Nel-ii - An Homage To My Thirteen-year-old Self

This is an abridged arabic edition of Les Misérables with Arabic and English translation, Published in (2018)

It contains the entire story in 277 pages.

This edition is intended to learn English only bc the Arabic translation is accurate while the English translation is very simplified, so it is great for reading and learning at the same time for Arabic speakers!

The funny thing about it is that this edition contains only 15 chapters with the important parts of the story bc you know it is an abridged edition.

..and despite that, there is a chapter for the PARIS SEWERS.

Here is a translation of the chapter names:

1 - Jean Valjean

2 - Fantine

3 - Monsieur Madeleine

4 - The Man In The Long Yellow Coat

5 - Valjean and Cosette

6 - Marius

7 - The Jondrettes

8 - Marius and Cosette

9 - Monsieur Gillenormand

10 - The Barricade

11 - The Letter

12 - Fight To The Death

13 - THE SEWERS OF PARIS

14 - The Wedding

15 - The Truth at Last

Star

🤨🏳️‍🌈❓

+ misc doodles of cosette i did while trying to pin down how i want to draw her : 3

i definitely am a princess curls cosette lover for life but i do have an alternate more period-accurate hairstyle for her when she's wearing a bonnet heehee maybe ill post it at some point!

Enjolras

Juan Luna’s Tampuhan, except it’s Enjolras and Grantaire

—

I’m back on my Filipino Les Amis bullshit. Tampuhan, in English, means “sulking”, and I think it fits Enjolras and Grantaire perfectly.

I absolutely love how Marguerite, in Chauvelin’s eyes, is a symbol of wisdom and freedom in the musical.

He wants her. He objectifies her not as a woman, but like a national treasure. He is possessive of what was once her ideals. He wants her to be like him. He wants her to become a martyr. He wants to eternalize her into a symbol of their new society.

I believe this is also what the 1982 film tried to portray (the musical is directly inspired by this film adaptation).

They got rid of Marguerite’s agency over her own sins and completely antagonized Chauvelin in order to put an emphasis on this form of objectification.

As the story nears its end, Chauvelin loses all interest in Marguerite, upholding his own ideals above his yearning for her. He was to make an example out of her. Instead of a symbol of the revolution, he would turn her into a national traitor, a symbol of evil, everything that goes against his idea of “democracy”.

Les Misérables' OC character, Nande, by Su Manshu

Su Manshu was a revolutionary poet who wrote a translation of Book One of Les Misérables into traditional Chinese.

Copy and pasted from a comment I made in Dec 2024:

Su Manshu wrote a self-insert (Nande) who was a mouthpiece for the favour of the revolution of China (which was ruled by the Qing Dynasty at the time).

However, since there wasn't much of a freedom in press in regards to the criticism of it, the main character (the self insert) dies.

During the translation (which was only book 1), there is a running comparison of Chinese and French history, and also anti-Christian sentiments due to Su's fear of the 'Western influence' of China.

The translation is so different, there is some unintended comedic elements to it in retrospect, but I'm sure during the time when it was written, it was truly a piece of revolution. It's just funny if you take the political context out of it.

There is also mistranslations, such as the Bishop asking how many coins Jean Valjean has, and telling him that his place is not a hostel and therefore he doesn't need to pay -> to then become the Bishop asking Jean Valjean how much coins he has, and telling him that it is indeed like a hostel, and thus needs to pay him with all the coins that he has (rather than JvJ keeping them).

There is an academic argument apparently on whether or not mistranslations such as these were intentional, or if Su wasn't as proficient in English as we believed he was to be (since he translated from Wilbour's trans.)

It also is a running theme throughout the translation that JvJ is a bad guy.

The paper I read doesn't talk about other characters, so I don't know how other characters are presented unfortunately. Probably because it overly focuses on the OC lmao

Javert when I get my hands on him

hello enjoltaire nation, today I give you another offering

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - Entrance on the Scene of a Doll, LM 2.3.4 (Les Miserables 1925)

The last of these stalls, established precisely opposite the Thénardiers’ door, was a toy-shop all glittering with tinsel, glass, and magnificent objects of tin. In the first row, and far forwards, the merchant had placed on a background of white napkins, an immense doll, nearly two feet high, who was dressed in a robe of pink crepe, with gold wheat-ears on her head, which had real hair and enamel eyes. All that day, this marvel had been displayed to the wonderment of all passers-by under ten years of age, without a mother being found in Montfermeil sufficiently rich or sufficiently extravagant to give it to her child. Éponine and Azelma had passed hours in contemplating it, and Cosette herself had ventured to cast a glance at it, on the sly, it is true.

At the moment when Cosette emerged, bucket in hand, melancholy and overcome as she was, she could not refrain from lifting her eyes to that wonderful doll, towards the lady, as she called it. The poor child paused in amazement. She had not yet beheld that doll close to. The whole shop seemed a palace to her: the doll was not a doll; it was a vision. It was joy, splendor, riches, happiness, which appeared in a sort of chimerical halo to that unhappy little being so profoundly engulfed in gloomy and chilly misery. With the sad and innocent sagacity of childhood, Cosette measured the abyss which separated her from that doll. She said to herself that one must be a queen, or at least a princess, to have a “thing” like that. She gazed at that beautiful pink dress, that beautiful smooth hair, and she thought, “How happy that doll must be!” She could not take her eyes from that fantastic stall. The more she looked, the more dazzled she grew. She thought she was gazing at paradise. There were other dolls behind the large one, which seemed to her to be fairies and genii. The merchant, who was pacing back and forth in front of his shop, produced on her somewhat the effect of being the Eternal Father.

In this adoration she forgot everything, even the errand with which she was charged.