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@fantineweek 2018 - day two: gold.

once more we are going off the hapgood translation available here.

i guess i could technically put this under the “sacrifice” prompt, but ... i honestly think that her hair alone is its own category.

two things related to fantine’s hair which account for a lot of symbolism in her story: the fact that it is gold, and the fact that she sells it.

so starting off with the fact that it is gold --

i haven’t seen many of the movie adaptations -- in fact i am avoiding the liam neeson & uma thurman one like the plague, for probably obvious reasons -- but in lm 2012, and the 25th anniversary cast, we basically see that cosette’s hair color and fantine’s hair color is switched. the same thing will be true of the bbc miniseries. it’s basically only staged productions that i’ve seen that stay true to the book.

this bothered me for a while, and at first i thought the only reason it bothered me was because i am a stickler for details. marius ought to have dark hair, grantaire ought to be ugly, the barricade is on rue de la chanvrerie not rue de villette, musical, i don’t care if it doesn’t rhyme.

except ... well, hugo writes these things, even the smallest of details, for a reason. marius has dark hair because he is a Romantic, which is associated with melancholy, and you can’t very well have a byronic brooding sort of fellow with golden hair. and you can see the same care for details with his physical descriptions of grantaire, enjolras, éponine, et cetera. there’s an element of symbolism involved.

he writes the fallen woman, fantine, with long golden hair.

this being western society, and all the issues that it entails, blond hair is associated with not only beauty but purity. we give princesses like rapunzel and cinderella blonde hair; we give prince charming blond hair; we give stained glass angels blond hair. 

in the picture of dorian gray, oscar wilde gives dorian blond hair to emphasize the fact that he hides under an image of purity to conduct his evil deeds. he uses the trope of blond hair = purity to turn our character expectations upside down.

hugo gives fantine blonde hair, and tells us she is innocent; tells us she works hard; tells us she is good. then he shows us how society devours her, starting with her blonde hair. he uses the trope, and the expectations that follow that trope, to show the reader (who at that time would have been a bourgeois not unlike tholomyès or bamatabois) that despite her abasement, fantine never deserves what happens to her.

hugo is intent on hammering it into our heads that she never actually did anything wrong, and he uses her hair as a symbol for her purity and innocence.

she sells that pure golden hair herself.

-- which brings me to my second point.

in the musical, it is the wigmaker who approaches fantine. it is the wigmaker who tells her what pretty hair she has, and how much money she can make by selling it. fantine is reluctant -- she stubbornly digs in her heels at first, she is horrified by the prospect (and rightly so!). it is only the thought of cosette which forces her to accept the wigmaker’s offer.

i can’t find a picture of it, so let me describe what i saw at the us tour:

fantine, wrapped in a shawl, on the left. the wigmaker, stage center, a crone, hunched over -- and at the words “ten francs may save my poor cosette,” she raises her right hand in a slow arc towards the ceiling, holding her shears aloft -- the shears are open, the moment is predatory triumph, and as soon as the note ends she practically leaps upon her victim to drag her offstage.

this scene gives us the hungry jaws of society which devour fantine. it’s horrible. but the book gives us something even more horrifying, for all that it’s brief.

from “result of the success” :

One day they wrote to her that her little Cosette was entirely naked in that cold weather, that she needed a woollen skirt, and that her mother must send at least ten francs for this. She received the letter, and crushed it in her hands all day long. That evening she went into a barber’s shop at the corner of the street, and pulled out her comb. Her admirable golden hair fell to her knees.

“What splendid hair!” exclaimed the barber.

“How much will you give me for it?” said she.

“Ten francs.”

