I have known of the existence of Louis Bayard's novel Mr Timothy for a long time, but something always held me back from buying it, although it is that comparatively rare thing, a sequel to a Dickens book (A Christmas Carol). The something holding me back was probably the blurb, which tells us that the Mr Timothy in question is Tiny Tim grown up, and that he's slumming it by living in a brothel and earning an extra quid dredging corpses in the Thames. We also learn that he is "not the pious child the world thought he was" and that he is trying to break free from his dependence on Scrooge. Most ominous of all, "the thick of London's underbelly" is mentioned.
Well, I bought the book in the end. When glancing at it in the bookshop, I could see that it was well written, and that there seemed to be at least one interesting scene with Scrooge in it. And yes, it is well written, but otherwise my fears have to a great extent been fulfilled.
If Tim keeps a civil tongue in his head while visiting Scrooge, it is partly because he still needs money. The visit only takes place because it's the only way he can get his allowance, and he has the effrontery to feel resentful about having to put in an appearance. There is no sense of affection for the old man who, as Carol makes clear to us, saved his life. What's more, instead of making something of himself given the great opportunity offered by Scrooge's benevolence, Tim is wasting his time mooching around the slums of London, feeling melancholy. For this, at least, he appears to feel some kind of guilt.
There seems to be quite a few people about who have such a problem with the message of A Christmas Carol that they feel they have to write a corrective narrative where it all goes belly up. There was a short story knocking around the net somewhere with the premise that Scrooge lost money so heavily on his charitable schemes his business floundered. (Mind you, I only read a paragraph or two of it, not caring for the prose style.) I read about a play shown not so long ago in London where Bob Cratchit coldly informs Scrooge that he is no longer welcome at the Cratchit family dinner: Bob has come to be sick of his boss's japes, see, and is envious of his bond with Tim. (At least in that version Scrooge had a bond with Tim.) Then there's the Blackadder version of Carol I've mentioned earlier, where Ebenezer Blackadder goes from being an exploited philantropist to a scoundrel. The kindest thing one can say about that version is that it identified the person with most reason to feel resentful about Scrooge's benevolence: Scrooge himself.
As I've said before, I have my own problems with A Christmas Carol, and I can understand a certain instinctive resistance to its unsubtle moral message. But I don't care for these corrective Carol narratives, mainly because I suspect that what bugs many about it is that Scrooge is allowed to be a hero at the end, someone whose generosity has the chance to make other people's lives better. And though by the end of Carol Scrooge has become a kind man full of fellow-feeling instead of a cold-hearted miser, he still has one characteristic which condemns him in the eyes of some, whatever he does. He is still rich.
Me, I'm with Ebenezer all the way - always was, to be honest, redemption entirely optional. But there are other things that irritate me about Mr Timothy, apart from the ingratitude of the glum adult version of Tim. There's the "London's underbelly" syndrome. When an author gushes about Mayhew, it is seldom a good sign. It means that a lot of time will be spent mayhewing around London's slums for atmospheric, descriptive purposes. I'm sorry, but "London's underbelly" does not interest me much, and if it did, I'd probably be reading Mayhew himself so I could be spared the self-righteous aren't-the-Victorians-horrible tone of modern historical novels. By the way, what is an underbelly exactly?
It is rich that we so often accuse the Victorians of hypocrisy and prurience. If Victorian novels have their fair share of "fallen women", it is nothing compared to our own age's obsession with the Victorian prostitute. Wherever there is a historical novel set in Victorian times, there always seems to be a prostitution plot somewhere. Serial killers with sordid motives are popular too. So there we are, tut-tutting about these supposedly Victorian phenomena (for my part, I've only ever heard of one Victorian serial killer, while our modern age produces a great deal more of them), while avidly reading (and writing) about them. Hmmm...
For all that, I'll be sticking with Mr Timothy a bit longer, as the crime story element is starting to get interesting, and the obligatory cheeky urchin is reasonably likeable. I may come to regret it, though.
tisdag 31 januari 2012
torsdag 26 januari 2012
The Borgias or The Whitewash of Cesare
Well, this is something I didn't see coming. Jeremy Irons plays the villain in a TV series - and very well too - and I end up rooting for his worst enemy, a ruthlessly idealistic cardinal who seems to be Renaissance Italy's answer to Maximilien Robespierre. Nevertheless I proclaim it without hesitation: Cardinal Della Rovere as pope! And whoever he wishes as king of Naples!
