A Little In Love by Susan Fletcher

"We all leave something behind us. A bird in flight will lose a snow-white feather, and flowers in the hedgerows will drop their petals. And people? We leave memories. Footprints in the dust and fingerprints on everything we've touched, warmth in every hand we've held. We become stories that are spoken of, for always. And in this way, we carry on."

A Little In Love tells the story of the character, Eponine Thenardier from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Fletcher's story is loosely based on the events in the novel, although they occur in a somewhat different manner. The character of Eponine is one of the more popular in both the novel and the various musicals performed in recent years. She is often considered Hugo's most interesting.

The novel opens on the Rue de la Chanvrerie. It is June 5, 1832. Eponine lies in front of the barricades, having been shot in an attempt to save Marius from being shot.  With blood everywhere, she knows she is dying. She's remembering Marius and the first time she saw him. She's also remembering her childhood in Montfermeil, a small village outside of Paris.

Eponine was born in 1815 in a hayfield to Madame Thenardier while her father Luc fought in the Battle of Waterloo. Because Eponine's mother preferred girls she decided to keep the baby.  When her father returned home from war he was rich off the money and items he plundered from the dead. With that money her parents bought the damp inn on the ruelle du Boulanger in Montfermeil, naming it the Sergeant of Waterloo.

A sister, Azelma is born, soon after. Eponine is protective of her younger sister.  She loves to watch the rain from her bedroom window because rain meant their inn would be full of customers and offer a chance for her parents to get rich. Eponine's mother would send her to the main room to rob their patrons who would not suspect a small child of picking pockets.  When Eponine would return with jewelry, coins and  rings her mother would tell her she loved her.

The Thenardiers soon take in a young girl named Cosette whose mother pays for them to care for her daughter. Cosette is a beautiful little girl with blonde hair who believes that her mother will one day return for her when she has enough money. Feeling sorry for Cosette, Eponine places her in her and Azelma's bed. However, her mother is furious at her for doing this and orders Cosette to sleep under the stairs. Madame Thenardier tells Eponine that they will use the money from Cosette's mother to pay for nice dresses and meat while Cosette will wear rags and eat crusts.

Cosette's life is very hard as she does all the dirty, hard jobs: plucking chickens, scrubbing vegetables, cleaning windows and washing the floors. Eponine tries to be kind to Cosette but her mother tells her kindness will not help her in life. Because of this Eponine decides to be cruel to Cosette. After a trip to Paris by her mother, Eponine is given a new petticoat and a white fur muff, while Azelma receives a cape with green velvet trim. Eventually their money runs out, Cosette's mother stops sending the Thenardiers money and they must return to thieving as a means of living. Eponine steals too, because she wants to make her mother happy. However, Cosette makes Eponine feel guilty for stealing from a blind man.

When Eponine is eight years old, Madame Thenardier gives birth to a boy whom she immediately abandons. Eponine with the help of Cosette care for him and he is eventually named Gavroche. At Christmas 1823 a strange man wearing a yellow jacket comes to the inn. When Madame Thenardier is cruel to Cosette, this man whose name is Jean Valjean, intercedes for her and buys her the expensive doll Azelma desperately wanted from the stall in town. He stays at the inn and buys Cosette from the Thenardiers on Christmas Day, taking her away. Eponine is jealous and sad because she knows Cosette has been saved and will lead a comfortable life with someone who loves her.

By spring the Thenardiers are destitute once again and Eponine and Azelma are forced to steal. Everytime she steals, Eponine tries to do something good to appease her conscience. However, life for Eponine only gets harder when her father murders a man and the Thenardiers are forced to flee Montfermeil and head to Paris. The journey is exhausting and cold, with the family hiding in ditches along the way. They eventually find a boat, repair it and drift downriver towards Paris. However, Gavroche is left behind, much to the horror of Eponine.

In Paris, the Thenardiers stay with Monsieur Thenardier's friend, Babet on the rue de la Charcuterie. Eponine is now fifteen years old. Although the area where she lives is poor, she soon discovers the Paris of her dreams. "The houses were grander than any I'd ever seen and the shops sold wonderful things -- soap, flowers, china, sugared confectionary laid out like stars. As for the men, they wore top hats and had neat mustaches, and the ladies wore white curled wigs with their skirts rustling behind them..." However, fourteen-year-old Azelma likes the dark side of Paris, the alleyways and the stealing. Madame Thenardier loves the gang of clever thieves called Patron Minette, consisting of Babet, the enormous Gueulemer, the mute Claquesous, and Montparness who is young and well dressed. The Patron Minette ruled the Paris underworld. In order to escape the terrible house on rue de la Charcuterie, Eponine steals continuously. A key Eponine finds leads her father to rob a wealthy home allowing the Thenardiers to move to the Gorbeau tenement.

