Les Miserables: the beginning

I have a cold, which makes it difficult to do anything that is not consonant with sitting around and coughing weakly, and have therefore been plowing through Les Miserables. The pacing is just about appropriate for my befogged brain: by the time he got through, say, fifty pages about how the Bishop of Digne was a really, really good person, it had totally sunk in.

Seriously, though, despite being repetitive it is pretty entertaining. Also, the Bishop's whole "Oh, Valjean the ex-convict didn't steal my silverware! I gave it to him. Except I forgot the silver candlesticks" thing makes a lot more sense when you have this build-up - although I suppose the movie version has the advantage that it's just as surprising for us as for Valjean when the Bishop is actually nice to him?

More stuff happens! Valjean figures out a way to make jet beads more cheaply, makes a fortune, gives most of it away, and becomes the mayor of Montreuil-sur-mer.

Fantine's ex-lover turns out to be an even bigger jerk than I surmised from the movie. (Hugo helpfully informs us that the ex-lover went on to live a long and happy life. Thanks, Hugo.)

Javert attempts to arrest Fantine. Valjean stops him! Javert denounces Valjean in a fit of rage, only to discover that another guy who they think is Valjean has been captured! He tells Valjean.

Valjean undergoes a long, dark night of the soul, followed by a longer, darker day of the soul, followed - because two long dark time spans weren't enough - with a pitch-black evening of the soul. And then he turns himself into the court! "I am Jean Valjean!"

(Valjean is lucky Javert had left by then. I'm pretty sure before Valjean had even finished saying "I'm the real Valjean!" Javert would have sprung onto the courtroom floor and clapped him in irons, possibly with an involuntary click of his heels and definitely while thinking "I knew it, I knew it, I told you so!" as loudly as was consonant with the dignity of the court.)

Javert, however, is not there, and everyone else in the courtroom is so stunned that they completely forget to arrest Valjean. (I kind of admire how Hugo just brazens this out. "There will be no story if I send Valjean back to Toulon," I imagine him thinking. "I know, I'll just have him walk right out of the courtroom while everyone gapes at him.")

Valjean takes the post carriage back to Montreuil-sur-mer! Javert catches up with him by Fantine's deathbed! Valjean escapes again! But Javert has caught the scent now - he's on Valjean's heels - can Valjean remain free? Can he reach Cosette???

Hugo: This is clearly the time for a digression about Waterloo!
Everyone Else in the World: No! No it really isn't!
Hugo: Wheeeee forty pages of Waterloo.
Hugo's Editor: *weeps quietly*

(Did Hugo even have an editor? Were there perhaps even more digressions that the editors did manage to convince Hugo to cut out? "I know you want to give us a complete history of the French Revolution, Vicky, but no. Just no. Two hundred pages is too long of a digression even for you.")

So yes, Hugo and I are still traipsing around the battlefields of Waterloo. There are bullets embedded in dying apple trees, and a well stuffed to the gills with skeletons, because after the battle they didn't have time to dig enough mass graves. I have to stop and grade finals soon, but perhaps this evening I shall finally meet Cosette?