Discussion Post: 1.3.1

[genarti]

And now we're up to Book III: Halmalo! Chapter 1.3.1, "La parole, c'est le Verbe," aka "Speech is the 'Word'," or... "The Persuasive Power of Human Speech," apparently. Well, that's a translation choice, A.L. Brut Publishers.

Discuss away!

Comments

[genarti]

(Okay, I've only read this once and I don't have my copy to hand, so no close reading of sentences at the moment.)

My translation has a footnote from the title saying something like "Readers familiar with the New Testament will of course understand the meaning of this." It's so helpful and yet completely non-explanatory that it makes me crack up. I assume this is referring to "In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was God, and the word was God," from John 1:1. But, uh, I'm not entirely sure how that relates to this chapter.

As for this chapter: WELL. People were talking about the paucity of inspiring speeches! This is a rhetorical and persuasive tour de force here. I salute the fake peasant's cool.

I'm curious, though, whether he actually believes what he's saying. I'm not saying he can't, but it is so very targetedly persuasive that I wonder. Presumably he believes some of it, since he's fighting on this side, but -- is he just speaking the truth as he sees it, and trusting that Halmalo will be persuaded (or that it's in God's hands)? Or is he assessing Halmalo and calculating that this is the most effective tack to take, in a more cynical way? It's hard to tell.

A lot of what he says is, of course, fairly reasonable -- yes, though I'm fond of the gunner, a lot of what happened here is solely due to his initial negligence. (Personally I feel it would've been more useful on a number of fronts to tell the gunner he's got a stay of execution since they're about to all die in hopeless battle anyway, and then they'd've had one extra gunner and a bit of goodwill, but oh well.) And this is sort of a crowning moment of cool charisma in the face of danger for the fake peasant. At the same time, of course it rubs me the wrong way that the "YOU KILLED MY BROTHER, HERE IS A CONSEQUENCE FOR THAT" moment has been transmuted into the gunner begging the lord's pardon and promising to atone with faithful service. I'll be interested to see where it goes from here, and I hope it's not all faithful service all the way down the line.

(Side note: when Halmalo named his lord, I really expected the fake peasant to reveal that he was in fact that guy. I'm not convinced he won't yet turn out to be him.)

[bobbiewickham]

I think it's both sincere and manipulative, because the way he asked questions of Halmalo--do you believe in God? Do you have a lord?--seemed a lot like deliberately looking for a chink in the armor. Same with the reference to how his brother had a priest. It comes off as very calculated to me.

[genarti]

It came off as calculated to me, too, but I can see room for both. Like, obviously there's some element of calculation, but my question is, how cynically Machiavellian is it? Versus a tactical application of something he sees as true. I don't know the guy well enough yet to say how I'm supposed to perceive him -- does Hugo want us to see him as calculated and manipulative, or does Hugo want us to see him as virtue carried to vice or virtue in service of evil ends?

Some of the rhetorical beats reminded me of various Les Mis characters and barricade speeches, but of course everyone at the barricade would find this guy repugnant, and in many ways so do I. It's an interesting tension for me as a reader who appreciates this kind of scene of cool-headed charismatic competence but is also rather rooting for Halmalo. (Including in ways Halmalo isn't necessarily rooting for himself -- you're absolutely right that his ideology requires his own self-abnegation, both as a sailor in a strict chain of command and more fundamentally as a feudalist peasant in a royalist military.)

I might not agree with Hugo either way about how he wants us to view the fake peasant, of course, but I'm kind of sitting back to steeple my fingers and see how things unfold.

[bobbiewickham]

Oh, I definitely think it's a tactical application of something he sees as true, and virtue in service of evil ends. All of that cool-headed charismatic competence, including giving righteous speeches in the face of death, is something Hugo tends to give to either his heroes or his Noble Villains. This guy is not a hero, I think that's obvious, so I'm betting on Noble Villain. I would be very surprised if he was cynically Machiavellian. But I guess we'll see!