However, they continue to live in dire poverty. This leads Monsieur Thenardier to decide to write letters to wealthy Parisians begging for money. Eponine and Azelma go to the rue de Rivoli where they use the letters to solicit money. There Eponine meets Montparnasse whom she dislikes intensely. Fleeing from the troubling encounter with Montparnasse, Eponine runs into a handsome young man back at the Gorbeau. She learns from Madame Bourgon, who runs the tenement, that the man's name is Marius Pontmercy who rents Room four. It is this encounter that changes Eponine's destiny forever.

Discussion

In A Little In Love, Fletcher portrays Eponine as a girl whose basic character is good but because of her circumstances, often finds herself drawn into a life of thieving. This sets up an enormous source of conflict in Eponine's life which she must resolve. At first Eponine steals because it is what she's been taught from birth. "Before I could even talk, my mother taught me. When I was still a baby she showed me how to grasp a lady's collar and, like this, steal her diamond brooch. She told me to smile so that passersby paused to say, 'What a pretty baby!' "

Eponine soon recognizes that she is only praised and loved by her mother when she steals. Her mother tells her "How I love you when you bring me such gifts! When you steal so well!" Eponine longs to simply be loved by her mother as her daughter. This becomes even more apparent to Eponine when she sees how Cosette's mother loves her. "My sadness sat in my heart like a pebble -- hard and sore...It was that long, tight hug that Cosette's mother had given her, the way she'd pressed her face into the place between Cosette's neck and shoulders..." Eponine knows she is only "called pretty when I'd stolen things."

When Eponine wants to be kind to Cosette her mother tells her, "Kindness is a useless thing. Useless! Do you think that kindness stops the guillotine's blade or the gnaw of hunger in a belly...It is the kind people who are tricked and fooled and stolen from! It's the kind ones who are murdered..." This results in Eponine acting cruelly towards Cosette in an attempt to win her mother's "love" and it also leads to Eponine to focus on stealing to win that approval from her mother. However, when she steals the blind man's wedding ring, Cosette's surprise at Eponine's cruelty only serves to prick her conscience and she feels shame over what she's done. So she promises herself that she will go one day to Paris to find love and to stop stealing.

Once in Paris things worsen because her family becomes involved with a gang of thieves. While the rest of her family admires the gang, Patron Minette, Eponine realizes that "I ached for something else. For something good." Eponine continues to struggle with her deep desire to live a good life in the face of extreme poverty and while living with a family made up of disreputable characters who place no value on honesty. This is particularly demonstrated when Eponine meets Montparnasse who is the youngest member of the Patron Minette. Eponine asks Montparnasse if he wishes for something better asking him, "Don't you ever want to live a kinder life?"

Eponine hopes to believe in something higher.
"All I wanted was to believe in better, just a bit. A little light and love and hope. I wanted to shake Montparnasse, to shout out that his heart might be missing but mine was still beating, and my conscience was beating too...How could he ever be happy, murdering?" But Montparnasse has been made hard by poverty and injustice. He tells her that kindness will only make her poorer. Just when she's lost hope in the ideals of love and beauty she meets Marius.

When Marius gives Eponine a five franc coin, Eponine's family can't comprehend his action. "He must be a proper fool, that boy," said Papa." But Eponine recognizes his action for what it is - an act of kindness. With the five franc coin, Eponine's family is able to eat well for weeks, proving to her that kindness does matter. It is her love for Marius and the death of her mother that motivates Eponine in the end to "...do all the good, kind acts I've ever wanted to. I won't steal. I won't lie. I 'll make people's lives better whenever I can manage it. And I'll never, ever do cruel things again." Eponine becomes determined to make amends for the harm she's done to Marius, Cosette and Jean Valjean even if it costs her everything she has. Her acts of kindness in locating Marius for Cosette and bringing the two of them together also serve to demonstrate that kindness matters.

The novel's themes of redemption and forgiveness play out in the final scenes of the story between Eponine and Cosette, and between Eponine and Marius. In both cases Eponine asks the forgiveness of Cosette and Marius, bringing her peace and foreshadowing her death.