Yes, I've been watching The Borgias, season one. Irons is, as always, great at playing a villain, and I'm far from being out of sympathy with his corrupt but purposeful pope. But his kids, now, that's a different story. Most enervating is Lucrezia - not as black as she's painted, it is suggested, still I wouldn't trust that slyly smirking maiden one inch. And then there's Cesare.
The most surprising thing about the series is the way it always appears to take Cesare Borgia's part. Now, I must admit I know little about late 15th-century Italy - what I do know has been snatched up from holiday tours in Italy, sumptuous films about famous painters made in the Fifties etc. But Cesare Borgia a sensitive, misunderstood figure? Really? Granted, the series-makers don't go as far as to deny that he is deeply involved in all kinds of Borgia skulduggery, but they are eager to furnish him with all sorts of excuses for his behaviour. Yes, he bribes cardinals to vote for his father as pope, but his father's rivals do the same. Yes, he poisons a cardinal, but the said cardinal wanted to kill him and the rest of his family. Yes, he frames Della Rovere for murder and later tries to have him assassinated, but he is only trying to protect his dear old dad, whose idea it all is anyway. When Cesare kills a man whose wife he has taken a fancy to, we are given almost half-a-dozen extenuating circumstances. The man was a brute to his wife. He insulted Cesare's mother. The swoony wife asked Cesare to "release her". And he was really in love with her - it wasn't just lust at all. And anyway, it was a fair fight. With all these things in Cesare's favour, it seems downright perverse that the "released" lady should flee to a nunnery.
We are also invited to sympathise with Cesare's frustration at not being allowed by his father to take up arms. Instead, he must content himself with being a cardinal, while his younger brother Juan - who commits at least one faux pas per episode - is given the military commands. It's so unfair, we're surely meant to think. Look what a mess Juan makes of everything. The Commander in Chief should be sensible Cesare instead! In fact, as being a soldier requires a great deal less diplomatic skill than being a cardinal, one may argue that Irons's pope has reasoned well when distributing high offices to his children.
You can tell that the makers of The Tudors had a hand in The Borgias as well. There is the same over-reliance on sex scenes to hot up the story, though they add little - yes, even the ones with Jeremy Irons in them. However, either the source material is richer or the scriptwriter has been more inventive: The Borgias doesn't drag as much as The Tudors sometimes did. The high points of the series are the adventures of cardinal Della Rovere who, ousted from Rome, tries to raise a foreign army that will capture the city, rid him and Christendom of the Borgia pope and make him pope instead. It is not out of personal ambition that Della Rovere wishes to do this, though the cynical rulers he encounters keep trying to make him admit to a selfish motive. His real aim is instead to purify the Church - and if that means that civilians will be slaughtered on the way, well, tough. Della Rovere is sorely tried, though, as he travels from one extremely eccentric ruler to the next. You see the pain on his intelligent face as he realises: oh dear, it's another nut case. I don't care how many "Della Rovere and mad ruler" scenes they pack in: they're a great deal more interesting than seeing Lucrezia cavorting with the groom.
Yes, I've been watching The Borgias, season one. Irons is, as always, great at playing a villain, and I'm far from being out of sympathy with his corrupt but purposeful pope. But his kids, now, that's a different story. Most enervating is Lucrezia - not as black as she's painted, it is suggested, still I wouldn't trust that slyly smirking maiden one inch. And then there's Cesare.
The most surprising thing about the series is the way it always appears to take Cesare Borgia's part. Now, I must admit I know little about late 15th-century Italy - what I do know has been snatched up from holiday tours in Italy, sumptuous films about famous painters made in the Fifties etc. But Cesare Borgia a sensitive, misunderstood figure? Really? Granted, the series-makers don't go as far as to deny that he is deeply involved in all kinds of Borgia skulduggery, but they are eager to furnish him with all sorts of excuses for his behaviour. Yes, he bribes cardinals to vote for his father as pope, but his father's rivals do the same. Yes, he poisons a cardinal, but the said cardinal wanted to kill him and the rest of his family. Yes, he frames Della Rovere for murder and later tries to have him assassinated, but he is only trying to protect his dear old dad, whose idea it all is anyway. When Cesare kills a man whose wife he has taken a fancy to, we are given almost half-a-dozen extenuating circumstances. The man was a brute to his wife. He insulted Cesare's mother. The swoony wife asked Cesare to "release her". And he was really in love with her - it wasn't just lust at all. And anyway, it was a fair fight. With all these things in Cesare's favour, it seems downright perverse that the "released" lady should flee to a nunnery.
