1.1.1-Fizzygingr

Club Ninety-Three: OKAY HERE WE GO
Hugo opens the novel with history: numbers and dates and the names of the people in charge. And when I read the first page, I thought, “Oh no. This is going to be all about history and I’m going to follow exactly none of it.” But he only begins with this sort of history. And then he moves onto the real history: the people in the war and the people affected by it. And now here’s something I can follow. And that’s the whole point. He’s going to tell us about the war, and then he’s going to show us why it’s being fought. Because if not for the people, history means nothing.

Everyone has something to say about the murders and the flowers. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be a comment on how we’re defiling the beauty of nature with our wars (we should be hunting birds, not men), or a comment on how the natural world goes on around us (light and high beauty and whatnot), or both. Since it’s Hugo, I’ll venture to say both.

And more than that, I think the woods serve to set this place apart from the ordinary, to make it something mystical and timeless. Pilf had some really wonderful things to say about the fairy-tale quality of this chapter. I think the prologue-y position of this chapter in the novel adds to that. It’s its own book, distinct from everything that happens after. And because it’s the beginning, we don’t know who they are, and, especially since their names aren’t used, we’re forced to resort to tropes: the officer, the mother, the orphans, the wise old woman-or as Pilf rightly pointed out, the witch. (This is who I’d be playing in a stage adaptation. I’ve been typecast as matronly women since I was thirteen. Aunts, maids, schoolmistresses, you name it. They’re really fun parts to play.)

So here we are in the woods, and we come across a mysterious figure who won’t say who she is or what she comes from. As with Valjean, this Hugo’s raising some interesting questions about identity. For the sergeant you’re defined by your role in society, your country, and your family. For Michelle, she has her name, she has her children’s names, and she has Brittany. But the way these strangers define her will shape how she is treated, which will in turn shape who she is.

Especially when we’re talking about national identity. The sergeant keeps asking the mother what side she’s on, what side her husband was on, what country she belongs to. For him, that’s part of what makes a person. And they won’t let her be neutral. When she refuses to declare a side, they force one on her, adopting her as one of her own and calling her citoyenne. And so she becomes a French, despite having never called herself that. And she’s not just called French but really Breton. It goes deeper than that. Because she’s called French, she’s treated as French, and has experiences unique to people treated as French. And those experiences become a part of who she is, whether or not she asked for them.

And also, let’s talk about the fact that they’re both in unfamiliar terrain here. The soldiers are Parisians, Michelle is from the countryside, and while both are familiar with the brutal dangers of the forest, and of war, neither is native to it. It’s not natural for them.

I expect there will be a lot more to say in later chapters about the relationship between war and nature. Both dangerous and frightening, but in very different ways. But that’s deeper than I think I can go tonight, so I’ll leave it at that.

Commentary
Mamzellecombeferre I hadn’t thought about their adoption of Michelle and her kids being a forcing of identity on them, but that makes a lot of sense and brings a sort of sadness to something that is otherwise happy.

Alasse-irena I didn’t think of calling her “citoyenne” as forcing a side on her, but you are totally right. I think I was too busy going, “Wow, they are going to adopt her, and her children, and no one is going to die yet. Please let the rest of this book continue as happy and loving.”

Pilferingapples HUGO AND HIS IDENTITY STORIES, YEAH. Not even gonna TRY and not reference Les Mis with this, since if anyone’s relevant to Hugo it’s HUGO HIMSELF, and this seems to be setting itself up as a running thread in his work.

It’s interesting in that light that part of what’s going on here is the question of who decides an identity; Michelle says she’s Breton, but the larger community, the larger world, sees her as French, so that’s what she becomes. But it’s not a one-way trade, the individual having her identity dictated by the group; to make Michelle a citoyenne, the Boonet Rouge have to make themselves a father. To become part of a person’s identity, the group has to make that person a part of theirs, in some way. And we’ve got Houzarde, too, who renamed HERSELF- “I call myself Houzarde”— and has chosen which group she’ll be part of, and found her own role, although she acknowledges other identities that might have been assigned to her.

And the narrative talks about them all by main role, and only by role. Whatever they call themselves, they’re vivandiere, mother, sergeant. I’m really interested in seeing where the text goes with this particular debate on social and personal identity!