“Cut it off.”

within twelve hours of receiving the letter, she has willingly given up her hair for the sake of her child.

her hair: the symbol of her purity.

okay, pretend we’re talking about an actual human being and not a character for two seconds.

she is known, earlier in the book, as fantine la blonde. part of her identity is taken up by the fact that she has this glossy beautiful hair.

this hair falls down to her knees. her knees.

this? (source)

is a LOT OF HAIR.

and it STILL doesn’t even come down to the knees. this is maybe just over HALF as long as fantine’s hair is.

my hair used to go down to the middle of my back before i had it cut off in a pixie in 2016. so without realizing it i sort of did a mini fantine ... you know, sans the rest of the trauma that goes along with her entire situation.

my hair only went to the middle of my back. call that 2.5, 3 feet of hair total. it was long enough that if it was loose, it would get caught in my armpits if i wasn’t paying attention. (super glamorous, right?) i can only imagine what having hair like that ^ would be like, let alone hair that goes down to the knees. long enough to sit on, for God’s sake!

hair that long has to be maintained daily. combing it, washing it, drying it, making sure it doesn’t tangle, making sure it doesn’t get caught in things and snap off, getting rid of split ends. braiding it, learning different hairstyles, all the little accessories like pins and combs and brushes. it’s practically its own hobby -- and when we consider that this is the only pleasure left in fantine’s life, that she spends the entire rest of her day sewing piecework ...

i had my hair cut to a pixie and everyone in my life who knew me before the pixie cut went crazy over it. part of a woman’s identity is in her hair, and there are other writers more articulate than i am who will happily talk at length about how different hair lengths make society perceive you in different ways. feminine, masculine, whatever. i’m not here to talk about that part. i’m talking about how her hair, her long hair which was a part of her identity simply because of its length, is also a part of her body.

man, i got my hair cut to a pixie on purpose, because i wanted to and because i thought it would be a cute low-maintenance haircut. there was no emotional turmoil involved in that decision. i made it willingly, and i had been looking forward to it for a few months. yet even then -- even now, two years later when my hair’s grown down past my shoulders again -- i still miss having hair down to the middle of my back.

fantine has no time to contemplate that decision. she does not want to make that decision. she is poor, she lives off practically nothing, and combing her hair is the one thing left in her life that affords her some happiness. her hair is the only beautiful thing left in her life.

one thing the lm 2012 movie did right is it showed fantine’s face during the haircut, and anne hathaway looks like she’s a split second away from bursting into tears. there is an element of trauma here. i can only imagine that fantine spends a fair few nights crying over that loss, and she would be justified in doing so.

it’s after the loss of her hair that she falls into anger and bitterness. this was the last bit of joy in her life, and she has sold it away willingly.

nobody makes the decision for her that her hair is worth selling. nobody gives her a choice to make that she can decline or accept. she comes up with the idea on her own.

to take an image from little shop of horrors, she chooses to step into the monster’s mouth.

this is a literal way that fantine sells herself, months before she becomes a woman of the town. the way she becomes a prostitute is exactly the same: no pimp approaches her, no women in the chorus tell her she’ll make easy money. she comes to the conclusion herself, and she takes that final step.

from “christus nos liberavit” :

Misery offers; society accepts.

everyone's favorite problematic dark elf, Eol. Edain palette #30.

my tablet got stolen a few days ago, but I managed to salvage one of the drawings I’d done that I really liked off Skype.

Mairon and Langon in Ilúvatar’s First Theme.

IF YOUR ART GETS STOLEN

https://www.tumblr.com/dmca Go there, and do as the instructions say. When my art was stolen, I got the post reported, and it was taken down. Don’t worry, it doesn’t just take down the sources post, but it takes down all the reblogged posts too. Please give this a reblog, many artists out there may not know this is here. And remember, ask permission before sharing, or don’t post it.

grantaire is in love with enjolras and enjolras is just wondering what this gremlin man is doing hanging around the friends of the abc so dang much and this upsets me greatly but not because i want them to kiss: an essay.

part six: “orestes fasting and pylades drunk.”

one | two | three | four | five || read the whole series on ao3

and so we’ve come to the end.

basing our analysis off hapgood as always; and since it’s so short, we’re doing the whole chapter, found here.