We are also invited to sympathise with Cesare's frustration at not being allowed by his father to take up arms. Instead, he must content himself with being a cardinal, while his younger brother Juan - who commits at least one faux pas per episode - is given the military commands. It's so unfair, we're surely meant to think. Look what a mess Juan makes of everything. The Commander in Chief should be sensible Cesare instead! In fact, as being a soldier requires a great deal less diplomatic skill than being a cardinal, one may argue that Irons's pope has reasoned well when distributing high offices to his children.
You can tell that the makers of The Tudors had a hand in The Borgias as well. There is the same over-reliance on sex scenes to hot up the story, though they add little - yes, even the ones with Jeremy Irons in them. However, either the source material is richer or the scriptwriter has been more inventive: The Borgias doesn't drag as much as The Tudors sometimes did. The high points of the series are the adventures of cardinal Della Rovere who, ousted from Rome, tries to raise a foreign army that will capture the city, rid him and Christendom of the Borgia pope and make him pope instead. It is not out of personal ambition that Della Rovere wishes to do this, though the cynical rulers he encounters keep trying to make him admit to a selfish motive. His real aim is instead to purify the Church - and if that means that civilians will be slaughtered on the way, well, tough. Della Rovere is sorely tried, though, as he travels from one extremely eccentric ruler to the next. You see the pain on his intelligent face as he realises: oh dear, it's another nut case. I don't care how many "Della Rovere and mad ruler" scenes they pack in: they're a great deal more interesting than seeing Lucrezia cavorting with the groom.
onsdag 18 januari 2012
The French, the Scots, Parliament... Who wants to be an English king?
As I enjoyed David Starkey's program about Henry VIII which was shown in one of our more learned TV channels, I bought the whole series Monarchy featuring Starkey when shopping in New York, thinking I'd probably get through it in a leisurely pace as the evenings where I feel ambitious and eager to learn new things can be easily counted.
Unexpectedly, I was completely hooked. This is as fun as watching a costume drama. It's the kind of history that got me interested in the subject in the first place. Personalities, that's what grips you - not the invention of the stirrup, or horrid agricultural reforms, though I realise they were fearfully important to a lot of people. The problem about the courses I studied in History at University is that even when they did grudgingly mention kings and queens - "political history" as it was called - they made it purposely as dull as possible so as to leave young minds with the impression that, yawn, it really is all about dates and battles. However, if the strategy was supposed to kindle our enthusiasm for the lives of peasants instead, it didn't work. The lives of peasants were still boring, no matter how you dressed it up.
Not even Starkey dares to admit that his series is all about kings and queens. No, it has a greater theme: the uniqueness of the English monarchy as an institution. And to be fair, he does say quite a lot about this. His argument is that the English monarchy has always had limited power, and been all the better for it. But this doesn't hide the fact that there is a lot of personal stuff about the various monarchs crammed into the series, and this is what makes it so watchable. The donnish matter-of-factness of Starkey, even when he's imparting gossip, is a hoot. One minute he's trying to sort out the different religious factions in the Civil War - another he's stating, poker-faced, "The only thing rigid about Charles [II]..." and ends the sentence the way you would expect, but would not think a professional historian would dare to.
Not that I'm any wiser as to what makes a good king, though. Starkey is too much of a historian to make his personal likes and dislikes too plain. As for what makes a king (or queen, for that matter) popular in the eyes of his/her contemporaries, the answer is depressing: if you're successful in war, then basically you're home, even if you're a thug like Henry V. Here are some dos and don'ts of English kingship (or equivalent) as I can make out:
DO:
1) Whack the French.
2) Whack the Scots.
3) Whack the Spaniards if they attack - otherwise they're not worth your time.
DON'T
1) Get beaten by the French, or make peace with them, or form an alliance with them.
2) Get beaten by the Scots. Don't form an alliance with them either, because once you do they'll suddenly start to lose.
3) Declare war on the Dutch - one, because they'll beat you, and two, because they're not really the enemy. Unlike the French.
4) Think that just because you're the Head of the Church of England, that means you actually have a say about religious issues.
