1.2.4-Marsmeadow

Club Ninety-Three 1.2.4: Tormentum Belli
Going by fizzygingr and shirley-keeldar, the cannon symbolizes the inexorable anger of the people. Going by Yves Gohin, editor, it’s, well…

The “comings and goings” of the cannon in the “stomach” of the vessel accuses the sexuality of this violence, associating the butcher and the victim as the masculine to the feminine, so much so that all attributes vacillate (it’s rather la caronade than le canon, and it’s against her that vir, man, will assert himself.)

The symbolic cannon, though! It’s not a storm, a cyclone, a tiger, a boa nor anything belonging to the natural world. It’s antromorphized. It’s a weapon of the counterrevolution, turning against them. Look, M Gohin, all this points towards the “anger of the people”-interpretation, and none of it supports your “It’s a dick!” theory.

I like the tumblr version better,is all I’m saying.

I love how the movement of the cannon is described! I’m extrapolating wildly, but it seemed to convey how motion, change, can be. If the cannon is the people, in a way, and (interpreting wildly) the ship has any relation to Plato’s Ship of State, then the crew’s fear of this literal loose cannon wraps back to the larger counter-revolution and its causes.

…I miiight have gotten a mite carried away, there. Anyway, looking forward to probable maritime heroics next chapter, though I’m probably not going to be too fond of the people involved.

Commentary
Shirley-keeldar I think that footnote is ESPECIALLY stupid considering that in the next chapter, where it’s specifically pitted against the man — I’ve, er, read ahead just now — it’s “le canon” much more often than it is “la caronade.” None for you, M. Gohin. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

I don’t think it’s getting carried away at all to connect the crew’s fear of the cannon to the crew’s fear of the revolution and the anger of the people, because that is why they are doing what they are doing! They are so afraid of the people destroying the established social order that they are literally prepared to attack their own country in the interests of preserving what they believe is worthwhile about it! This is Hugo, after all, there is no “too far” to extrapolate…

…unless you’re M. Gohin. When Hugo wants to give you a sexual, gender-motivated metaphor, he isn’t exactly subtle about it. (And he’s been quite good during this novel so far at not doing that.)

In conclusion: giving Hugo the benefit of the doubt and M. Gohin the old two-fingered salute, I am sticking to my guns on the “anger of the people” interpretation.