At length, by dint of mounting on each other's backs, aiding themselves with the skeleton of the staircase, climbing up the walls, clinging to the ceiling, slashing away at the very brink of the trap-door, the last one who offered resistance, a score of assailants, soldiers, National Guardsmen, municipal guardsmen, in utter confusion, the majority disfigured by wounds in the face during that redoubtable ascent, blinded by blood, furious, rendered savage, made an irruption into the apartment on the first floor. There they found only one man still on his feet, Enjolras.

i’m going to try to distract myself for a second and delay the inevitable by pointing out an interesting translation. the phrase “in utter confusion” in hapgood’s translation, is originally “pêle-mêle” in french.

it’s pretty much the frenchified version of pell-mell. helter-skelter. it’s an informal term that, for me at least, makes me think of being a child, running down a hill and slipping about halfway, and then tumbling down to the end, bruised and battered and out of breath but still intact.

hugo used this term in the chapter prior, “foot to foot,” which can also be translated as “inch by inch,” in which the national guard and soldiers finally break into the corinthe itself. it’s a really jarring word, standing out in the middle of the slaughter, like a relic of happier times in the middle of an apocalypse.

it feels like maybe the word enjolras’ mind scrambles to use to describe what he sees. the battle before this was something he could understand; his friends were still alive; they still had hope. but this is beyond chaos. maybe pell-mell is the only way to describe it.

especially when the chapter just before that one, “the heroes,” is the one where all his friends whom he loved have perished before his eyes.

enjolras alone is bruised and battered and out of breath but still intact.

Without cartridges, without sword, he had nothing in his hand now but the barrel of his gun whose stock he had broken over the head of those who were entering. He had placed the billiard table between his assailants and himself; he had retreated into the corner of the room, and there, with haughty eye, and head borne high, with this stump of a weapon in his hand, he was still so alarming as to speedily create an empty space around him.

my ferocious golden son. here he is reminding me of the poem “invictus” by william ernest henley.

In the fell clutch of circumstance        I have not winced nor cried aloud.  Under the bludgeonings of chance        My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears        Looms but the Horror of the shade,  And yet the menace of the years        Finds and shall find me unafraid.

he has only a stump of a pistol in his hand. no ammunition. no blade. nothing but the broken barrel of a carbine and his own two hands, and his dignity. yet these men somehow are still afraid of him.

with good reason. after all the brutality of the last two chapters alone, never mind everything that happened beforehand, enjolras is still standing, still unblemished by the fight. it seems like nothing on earth can break him.

(at least externally.)

A cry arose:

“He is the leader! It was he who slew the artillery-man. It is well that he has placed himself there. Let him remain there. Let us shoot him down on the spot.”

“Shoot me,” said Enjolras.

And flinging away his bit of gun-barrel, and folding his arms, he offered his breast.

“shoot me,” he says. and he throws away his last weapon, and folds his arms, and stands there waiting for the end.

he has broken, even if he doesn’t look like it. he knows -- he has to know -- that the events of june fifth and sixth will be etched in history the same way that the three glorious days in 1830 were, at best.

fire and smoke in the air, blood in the streets. young men die, and nothing much changes.

(it will change. it will. but oh, golden boy, that’s decades in the future, and the twentieth century will not be happy. i don’t know that any century on this flawed earth will ever be happy.)

(it’s been over 150 years since its publication, and this book is still needed.)

enjolras, the angel, has had his wings violently ripped from him, and now he has crashed to the earth. 

The audacity of a fine death always affects men. As soon as Enjolras folded his arms and accepted his end, the din of strife ceased in the room, and this chaos suddenly stilled into a sort of sepulchral solemnity. The menacing majesty of Enjolras disarmed and motionless, appeared to oppress this tumult, and this young man, haughty, bloody, and charming, who alone had not a wound, who was as indifferent as an invulnerable being, seemed, by the authority of his tranquil glance, to constrain this sinister rabble to kill him respectfully. His beauty, at that moment augmented by his pride, was resplendent, and he was fresh and rosy after the fearful four and twenty hours which had just elapsed, as though he could no more be fatigued than wounded. It was of him, possibly, that a witness spoke afterwards, before the council of war: “There was an insurgent whom I heard called Apollo.” A National Guardsman who had taken aim at Enjolras, lowered his gun, saying: “It seems to me that I am about to shoot a flower.”

apollo?

no.

enjolras is icarus.

Twelve men formed into a squad in the corner opposite Enjolras, and silently made ready their guns.

Then a sergeant shouted:

“Take aim!”

An officer intervened.

“Wait.”