5) Dissolve Parliament every fortnight, not even when they are being really annoying and denying you money for obvious things such as the defence of the realm. If you have to dissolve Parliament, do it in a manly, decisive way so as not to seem petulant (I'm not sure this helps with the contemporaries, but it helps with Starkey).
6) Have a sarcastic boyfriend.
So the "don't" list turns out to be rather longer than the drearily martial "do" list. I do sometimes wonder when watching Monarchy: is there no other way to become great than on the battlefield? What about some cracking laws? Or an impressive state administration (well, I am a bureaucrat by trade)? And most of all, why would anyone want to bother with it all - uppity Parliamentarians, gruff nobles who criticise your love life, men of the church who always seem to be against the doctrines you favour yourself - just for an English-style, limited monarchy?
Well, that's the monarchs' problem: I enjoy just seeing them fight it out best they can, poor beasts. I'm not always in agreement with Starkey - he's convinced Richard III murdered the Princes, for instances, and he's a bit severe on the Charleses - but then no-one is perfect. Let's see if I can stand watching the Napoleonic war episode without hurling things at the screen, though. As already established, whacking the French, in whatever context, for whatever motive and with whatever consequences, always seems to be considered a good thing by the English.
Unexpectedly, I was completely hooked. This is as fun as watching a costume drama. It's the kind of history that got me interested in the subject in the first place. Personalities, that's what grips you - not the invention of the stirrup, or horrid agricultural reforms, though I realise they were fearfully important to a lot of people. The problem about the courses I studied in History at University is that even when they did grudgingly mention kings and queens - "political history" as it was called - they made it purposely as dull as possible so as to leave young minds with the impression that, yawn, it really is all about dates and battles. However, if the strategy was supposed to kindle our enthusiasm for the lives of peasants instead, it didn't work. The lives of peasants were still boring, no matter how you dressed it up.
Not even Starkey dares to admit that his series is all about kings and queens. No, it has a greater theme: the uniqueness of the English monarchy as an institution. And to be fair, he does say quite a lot about this. His argument is that the English monarchy has always had limited power, and been all the better for it. But this doesn't hide the fact that there is a lot of personal stuff about the various monarchs crammed into the series, and this is what makes it so watchable. The donnish matter-of-factness of Starkey, even when he's imparting gossip, is a hoot. One minute he's trying to sort out the different religious factions in the Civil War - another he's stating, poker-faced, "The only thing rigid about Charles [II]..." and ends the sentence the way you would expect, but would not think a professional historian would dare to.
Not that I'm any wiser as to what makes a good king, though. Starkey is too much of a historian to make his personal likes and dislikes too plain. As for what makes a king (or queen, for that matter) popular in the eyes of his/her contemporaries, the answer is depressing: if you're successful in war, then basically you're home, even if you're a thug like Henry V. Here are some dos and don'ts of English kingship (or equivalent) as I can make out:
DO:
1) Whack the French.
2) Whack the Scots.
3) Whack the Spaniards if they attack - otherwise they're not worth your time.
DON'T
1) Get beaten by the French, or make peace with them, or form an alliance with them.
2) Get beaten by the Scots. Don't form an alliance with them either, because once you do they'll suddenly start to lose.
3) Declare war on the Dutch - one, because they'll beat you, and two, because they're not really the enemy. Unlike the French.
4) Think that just because you're the Head of the Church of England, that means you actually have a say about religious issues.
5) Dissolve Parliament every fortnight, not even when they are being really annoying and denying you money for obvious things such as the defence of the realm. If you have to dissolve Parliament, do it in a manly, decisive way so as not to seem petulant (I'm not sure this helps with the contemporaries, but it helps with Starkey).
6) Have a sarcastic boyfriend.
So the "don't" list turns out to be rather longer than the drearily martial "do" list. I do sometimes wonder when watching Monarchy: is there no other way to become great than on the battlefield? What about some cracking laws? Or an impressive state administration (well, I am a bureaucrat by trade)? And most of all, why would anyone want to bother with it all - uppity Parliamentarians, gruff nobles who criticise your love life, men of the church who always seem to be against the doctrines you favour yourself - just for an English-style, limited monarchy?
