1.1.1-Pilferingapples

Club NinetyThree, Part 1 Book 1, Chapter 1, (1.1.1) The Wood of La Sandraie
GOOD MORNING EVERYONE! It’s the first day of the readalong for Victor Hugo’s Ninety-Three! Anyone who’s joining us, please tag your posts with ClubNinetyThree; and/or, if you’d like, join the discussion on the day’s thread at Dreamwidth!

I have never read this story, or even a synopsis! I have honestly ZERO idea what’s going to happen! How exciting!

It’s still kind of inevitable that I’m going to compare this to Les MIs, though. I compare EVERYTHING to Les Mis these days. So I’m wondering if we’ll get another slow burn opening like the Bishop or

—of the first regiment of Paris, which had numbered six hundred volunteers, there remained twenty-seven men; of the second, thirty-three; and of the third, fifty-seven.

WELL GOOD MORNING TO YOU TOO HUGO, I GUESS THAT’S A NO ON THE SLOW BURN THING.

At the end of May, of the twelve thousand who left Paris eight thousand were dead.

SWEET FLAPPING WAFFLE HALOS it’s like we’re starting right in the middle of Waterloo

The forest of La Sandrie was tragic.

…It’s EXACTLY like we’re starting in the middle of Waterloo. Wow, 2 pages in and already this is a Very Hugo Novel.

In former times La Sandrie was a favorite place for the hunting of birds by night; now they hunted men there.

EVERYTHING IS BIRD. A Very Victor Hugo Novel indeed.

Really though, the birds are part of the scene here, and wow, Hugo is on the BALL with his Interactive Scenery, as always; I don’t know from France, but I an imagine exactly the setting here, and the quiet of the forest, and the way the inderbrush makes it hard to move and how it would be a perfectly lovely place for anyone not WORRIED ABOUT GETTING SHOT BY AMBUSH and all and hggg apparently I’m gonna have nightmares about more Hugo Scenery and this time it’s going to be about a lovely little forest scene with birds singing all around and blood on the leaves and did I mention I live in the country and it’s spring and there are birds singing all around WHILE I TYPE THIS and yeah,I’m kind of feelin’ the scene here, GOOD MORNING INDEED.

But aside from the bloody shadow nightmare that constitutes a Hugo Woodlandscape, I really love this chapter? Or maybe because of the bloody Woodlandscape? Because, okay, this is some kinderundhausmarchen stuff, serious fairy tale time, and I fully realize that Grimm’s collection wasn’t put out until 1812 but the whole POINT of those stories is that they’re around all OVER the place from way way back, and here’s one of them: the mother and children fleeing the brutality of civilization, being taken in by the wild/dangerous denizens of the forest. And of COURSE it’s another woman from outside the pale of the ‘civilized’ — a Witch, basically, as these things go. who’s comfortable in the wild places— who reaches out to the mother first, and explains the rules of this new liminal place (because the Wild ALWAYS has rules) and yeah, I don’t know how intentional any of this resonance is but I DID grow up on such fairy tales and I can’t help feeling it. I MEAN. The children are ADOPTED BY THE REGIMENT, the wolves take in the twins, the fairies take in the lost princess, the children who’ve had their civil home taken are given one back by the wild.

Except that the Wild here IS the civil; the war IS what their society is doing right now. What the vivandiére knows and is teaching the mother is how to survive society, as it is. The war going on is a continuation of the violence that’s left this mother family-less; she talks about the abuse and murder of the men in her life by their lords, and that’s not the same as the war that killed her husband— a bullet by some side, who knows which— but it IS the same, too. The forest is an accidental retreat into the heart of the fighting that’s been part of her whole life and agh, I don’t know what I’m doing with all this, but this is just mashing my Fairy Tale time buttons WAY too hard to NOT talk about.

ANYWAY back in the actual plotlines! I know needsmoreresearch has eye-rolled a little over the Feminine Bonding, but darn it, I LIKE it, because yes, absolutely— the two women in a group of men have some enormous commonalities that the men DON’T, in terms of social background and understanding, and that’s being handled in a way that feels very natural. The vivandiére is more adept with the kids, but she’s not the only one TRYING to connect, from the start the sergeant is trying to engage, too, but he doesn’t know the same approaches as the vivandiére, and that’s totally reasonable! I like the mother too. I’m sure she’d get flack if this were adapted for being too passive or seeming too ignorant or whatever, but she’s been on the run for who knows how long, she’s STARVING, she’s terrified, she’s in shock on a lot of levels— she’s responding just the way someone in her position WOULD, slowly and with prompting and not making any leaps of logic or social intent. Good job, there (less good job that I’m having to call them The Mother and The Vivandiére, when I’ve READ THE CHAPTER, and the BABY has a name, and the sergeant, but still. They’re characters! Real characters! Even if they aren’t named!).

.. Basically I’m wanting the whole story to be about this battalion and the vivandiére and the mom being super best friends and all of them raising their three kids together and going on adventures and there’s a zeppelin, can there be a zeppelin? And hijinks?!? And I’m guessing I WILL GET NONE OF THIS but I’m 24 pages in and already I’m about to cry over everyone we’ve met. Hugo is a MENACE.

Commentary
Needsmoreresearch Oh no, man, I was not eye-rolling there. I am serious, I loved this interaction. There’s spoilersy stuff that happens later and is spoilersy, but I loved that interaction. It ain’t subtle, but neither are the birds and the flowers and the wood of scary murdering.

I like your point about fairy tale/liminal spaces, and the way the vivandière is acting as a fairy tale guide. Which is such an old, old role in stories: and yeah, the whole meeting is very much tapping into that feel, isn’t it? Chance Meeting in Woods: and how you respond is suddenly very important.

Fizzygingr HELP YOUR POST IS REALLY GOOD AGAIN AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY.

Mamzellecombeferre Ahhh I really love the fairy tale parallels you’re drawing here!!

Kingedmundsroyalmurder It is definitely a Very Hugo Novel. The man has a style and he is sticking to it, possibly while glaring at the world around him and daring them to try and stop him.

I love the fairy tale thing, and that’s totally one of the things that makes this a Very Hugo Novel. He works in archetypes and then shades them in, introduces characters by typecasting them and then shows how they’re also individuals. Fairy tales are just a different way of working with archetypes, and each retelling shades those characters in differently. So here we have the gruff military man with the impressive mustache (god I love his mustache) who fades into a person, and the lost little girl (or future heroine, if marsmeadow is right about where the name symbolism is going) who has personal motivations and her own identity, and the witch-type who proves that she can also play the mother, and it’s a whole thing about how characters are Archetypes and People, and it’s so Hugo.

And the living scenery. The living scenery is so Hugo.