And addressing Enjolras:

“Do you wish to have your eyes bandaged?”

“No.”

“Was it you who killed the artillery sergeant?”

“Yes.”

no blindfold. he faces his death with his eyes open.

i’m so sad. it’s a tired, gentle, proud sort of sad. but i’m so sad for my golden boy.

he is only twenty-six years old. i’m younger than him as i write this, but only by a year and a handful of months. and i’m sure that once i turn twenty-seven -- twenty-eight -- twenty nine, and so on every year for the rest of my life, i’ll just be sadder.

look at this. he has an entire life ahead of him, or he did. if he did survive the barricade now through some miracle, what would be left for him? all the rest of his friends have died. and should he fight in 1848, they will succeed, but the aftermath will be even messier -- and it’ll fall apart before his eyes.

i draw attention back to “a group which barely missed becoming historic,” or rather, the wording there.

before he has even begun to introduce us to these bright young men, hugo has told us that they are going to die, and die in obscurity.

the friends of the abc are not the main characters of les misérables. but their trajectory follows that of romeo and juliet, at least in terms of narrative construction.

here are these bright young souls. they are doomed to die, because the world around them is unjust and unkind. now: watch how they live, and watch how they die, and mourn, and learn.

Grantaire had waked up a few moments before.

Grantaire, it will be remembered, had been asleep ever since the preceding evening in the upper room of the wine-shop, seated on a chair and leaning on the table.

He realized in its fullest sense the old metaphor of “dead drunk.” The hideous potion of absinthe-porter and alcohol had thrown him into a lethargy. His table being small, and not suitable for the barricade, he had been left in possession of it.

oh no. oh God.

i’ve been trying to wrap myself in coherent pedantry, but ... i can’t. not anymore.

this whole time -- this entire friggin’ time -- grantaire has been seated at his small table by the open window. and someone, or multiple someones, during the construction of the barricade thought two things: that table is too small to use, and, let him sleep.

also, hugo pointedly using the term “dead drunk” is just a personal fuck you, to me, from across 150 years in the time-space continuum. yeah, i see you, buddy. and i am gonna knock your teeth out. just you wait.

He was still in the same posture, with his breast bent over the table, his head lying flat on his arms, surrounded by glasses, beer-jugs and bottles. His was the overwhelming slumber of the torpid bear and the satiated leech. Nothing had had any effect upon it, neither the fusillade, nor the cannon-balls, nor the grape-shot which had made its way through the window into the room where he was. Nor the tremendous uproar of the assault. He merely replied to the cannonade, now and then, by a snore.

NO. NOOO. NOOOOOOOO.

mabeuf’s awe-inspiring, terrible death. nothing. the first firefight in which bahorel died. nothing. the end of jean prouvaire’s rhyme. nothing. the flash and bang of éponine saving marius’ life and ending her own. nothing. the report of the rifle which fired over javert’s head as he walked away, bewildered at not having died when he so thoroughly expected to. nothing. the last bloody assault where the rest of them died, one after the other, barely a breath between them. nothing.

grantaire slept the sleep of rip van winkle.

He seemed to be waiting there for a bullet which should spare him the trouble of waking.

STOP THIS.

Many corpses were strewn around him; and, at the first glance, there was nothing to distinguish him from those profound sleepers of death.

I DON’T WANT THIS.

Noise does not rouse a drunken man; silence awakens him. The fall of everything around him only augmented Grantaire's prostration; the crumbling of all things was his lullaby.

GOD, NO, STOP.

The sort of halt which the tumult underwent in the presence of Enjolras was a shock to this heavy slumber. It had the effect of a carriage going at full speed, which suddenly comes to a dead stop. The persons dozing within it wake up. Grantaire rose to his feet with a start, stretched out his arms, rubbed his eyes, stared, yawned, and understood.

God, i can’t imagine what he’s thinking right now. looking around, seeing the utter destruction of this wine shop -- which he discovered, which he loved, he’s the one who first introduced his friends to the corinthe -- which was, this time only yesterday, empty except for the goings-on of matelote and gibelotte, and the cheerfulness of his friends.

all destroyed.

national guards, soldiers, twelve total in the company, wounded, bloodied, savage, armed.

and enjolras, unarmed, his arms folded across his chest, severe dignity on his beautiful face.

grantaire woke, he stood, he stretched out his arms, he rubbed his eyes, he stared at the wreckage before him, he yawned, and he knew that the rebels had lost.