Well, that's the monarchs' problem: I enjoy just seeing them fight it out best they can, poor beasts. I'm not always in agreement with Starkey - he's convinced Richard III murdered the Princes, for instances, and he's a bit severe on the Charleses - but then no-one is perfect. Let's see if I can stand watching the Napoleonic war episode without hurling things at the screen, though. As already established, whacking the French, in whatever context, for whatever motive and with whatever consequences, always seems to be considered a good thing by the English.
onsdag 11 januari 2012
Fforde in the magic market
I must admit I had my doubts about Jasper Fforde's Dragonslayer series. It combines two genres I'm prejudiced against: the "young adult" genre and the magic/fantasy genre. If you are a "young adult", that is a teenager, you are already fully capable of reading and enjoying books written for, well, older adults, such as the classics. So why write books especially for the teenage market? As to magic, ever since Harry Potter - or perhaps even before that - this genre feels overcrowded. Even contrasting the workings of magic with everyday life with comic effect has, surely, been done. However, in spite of my reservations, I had a good time reading Fforde's last Dragonslayer offering, The Song of the Quarkbeast.
The first Dragonslayer book, The Last Dragonslayer, though witty and with a feisty Ffordian heroine in the plucky sixteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange, was a bit too preachy and pro-dragon for my taste. I ended up longing for Jennifer to run her sword through the tiresome creature. The Song of the Quarkbeast, however, cuts down on the anti-corporation, give-peace-a-chance homilies to good effect, and there's mercifully no self-important dragon to be seen. Jennifer Strange, with the help of the precocious twelve-year-old fellow foundling "Tiger" Prawns - a likeable sidekick, once again very much in the Ffordian tradition - is running or trying to run a company called Kazam, whose employees are a group of shambolic wizards trying to flog their magic powers for a few quid. Their tasks are most often unglamorous: plumbing, rewiring, delivering pizza by way of flying carpet etc.
At first, I thought the book would be mainly about Kazam trying to fight off a hostile take-over bid from their one competitor iMagic ("putting 'i' in front of anything makes it more hip and current"). The stakes didn't seem that high - after all, Kazam could do with a bit more business acumen, as displayed by iMagic's (of course) goateed head Conrad Blix. And then suddenly, at the big showdown competition between the two companies, the tension rises considerably thanks to a clever plot twist. It is no longer a question of magic morals, or of preserving the eponymous quarkbeasts (Jennifer has a soft spot for them, as one of them saved her life in The Last Dragonslayer, but it is hard to share her enthusiasm completely). It is a matter of saving lives - lots of them.
I'm hard pressed to find much difference between this novel and those for Fforde's adult readership. He certainly doesn't talk down to his young readers - and there is probably no need to either, as British youngsters have been fed such brain-twisters as Doctor Who with their mother's milk. The Song of the Quarkbeast is not exactly nuanced, it's true, but then nuance isn't Fforde's forte in his other books, either. He disarms grumbling about black-and-white characterisation by having fun with typical baddie clichés - and goodie clichés, for that matter. Blix consciously plays up to the Evil Genius image, while Jennifer is more than once criticised - not altogether unjustly - by various villains for her exaggerated self-righteousness.
As usual, Fforde has created a parallel world where, for instance, Britain is divided into small entities (kingdoms, duchys and the like) and is called the unUnited Kingdom. It is a fun place to spend some time in. However, I still prefer the Thursday Next series to everything else Fforde has written. The world of literature is the most grippingly magic place of all.
The first Dragonslayer book, The Last Dragonslayer, though witty and with a feisty Ffordian heroine in the plucky sixteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange, was a bit too preachy and pro-dragon for my taste. I ended up longing for Jennifer to run her sword through the tiresome creature. The Song of the Quarkbeast, however, cuts down on the anti-corporation, give-peace-a-chance homilies to good effect, and there's mercifully no self-important dragon to be seen. Jennifer Strange, with the help of the precocious twelve-year-old fellow foundling "Tiger" Prawns - a likeable sidekick, once again very much in the Ffordian tradition - is running or trying to run a company called Kazam, whose employees are a group of shambolic wizards trying to flog their magic powers for a few quid. Their tasks are most often unglamorous: plumbing, rewiring, delivering pizza by way of flying carpet etc.
At first, I thought the book would be mainly about Kazam trying to fight off a hostile take-over bid from their one competitor iMagic ("putting 'i' in front of anything makes it more hip and current"). The stakes didn't seem that high - after all, Kazam could do with a bit more business acumen, as displayed by iMagic's (of course) goateed head Conrad Blix. And then suddenly, at the big showdown competition between the two companies, the tension rises considerably thanks to a clever plot twist. It is no longer a question of magic morals, or of preserving the eponymous quarkbeasts (Jennifer has a soft spot for them, as one of them saved her life in The Last Dragonslayer, but it is hard to share her enthusiasm completely). It is a matter of saving lives - lots of them.
