Moderator]

So typical of Hugo to interrupt a dramatic story of the riot and escape with 5 chapters on the past, present and future of sewers!

[Linda]

As with other detailed background discussions, I think Hugo’s description of the evolution of the sewers, their physical condition in 1832 as well as their mythological status serves to push the reader from observer to metaphorical participant. Especially for Hugo’s contemporary readers, the sewers had grown and morphed from what the ancient, crumbling, mysterious and foreboding sewers had been.

I do like the image of JVJ descending into hell as he navigates through the sewer with a still hated Marius on his back. The narrator compares the dilation of the eyes to find any light in the darkness to the dilation of the soul which is trying to find the divine. A way out of hell and a way towards a rejuvenated divine life not scarred by hatred. Even in his hate, however, JVJ does all he can to save Marius. Does he do so for Cosette whom he loves more than his own life?

Something is going on with Javert. The narrator notes he is not behaving like himself. He agrees to take Marius to his grandfather’s house and then agrees to let JVJ return to his own house before taking him into custody. Is it because he knows he has JVJ, like a cat has its prey as the narrator comments, and so he can give him some leeway?

For me it is obvious that JVJ will tell Cosette where Marius is. I think in his mind he has concluded her happiness lies in a life with Marius and he sees no place in that life for himself. Therefore he is willing to submit to Javert.

[Robin P, Moderator]

Great point, Linda, this is exactly the right place in the hero myth (as described by Joseph Campbell) for the hero to descend to the underworld and emerge reborn in some sense. It also matches the Jesus story (which is a hero myth too) of coming back to life after a kind of death. Marius too gets to be reborn as his grandfather's beloved child after his long period of wavering on the brink of death.

It's actually quite fascinating to see Javert trying to deal with events and emotions that don't fit his patterns of how people and the world work.