OK so I'm only going to talk about the last ten pages right now because I've had a crappy headache all day and staring at a computer screen isn't helping.
So basically Fantine has been knocked up and has had Cosette, she cant find work because of the stigma of being a single mother so she meets the Thenardiers who agree to look after the kid while she works and pays for her upkeep. This would be fine except that the Thenardiers are horrible people who end up fleecing Fantine for more and more money and they mistreat Cosette pretty much from the beginning.
It's at this point in the book where i think it actually starts getting good, Victor Hugo's really good at writing characters, it's such a shame he wastes so much time on endless back story.
I really start to feel sorry for Fantine during these chapters, and I'm dead inside i never feel anything for anyone so good work Mr Hugo for making me care! Everyones so mean to her, she's like this horrible tragic person who everyone treats like crap for no good reason.(Except for the obvious 'having a child out of wedlock' thing but that's an outdated principle so i choose to ignore it!)
It's nice to see more of Fantine though, in the musical she only appears for a short time before she dies so i actually appreciated the info on her in the book, i did wonder what the story was with her having the kid and then leaving it with strangers, I'm glad that was explained.
I am wondering about the timeline of these events though, by the time Fantine meets the Thenardiers she says that Cosette is nearly three, but then the book says that she was only abandoned by the kids father ten months ago. So was she already pregnant when she was abandoned? Did she have the kid a long time before she was abandoned? Why wasn't this mentioned at all? Did i miss something in the book because I'm really dense about these things sometimes? Did I fuck up or did Victor Hugo fuck up? Explain these things to me book, EXPLAIN!!!
Actually you know whats really sad about this whole thing, if Fantine had Cosette a long time before she was abandoned then Cosette's father really was an absolute twat because that means he would have actually seen his own child and then just walked away from her without even caring. That's really low, seriously that's such a horrible thing to do to a child, what a complete arsehole that guy must have been! Can you even imagine what poor Fantine must have been going through as well when that happened? it's so fucking heartbreaking!
I don't have a lot of bitching to say about the past ten pages because it's been mostly good stuff, I don't actually hate this book despite the title i chose for this blog, I'm actually quite enjoying it, it's just the endless history lessons the author chooses to inflict on the reader that i have a problem with, i wish he would stick to his characters more often, they're actually good
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