I'm hard pressed to find much difference between this novel and those for Fforde's adult readership. He certainly doesn't talk down to his young readers - and there is probably no need to either, as British youngsters have been fed such brain-twisters as Doctor Who with their mother's milk. The Song of the Quarkbeast is not exactly nuanced, it's true, but then nuance isn't Fforde's forte in his other books, either. He disarms grumbling about black-and-white characterisation by having fun with typical baddie clichés - and goodie clichés, for that matter. Blix consciously plays up to the Evil Genius image, while Jennifer is more than once criticised - not altogether unjustly - by various villains for her exaggerated self-righteousness.
As usual, Fforde has created a parallel world where, for instance, Britain is divided into small entities (kingdoms, duchys and the like) and is called the unUnited Kingdom. It is a fun place to spend some time in. However, I still prefer the Thursday Next series to everything else Fforde has written. The world of literature is the most grippingly magic place of all.
söndag 1 januari 2012
Satisfying conclusions
Phew - grisly fate averted. I finished Dark Angels (new year, new rules - as I now know how to use italics on titles, I will do it from now on) a little more than a week back, and I'm happy to be able to recommend it without reservations to other villain-lovers. What actually happens to Henri Ange is unclear - that plot line is dropped, rather - but at least he doesn't end his days chained to the walls of a windowless cell.
My unwholesome crush on a poisoner - who prefers men, anyway, not that that is much of a bar fantasy-wise - has had at least one vaguely positive side effect. While watching The Borgias (only the three first episodes so far), I found myself not falling for Cesare Borgia's hired assassin. He would have been right up my alley otherwise; he's efficient, ferrety and gingerish. Right now, though, my standards when it comes to fictional assassins are quite high, and he falls short of them. That's something, surely?
Moving on from nasty characters to one of literature's most famous Mr Nices, I have now also, finally, finished reading Les Misérables, the story of the hardship-laden life of Jean Valjean. I find myself in two minds about whether I can keep recommending it now that I've read it all. There are scenes that are among the most powerful I've ever read, but the digressions do keep coming. Towards the end, Hugo tried my patience sorely by musing on the history and state of the sewers of Paris. Who cares? Valjean is down there, carrying Marius. How about focussing on getting them out? Perhaps the best recommendation I can come up with is to read an abridged version, or to buy the unabridged version and be ruthless enough to skip sections that do not advance the story.
I'm not sorry I've read it all, though, and at least now I have a clear idea about what actually happens in the story and which parts have been made up by various adaptations. For example, in the film with Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush, it is hinted that there is some romantic interest between Jean Valjean and Fantine. Not true, and Javert's kindly colleague doesn't exist in the book either. In the French TV series with Gérard Depardieu, Jean Valjean at one point tells Marius that he loves Cosette not as a father but as a man. Not so, mercifully. Hugo specifies that Jean Valjean's love for Cosette is especially intense as she replaces all the female figures he would normally have had in his life - mother, wife and daughter - but there is no erotic component in his love for her, at least no conscious one.
You do get another perspective on some of the book's themes if you trudge through it all. Every adaptation, including the musical, understandably focuses on the relationship between Jean Valjean, the ex-convict who broke parole, committed a minor offence and is therefore still a criminal in the law's eyes, and the duty-ridden policeman Javert. But when you read the novel, you realise that they are not so central to each other's lives as you might have thought. Of course, Javert wants to arrest Jean Valjean, just as he wants every criminal he encounters brought to justice, and of course Jean Valjean isn't keen on the idea. There is personal animosity between them, especially when Javert's unhelpful revelations about Valjean drives the sick and unhappy Fantine to her death. But most of the time, their encounters are pure chance, not part of a concentrated effort of Javert's to hunt Valjean down. He's got other fish to fry, and Valjean is too busy raising Fantine's child Cosette to nourish a hatred of Javert. This explains a great deal: I have always wondered a bit about why Javert should be obsessed with an ex-convict whose crimes are so laughably minor.