Fletcher does an admirable job of portraying life in France after the Napoleonic Wars and the French Revolution. After the Napoleonic Wars, France became a monarchy once again with the return of the brothers of King Louis XVI. This became known as the Bourbon Restoration and lasted until1830. While there were some positive changes out of the revolution, France continued to be plagued by widespread poverty, unrest and cholera outbreaks. The Thenardier family demonstrate the effect of poverty on families and on society in general, making them vulnerable to disease and crime.

Fletcher's novel takes its title from a line in Les Miserables where Eponine mentions that she was "a little in love" with Marius. This novel has a wonderful cover, the title letters in the tricolours of the republic. A Little In Love is a dark novel whose themes of kindness, redemption and forgiveness balance out the dark characters who live for only themselves. Fans of the musical, Les Miserables will enjoy this novel. Those who have never heard of Victor Hugo's story nor the musical which is based on the classic novel will enjoy this historical novel of unrequited love set in post revolutionary France.

Book Details:

A Little in Love by Susan E. Fletcher
New York: Chicken House 2015
227 pp.

Movie Review: Les Miserables

One of the most anticipated movies in 2012 was the musical drama, Les Miserables which is based on Victor Hugo's novel of the same title. First published in 1862, the novel is a story about the redemption of a man, Jean Valjean, convicted for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's starving family. Valjean is sentenced to five years of hard labour for the theft and another fourteen years for attempting to escape.

In this musical adaptation of the novel, the story begins in the year of 1815 when Valjean has been released from prison but must carry with him at all times, papers identifying himself as an ex-convict. Bitter and railing against God, Valjean tries to find work only to be repeatedly turned away. Arriving in the village of Digne, hungry and exhausted, Valjean is taken in by Bishop Myriel who invites him to supper and offers him a clean bed. During the night, Valjean steals the good bishop's silverware and leaves, only to be caught by the police. When they inform the bishop that Valjean has robbed him of his silverware, Bishop Myriel tells the police that in fact, he gave Valjean the silver as a gift. After the police leave, Myriel tells Valjean that he has been given a second chance and to become an honest man.

Valjean manages to reinvent himself as Monsieur Madelaine, a wealthy factory owner who is also Mayor of the small village where he lives. In his factory he employs Fantine, who is a single mother working to pay for the care of her daughter, Cosette. Cosette lives with Madame and Monsieur Thenardier who use her as a slave. When gossip about Fantine being single with a child surfaces, she is thrown out of Monseiur Madelaine's factory by his foreman without his knowledge.


At this point Inspector Jalvert, a fanatical and rigid police inspector comes to Montreuil sur Mer. Jalvert was a guard when Valjean served his time and he remembers the ex-convict for his amazing strength. Valjean has simply vanished and Jalvert has not been able to find any trace of him for the past six years. At first he thinks he recognizes Madelaine as Valjean, but quickly apologizes when Madelaine appears upset. However, when a worker named Fauchelevant becomes trapped under the wheels of a heavy cart and Madelaine frees him, Jalvert, witnessing this show of strength, is certain that Monsieur Madelaine is in fact, the missing Valjean.

Meanwhile, Fantine, who is without any means to support herself or her child, turns to prostitution. When she assaults a man who has come to use a prostitute, Jalvert tries to arrest her but is prevented from doing so by Monseiur Madelaine. Upon learning how she came to work on the streets, Madelaine takes her to the nuns to be cared for and promises to find her daughter Cosette and take care of her.

At this point Jalvert confronts Valjean and tells him that he has reported his whereabouts and identity to the police but that he realizes that he must be in error because the authorities have arrested a man whom they claim is the real Jean Valjean. Monsieur Madelaine decides he cannot allow an innocent man to suffer and he travels to the trial to reveal that he is the real Jean Valjean.

Fantine dies without seeing her daughter Cosette, and Jalvert confronts Valjean in the hospital. Valjean asks Jalvert to give him three days to locate Cosette and jumps out of window into the water, escaping. Days later he manages to locate Cosette while she is in the woods getting water. Valjean takes Cosette from the Thenardiers and they move to Paris and go into hiding. They are happy for some time until one day Jalvert discovers their hiding place. With the help of Fauchelevant a gardener at the convent of Petit-Picpus, they flee into hiding at the convent. Cosette grows up in the safety of the convent.

Eight years later, revolution is now brewing in Paris. French students have organized to begin another revolution and one of the students involved in Marius Pontmercy, who lives with his wealthy grandfather, Monsieur Gillenormand. One day while walking in Paris, Marius sees Cosette, and is instantly infatuated with her. When she vanishes from sight after an altercation with the Thenardier's who are now destitute and living in Paris, Marius asks his friend, Eponine, who loves him, to find out where Cosette lives.

