week 4?

[devils_child7]

Hello, sorry I'm late with the discussion.

Alright, so regarding this:

Il dort. Quoique le sort fût pour lui bien étrange,
Il vivait. Il mourut quand il n'eut plus son ange.
La chose simplement d'elle-même arriva,
Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s'en va.(He sleeps. Although his fate was very strange, he lived. He died when he had no longer

Comments

[brittlesmile]

Yes, it does seem strange for Cosette to refer to herself that way. Maybe Marius wrote it? If so, then it's possible that "Il mourut...ange" could convey guilt about taking Cosette away and killing Valjean, and "La chose...s'en va" could remark on the way that Valjean slowly faded out of their life, and then life in general? Or something...

[euphoricapathy]

That's who I was thinking.

[littlestarlet]

I would like to think that it was not any sort of person related to him personally, but a random person who might've been touched by his generosity over the years. The idea of it makes seems so much more impactful to me.

[kamikazescot]

I personally think it was Marius. We have two obvious choices, Marius or Cosette. With Marius, he learned so much about Valjean in a short time, namely the fact that Valjean was the one who saved his life at the barricades. With all this information kind of suddenly thrown at him, he'd want to honor Valjean somehow, espicially as he died soon after.

I also like to think that it was sort of repentance for being a bit of an ass to Valjean.

[vifetoile]

I sometimes think it may have been a child of Cosette and Marius, who had been told about Jean Valjean many times before and composed a poem on the way to Church on a Sunday.
That, or a random stranger who just saw the nameless grave, and sketched a few lines on there that gave a peaceful idea of the person who lay there.

[anonymous]

I don't claim any kind of religion for myself, but when I read the book I kind of picture that being written either by 1. Victor Hugo (impossible in the context of the book--obivously in real life he wrote it!), 2. God (also not possible), or 3. the narrator of Les Miserables, who is sort of a mix of two, thanks to the tone Hugo uses to write it (also no possible). It almost seems like it's not supposed to have had an author.

In terms of "reality" in the book I suppose I would picture Marius writing it with Cosette. Sort of a sentimental thought, though, and I couldn't picture them really, really writing it (singly or separately), so I think that's why it feels like it's supposed to be more or less authorless to me.