Also, I have in the past found Valjean's saving of Javert's life at the barricade a somewhat underhand act, a sort of vengeance through kindness. I was disposed to answer the question put by Javert in the musical - "And does he know/that granting me my life today/this man has killed me evenso" - with a resounding yes. In fact, saving Javert's life at that particular time isn't a big deal for Jean Valjean. He has resolved himself to yet another self-sacrifice: that of saving Marius, who will take Cosette away from him. This is the real wrench for him. Without Cosette, he doesn't really care about what happens to himself, and feels he might as well save as many lives as he can. In the end, it is not Valjean's kindness that derails Javert but his own reaction to it: later, he lets Jean Valjean go, and comes to realise that despite everything he has believed in all his life, this breach of the law for what looks like personal reasons might actually not be a bad thing.
It is a great novel, indisputably. But you can safely skip the parts about convents, sewers and impossibly goody-goody bishops.
My unwholesome crush on a poisoner - who prefers men, anyway, not that that is much of a bar fantasy-wise - has had at least one vaguely positive side effect. While watching The Borgias (only the three first episodes so far), I found myself not falling for Cesare Borgia's hired assassin. He would have been right up my alley otherwise; he's efficient, ferrety and gingerish. Right now, though, my standards when it comes to fictional assassins are quite high, and he falls short of them. That's something, surely?
Moving on from nasty characters to one of literature's most famous Mr Nices, I have now also, finally, finished reading Les Misérables, the story of the hardship-laden life of Jean Valjean. I find myself in two minds about whether I can keep recommending it now that I've read it all. There are scenes that are among the most powerful I've ever read, but the digressions do keep coming. Towards the end, Hugo tried my patience sorely by musing on the history and state of the sewers of Paris. Who cares? Valjean is down there, carrying Marius. How about focussing on getting them out? Perhaps the best recommendation I can come up with is to read an abridged version, or to buy the unabridged version and be ruthless enough to skip sections that do not advance the story.
I'm not sorry I've read it all, though, and at least now I have a clear idea about what actually happens in the story and which parts have been made up by various adaptations. For example, in the film with Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush, it is hinted that there is some romantic interest between Jean Valjean and Fantine. Not true, and Javert's kindly colleague doesn't exist in the book either. In the French TV series with Gérard Depardieu, Jean Valjean at one point tells Marius that he loves Cosette not as a father but as a man. Not so, mercifully. Hugo specifies that Jean Valjean's love for Cosette is especially intense as she replaces all the female figures he would normally have had in his life - mother, wife and daughter - but there is no erotic component in his love for her, at least no conscious one.
You do get another perspective on some of the book's themes if you trudge through it all. Every adaptation, including the musical, understandably focuses on the relationship between Jean Valjean, the ex-convict who broke parole, committed a minor offence and is therefore still a criminal in the law's eyes, and the duty-ridden policeman Javert. But when you read the novel, you realise that they are not so central to each other's lives as you might have thought. Of course, Javert wants to arrest Jean Valjean, just as he wants every criminal he encounters brought to justice, and of course Jean Valjean isn't keen on the idea. There is personal animosity between them, especially when Javert's unhelpful revelations about Valjean drives the sick and unhappy Fantine to her death. But most of the time, their encounters are pure chance, not part of a concentrated effort of Javert's to hunt Valjean down. He's got other fish to fry, and Valjean is too busy raising Fantine's child Cosette to nourish a hatred of Javert. This explains a great deal: I have always wondered a bit about why Javert should be obsessed with an ex-convict whose crimes are so laughably minor.
Also, I have in the past found Valjean's saving of Javert's life at the barricade a somewhat underhand act, a sort of vengeance through kindness. I was disposed to answer the question put by Javert in the musical - "And does he know/that granting me my life today/this man has killed me evenso" - with a resounding yes. In fact, saving Javert's life at that particular time isn't a big deal for Jean Valjean. He has resolved himself to yet another self-sacrifice: that of saving Marius, who will take Cosette away from him. This is the real wrench for him. Without Cosette, he doesn't really care about what happens to himself, and feels he might as well save as many lives as he can. In the end, it is not Valjean's kindness that derails Javert but his own reaction to it: later, he lets Jean Valjean go, and comes to realise that despite everything he has believed in all his life, this breach of the law for what looks like personal reasons might actually not be a bad thing.
It is a great novel, indisputably. But you can safely skip the parts about convents, sewers and impossibly goody-goody bishops.
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