Latest Posts by nel-ii - Page 5

- Quel beau marbre!

He said of Enjolras; “What beautiful marble!”

There is a spectacle more grand than the sea; it is heaven: there is a spectacle more grand than heaven; it is the inmost recesses of the soul.

In Les Miserables Jean Valjean spends years living under the alias of Madeleine, as a reference to Mary Magdalene. I’ve painted Madeleine and stinging nettles for the faith and fate theme of @valvertweek.

the real reason Marius left

heavily inspired by a dormont illustration, nothing like 1950s spousal resentment to invoke enjoltaire energy

think i’ve finally figured out a workflow that works for me 🤩🤩

you pick a les mis cast recording at 16 and that’s the one you’re stuck with for the rest of your life i fear

Enjolras était un jeune homme charmant, capable d’être terrible.

javert at the barricade or whagever i didn’t watch les mis

original under the cut 🙏

what if instead of serving time 24601 served

Feeling normal about Javert and Eponine today

eponine thenardier they could never make me hate you

They're recruiting

Imagine you invite your roommate to hang out with you and your lefty anarchist friends and everyone’s having a great time until roommate starts talking how cool Bill Clinton was and how awesome the American military industrial complex is and how great it is that the American military is present in every country and now you’re the guy who brought the neoliberal to the anarchist meeting and also this guy has never once paid you rent.

Similar thing happened to my good pal Courfeyrac Les Misérables

【enjoltaire Middle Earth AU 】

 Dol Amroth swan-knights! Enjolras x deserted Harad soldier! Grantaire

……

The tides of Belfalas crashed into his soul; for the first time in his life, Grantaire felt alive.

"I do not believe in liberty, or justice, or the will of the free peoples. I believe in you."

……

les mis enjoltaire fans will find the worst, grainiest, blinded by stage lights, most corrupted 30 seconds of bootleg on the world wide web and go "THEY HELD HANDS HEREEE"

the end of les mis is so fucking good. like, yeah we just turned this whole ending around from a feeling of tragedy and profound loss to one of hope, interconnectedness, and an understanding that the bounds of human love and the innate bonds in the rich tapestry that our lives are woven together into exceed even death. that loss will not stop the future, because the memories of those who dreamed of change will always live on. and this all is achieved in like 20 seconds before credits roll.

extremely funny btw. gavroche is like wait this adult is telling me i CAN smash streetlamps??? and valjean is like go wild kid. here's five dollars

ok, little rant about a use of a leitmotif in les mis that i think has slipped under most people's radars!

so you the know the police leitmotif? the "tell me quickly what's the story/who saw what and why and where/let him give a full description/let him answer to javert!" tune that appears whenever somebody gets arrested?

now turn your ear to javert's suicide, specifically the "i am reaching but i fall/and the stars are black and cold" part. it took me a while to notice, but this whole section of the song is just a snippet of the arrest leitmotif:

but he never completes it. the snippet repeats and repeats. try as he might, he finds himself unable to sing the same old song of Justice and Law and Righteousness and Order. he's like a jammed cassette player spitting out the same second of music over and over and over and over again, unable to follow his old ways, but unable to let them go. he's stuck, but he will keep throwing himself against the walls of the cage.

javert is desperately trying to run on his old tracks of thought, but, as vicky h puts it, he experiences "the derailment of a soul, the shattering of an integrity irresistibly propelled in a straight line and dashed against God".

: )

Talking to people outside your fandom about your media of choice is always so interesting because after a while in fandom, you get used to the same old discourse but in real life you will be hit with some completely orginal and insane takes. I was taking about Les Misérables to some family friends over Christmas and they tried to argue that Javert was a completely unnecessary part of the plot. Like he didn’t need to be there at all. Truly a level of discourse that some of you on tumblr could only dream of coming up with

Enjolras sketches.

hello enjoltaire nation, today I give you another offering

Quick sketches of Jean Valjean, Enjolras and Cosette

on tragic heroes and the people who'd follow them anywhere.

tumblr textpost// Anne Carson, An Oresteia// Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles// Victor Hugo, Les Miserables// William Shakespeare, Hamlet// Anne Carson, An Oresteia

Hong Kong's protestes, and the usage of 'Do You Hear the People Sing' from Les Misérables

Message from the Free HK account that I've given links to below:

"

The reason for selecting this song is to remind Hong Kongers not to lose hope, to encourage everyone to stand up, to speak up together, and to further the fight for democracy. Another purpose is to beckon every Hong Konger and the rest of the world: in acts of conscience, call out together against the high, solid wall.