Cosette and Marius meet at the entrance to her home at Rue Plumet but when Jalvert also discovers where they are living, Valjean decides that he and Cosette must flee to Britain. Cosette manages to get a note to Marius, who is now in the middle of planning to set up barricades throughout Paris as the launch to the revolution.

As the revolt begins, Marius and the leader of the revolt, Enjolras manage at first to keep the soldiers at bay. Jalvert has infiltrated the revolution but when he returns from a trip outside the barricades, Gavroche tells the revolutionaries that he is really a soldier. Jalvert is taken aside to be executed but Valjean, who has learned of Cosette's love for Marius and has come to take him with them to England, tells Enjolras he will deal with him. Instead, Valjean refuses to murder Jalvert, sets him free, and tells him that he no longer hates him. In reply, Jalvert says he will continue to hunt down Valjean to the very end and bring him to justice saying, once a thief, always a thief.

When the barricades are rushed in one final attack, Marius is seriously wounded. Valjean, rescues him, carrying him through the sewers of Paris, to his grandfather's home where he is tended. Meanwhile Jalvert cannot abide the fact that he is in debt to a thief and he commits suicide. As Marius heals, Valjean realizes that he cannot hold onto Cosette forever. He gives his blessing for their marriage. Valjean retreats to the convent where he eventually dies. Cosette and Marius visit him just before his death and Fantine returns as a spirit to take him to heaven. Les Miserables ends with a rousing version of "Do you hear the people sing?" which includes all the cast, and provides a spectacular finale to the movie.

Discussion

Unlike the musicals produced by Rogers and Hammerstein in the 1950's and '60's, in which the music we hear during the film is polished vocals recorded in a studio prior to filming, the actors in Les Miserables sing on camera. Instead of miming their singing during filming, in Les Miserables, the actors gave live performances on camera while using an ear piece which allowed them to hear a piano played offstage. This allowed the cast to concentrate on their acting, capturing the emotions of the moment in the vocal performance and works very well, even though not all of the actors in the film are strong vocalists. Another way in which this musical is different from say The Sound of Music or Oklahoma is that the film is sung through with very little added dialogue.

There are many excellent vocal performances by broadway veteran, Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean, by Anne Hathaway as Fantine, Amanda Seyfried as Cosette, Eddie Redmayne as Marius, and Daniel Huttlestone as Gavroche.

Jackman brilliantly transitions from the gaunt, angry ex-convict to the sacrificial, heroic Monsieur Madelaine. Anne Hathaway's performance of I dreamed a dream is unforgettable - deeply moving, easily conveying the profoundly tragic situation of Fantine. Redmayne with his rich vocals was absolutely superb as Marius, a revolutionary in love with Cosette.

Russell Crowe is physically well cast as Jalvert, with his imposing physique, but his vocal performance is only adequate. His singing simply lacks the power one might expect from the character of Jalvert. Daniel Huttlestone is wonderful as Gavroche, his singing fresh and his performance, endearing. Both Helen Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen come within a hairs breadth of stealing the show with their comedic portrayal of the thieving, conniving Thenardiers. They provide the much needed comic relief in the movie especially with their hilariously ribald rendition of "Master of the House". And who knew Sasha Baron Cohen could sing?!

The cinematography in the movie offers incredible camera shots of the moon in the night scenes. When Valjean is released and is walking through the countryside at night, the moon glowing down upon him serves to emphasize his isolation and hopelessness. When Jalvert stands on the ramparts and sings "Stars" under the glow of a brilliant moon we sense his intensity and determination. However, in some scenes, the extreme close-ups of certain characters while they were singing is off-putting. A good example is when Eddie Redmayne sings "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" - a poignant ballad expressing his longing for Cosette, but somewhat marred by the close camera.

This musical offers several nods to the Broadway version of Les Miserables. The death of Enjolras in this version is similar to that in the play; he is shot and falls backwards out the window hanging upside down. The barricades constructed by the revolutionaries are also almost identical to those in the stage production.  One enjoyable and rather humorous scene was that of all types of furniture being thrown out of windows as the students call for help in constructing the barricades.

Directed by Tom Hooper, Les Miserables was filmed on location in France and England and also at Pinewood Studios. Overall, Les Miserables is a wonderful production that effectively tells the story and conveys the some of the many themes of the novel including those of forgiveness, redemption, sacrificial love, justice, and mercy.