A fit of drunkenness reaching its end resembles a curtain which is torn away. One beholds, at a single glance and as a whole, all that it has concealed. All suddenly presents itself to the memory; and the drunkard who has known nothing of what has been taking place during the last twenty-four hours, has no sooner opened his eyes than he is perfectly informed. Ideas recur to him with abrupt lucidity; the obliteration of intoxication, a sort of steam which has obscured the brain, is dissipated, and makes way for the clear and sharply outlined importunity of realities.

STOP. NOOO.

I’M SO SAD.

WE HAVE GONE BEYOND MOM-FRIEND-SAD. WE ARE RAPIDLY REACHING ANGRY-SAD. YELLING-AT-THE-COMPUTER SAD.

( “you know, the titanic sinks at the end.” SHUT UP. SHUT UP!!! I’M HAVING EMOTIONS!!! )

Relegated, as he was, to one corner, and sheltered behind the billiard-table, the soldiers whose eyes were fixed on Enjolras, had not even noticed Grantaire, and the sergeant was preparing to repeat his order: “Take aim!” when all at once, they heard a strong voice shout beside them:

“Long live the Republic! I'm one of them.”

NOOOOOOOOOO. OH, MY DARLING BOY, NOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!

he is behind the same billiard table that enjolras is currently standing near, but i suppose on the opposite side of it. take that with all the symbolism you like. oh, man.

but -- look -- “i am one of them.”

zip back to “night begins to descend upon grantaire” for a hot second. during his blather while harassing matelote, grantaire says “comrades, we shall overthrow the government,” and despite his awful retort to courfeyrac’s attempt to get him to be quiet, he genuinely seems fired up. maybe he would have helped with the barricade. maybe if someone had woken him earlier, he could have helped. (or he could have died in the last assault like the rest of them.)

but it wasn’t until enjolras told him to go sleep off his drunkenness that grantaire even started to entertain the idea of sleeping rather than participating in the émeute. and then it was only when enjolras harshly batted him down the second time, that grantaire actually did fall asleep.

now. would a drunk-off-his-gourd grantaire have been useful on the barricade? no. definitely not. but even after a five hour binge, it was two o’clock when the barricade started to be built. the death of mabeuf didn’t come until after night had actually fallen, and that would have been a whole five hours after the barricade’s construction. before the first assault came, someone could have woken him.

and he might just have helped. because as we have seen over and over and over, from his very first appearance, grantaire may not believe in causes but he does believe in his friends. and he loves his friends. i have no difficulty in hypothesizing that he would have more than willingly died for his friends.

Grantaire had risen. The immense gleam of the whole combat which he had missed, and in which he had had no part, appeared in the brilliant glance of the transfigured drunken man.

TRANSFIGURED. JUST. JAB ME IN THE EYE WITH A SHARPENED STICK. THAT WOULD HURT LESS.

from “the solution of some questions connected with the municipal police” :

(clio are you seriously gonna --? YES I AM, WATCH ME, AND ONCE AGAIN, IT WILL MAKE PERFECT SENSE.)

She spoke thus, rent in twain, shaken with sobs, blinded with tears, her neck bare, wringing her hands, and coughing with a dry, short cough, stammering softly with a voice of agony. Great sorrow is a divine and terrible ray, which transfigures the unhappy. At that moment Fantine had become beautiful once more.

emphasis mine.

h o oo o ooo ly God.

his friends are dead, and his beacon of light and faith is about to die. the wretched misery that seized fantine when she thought cosette would die is the exact same wretched misery that seizes grantaire now.

back to “orestes fasting and pylades drunk.”

He repeated: “Long live the Republic!” crossed the room with a firm stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras.

“Finish both of us at one blow,” said he.

noooOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if cosette dies: fantine has nothing to live for.

if his friends die: grantaire has nothing to live for.

i’m so upset.

And turning gently to Enjolras, he said to him:

“Do you permit it?”