[Reference to Haruki Murakami's speech in 2009: "Always on the side of the egg," in which he said, "If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg."]

[...]

Indeed, not everyone can go to the front line, but many truly want to give what they can for this movement. We don't know how long this fight will last, and therefore we must stay unified and not lose hope. [...]

Last but not least, a thank you to all the participants for all their work-- including the conductor, musicians, singers, recording engineers, sound engineers, sponsors for the sound and video recording venues, actors, videographers, and sponsors for recording equipment--all of whom made this video possible. Hong Kongers truly "we connect"!

[...]

"

[Context:]

Description of the video:

Musicians responded to a call to action and formed a 40 member orchestra and 60 plus member chorus within a short amount of time to record "Do You Hear the People Sing" in three languages (Cantonese, English, Mandarin); people from all walks of life also contributed to the production of this music video.

ENGLISH

CANTONESE

MANDARIN

The Martyr

“All Armenians know the name Victor Hugo thanks to Les Misérables— a delectable book that every last one of our peasants and the humblest of our village schoolteachers have read and reread and that has become like a second gospel for our people.”

- Arshag Chobanian (1902)

[The first Armenian translation of Les Misérables created a] "Hugolatria that bordered on mania," taking hold of many Armenian readers and writers and leading them to treat Hugo like a kind of oracle."

- Not the original person who said the quote, but I got it from the Manoukian's 2022 paper

It's commissioned work so no reprint or anything. I really love this one and praise who let me draw them on bottle caps.

WOAH Victor Hugo okay-ed a translation!

I thought for ages he really was against his work being translated, but maybe that was just for English lmao (Did I make this up? I thought I read that he was against, e.g. the translation for Notre Dame de Paris into English.)

When the famous [Armenian] translator, Grigor (Krikor) Chilinkirian wrote a letter to Victor Hugo, requesting permission to translate his novel, the author replied: "I do not speak your ancient language, but I like it. It speaks of the Orient to me, evokes the centuries gone by, and I can see the mysterious gleam of the light of the past. It is an honour for me to be translated into Armenian."

Posted on Facebook by Armenian Virtual College - AGBU, 2019

Star

armenia and les mis

no better way to show some pride in my homeland of armenia than showcasing a little bit about it's history with my beloved les miserables!

we commonly call it Թշվառները in the armenian language, which means "the miserable" much like the original french.

character names as they most often appear in translations (all phonetic translation from french into armenian, pronounced similarly to their french names aside from small differences)

jean valjean, Ժան Վալժան

javert, Ժավեր

fantine, Ֆանտին

cosette, Կոզետ

marius pontmercy, Մարիուս Պոնտմերսի

eponine, Էպոնին

m. thenardier, Թենարդիե

mme. thenardier, Թենարդիե տիկին (տիկին means mrs or lady in armenian)

gavroche, Գավրոշ

enjolras, Անժոլրա (pronounced ahnzzlora)

grantaire, Գրանտեր

some history

the first translation of the novel into armenian was first printed in the 1880s, and remained in print until the early 1900s. its completely lost media as far as i know and despite my best efforts, i have not been able to unearth a copy. i doubt it's gone forever though, so who knows where one may be lurking!

soviet era armenia was full of translations, the most well known being in 1987, even receiving an audiobook recording (year of recording unknown)

not a single professional production of the musical has been performed in the country to this day, with no plans to as far as i know. but several adaptations have been subbed in armenian and released in the country. many other adaptations have also made it here through their russian (a popular language spoken in armenia as well) dubs and subs

also i think you all would like to know that there was a small fandom of armenian fans in the 2010s haha