remindmeofthe | (no subject)

I cannot remember a time in my life when I was not reading this book. And I will never be done.

And at this rate, I'm never going to get the slightly-less-horrible-than-before slash typed up, either.

I also appear to be collecting recordings of the musical, but since I have displayed a tendency to do that anyway (I already have, if you count movie soundtracks, three versions of Evita and two of Sweeney Todd), this is almost comforting in its familiarity. Even if the musical itself is becoming increasingly amusing as I get further along in the book. And musical!Javert is LAME, you guys, I still can't get over him trying arrest Valjean without backup when the whole thing with Valjean being ridiculously strong is how Javert recognized him in the first place. Book!Javert is all, "Amateur, get out of my way and quit making me look bad." It's not quite as random a detail for me to obsess over as it sounds, I swear.

I have this whole thing about how pretty much every major male character in the book is totally pure and chaste and virginal and all that stuff you usually find with female characters in older novels, and blah blah social issues blah blah, and how these days it just translates into making every last one of them look as gay as the day is long (especially Marius, ironically enough, since he's the only one of them who HAS a girlfriend), but that will have to wait until I have the brain for posting. Every last word of this post has been like pulling teeth. I just can't focus. So you've got that to look forward to, unless I forget. :D

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:: snickers at you :: Honestly? Marcius always struck me as gay, even in the musical :P

I could never make it through Les Mis, the unabridged. I tried it once, I think I made it, like, four hundred pages in before I gave up. You amaze me.

... musical!Javert is not lame :( He's just forced to act stupid cuz of... um... plot? (Javert is my fav char in the musical, quite possibly among my fav chars of all time...)

It's great, there's all this stuff about how Marius's love for Cosette is so pure and he feels no desire for her and there's a scene where the wind blows her skirt up enough to show some leg (SO scandalous!) and Marius is personally offended by this and not titillated in the least. And I know it's all cultural yadda and also Marius is a great big DORK with ISSUES, but - man, he couldn't be gayer if he went and stuck his tongue down Courfeyrac's throat. This could change once they, like, get married and stuff and it becomes Magically Okay for him to feel lust for her, but on the other hand, he's a dork with issues (I say this fondly, mind you - the only reason I like Marius at all is because of his dorkhood; he would be unbearable without it), so maybe not.

Musical!Javert is awesome. Until you get far enough into the book to realize that book!Javert blows him right out of the water. And then musical!Javert starts seeming a little silly. It's unfortunate, but there you are. I still like him and all, but it's like trying to be happy with canned pineapple once you've tried fresh. It tastes fine, but damn, that fresh stuff was so good. (It is possible I am punchy from tired. Am going to bed soon.) And Idiot Plot stuff bugs me. "The Confrontation" is possibly my favorite song in the musical, and I know they had to smooth the plot out so the whole thing wouldn't be eight hours long, but does Javert really have to do something that dumb? It is a wrongness. :(

LOL... and so many people wonder why I suggest slogging through the long version of the book.

One bored night years ago when I was working as a security guard, I tool the details of Marius' budget... and other prices mentioned in the book... and figured out how much they've changed over the years.

I re-calculated everything as a percentage of yearly income for a book translator (which was his job at the time). Figuring a newbie translator with no other responsibilities probably made around 30-40k a year in the mid-1990's, I came to the following conclusions:

The price of a suit of mens' clothing has remained relatively constant.

Food is (about 3-6 times) MORE expensive today.

Rent is (2-4 times) MORE expensive today.

The only thing in fact, that saw it's price drop (a LOT) is a cab fare across town. Marius' coach across Paris would have cost some $1200 with $400 down before the door even opened. Even figuring it was equivalent to a high end limo, this is still way more expensive than today.

I just with I remembered what I calculated a sous to be... I think it was like $1.73 or something. I remember his meal of half a bottle of wine, half a loaf of bread, eggs, sausage, and toast was about $1.73... a $10+ meal today.

It's the details that I think make Les Miserables so fascinating...

Oh, that's interesting. One of the things I am finding about Les Mis fandom that I quite like is that there is a ton of research to be done, but it's been around so long that everyone else has already done it! I can just wander along behind and bookmark at my leisure.

I do like the details. Much as too many details exhaust and confuse me (ADD, doncha know), and I think my stamina is starting to flag, and sometimes I just want to take a nap, I am glad I'm reading the unabridged version. It fleshes the story out and makes it, frankly, easier to swallow in some places.