Enjolras pressed his hand with a smile.

This smile was not ended when the report resounded.

“et, se tournant vers enjolras avec douceur, il lui dit : -- permets-tu?”

douceur again. gentleness, softness, sweetness.

grantaire isn’t described as physically reaching out to enjolras, but in spirit that is exactly what he is doing. just as he did when volunteering for the barrière du maine, though he failed in that attempt. only this time, there is nothing left to do; there is nowhere for them to go. how can he fail in death?

“enjolras lui serra la main en souriant.”

serrer la main means to shake hands. but in every other context, serrer is to to squeeze, to clamp, to tighten. to hold tightly and not let go.

after the barrière du maine, enjolras did not ever again try reaching out to grantaire; he did not consider him worthy of a second chance. he stood at a height, and saw the abyss, and turned away.

now he has been brought crashing down to earth in the worst possible way. and this time, when grantaire reaches up for him, he takes his hand.

after over four years of approach and harsh rebuttal -- after over four years of he is high above me and what on earth is he doing here -- they have just begun to understand each other.

maybe they even have something in common. maybe, together, they can learn that opposite doesn’t mean enemy. maybe, together, they can learn that skepticism and idealism can balance each other out.

but the only way that they can come to this meeting, that they begin to understand their equality -- the only way that they can even become friends, let alone more than that -- is the circumstance in which they die.

and before enjolras can even finish his smile, they are dead.

their beginning is, and can only be, their ending.

Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained leaning against the wall, as though the balls had nailed him there. Only, his head was bowed.

Grantaire fell at his feet, as though struck by a thunderbolt.

OH FUCK THIS AND FUCK YOU PERSONALLY.

^ that was my initial reaction to this bit, and i am sticking with it.

because even in death, even though not a second earlier they had just come to the inklings of an understanding, grantaire is below enjolras.

oh, sure, they’re both martyrs of the revolution. but enjolras is st sebastian, pierced with bullets and still radiant and desperately beautiful; grantaire is an unrealized st paul.

... HA. you know, i made that comparison off the top of my head, but at least regarding grantaire it does work on a literary level.

paul and peter died at nero’s hands. and lactantius writes that nero “crucified peter, and slew paul”.

they both die by firing squad, but enjolras is still elevated, still standing upright for cripes’ sake, and grantaire is literally at his feet.

and the creme de la creme à la edgar, the reason i started this whole damn series:

grantaire dies by a lightning bolt.

a sudden realization of love.

enjolras begins to smile, and grantaire begins to realize his love, and they die. and that is the inevitable conclusion: death.

and i SCREAM BLUE BLOODY MURDER.

A few moments later, the soldiers dislodged the last remaining insurgents, who had taken refuge at the top of the house. They fired into the attic through a wooden lattice. They fought under the very roof. They flung bodies, some of them still alive, out through the windows.

this is where enjo’s defenestration in lm 2012 comes from! neat!

by which i mean, NOT NEAT AT ALL.

Two light-infantrymen, who tried to lift the shattered omnibus, were slain by two shots fired from the attic. A man in a blouse was flung down from it, with a bayonet wound in the abdomen, and breathed his last on the ground. A soldier and an insurgent slipped together on the sloping slates of the roof, and, as they would not release each other, they fell, clasped in a ferocious embrace. A similar conflict went on in the cellar. Shouts, shots, a fierce trampling. Then silence. The barricade was captured.

The soldiers began to search the houses round about, and to pursue the fugitives.

... and curtain.

orestes’ revenge rebounds upon him; he dies, and pylades exits the play, accepted at last.

rough sketch of the Order.

I just used the line “that’s not an asshole move, it’s a whole asshole ballet” and I’m kinda proud of it so it’s going here where it will get the recognition it deserves.

pxrnbot follows me the day tumblr enacts its new policy.

yeah, doesn’t look like much is gonna really change around here.

➥ kiefer sutherland as athos vs. michael wincott as rochefort - the three musketeers (1993) dir. stephen herek.

Casual reminder about Javert, published 1841 in ‘Pictures of the French’ by J. G. Janin.

No shiny uniforms, ponies, or hordes of obedient underlings there.