pilferingapples:

the-thrill-be-damned:

pilferingapples:

like not only did Hugo NOT get paid by the word 

NOT ONLY did Hugo’s editors beg him to please shut up

NOT ONLY do all the digressions carry core messages to the larger point of the book 

there is  ALSO a nonzero chance Hugo came up with some of the core ideas for  Les Mis under the guidance of ghosts , and sometimes comets

WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO ADVANCE THE MOST BORING POSSIBLE THEORY FOR WHY IT’S A LONG BOOK WHEN YOU COULD HAVE GHOSTS

what’s this about space rock ghosts

omg you’re gonna love this

while Victor Hugo was in exile–this started around 1853– the family’s friend Delphine Girardin introduced them all to table-tapping. Peak Spiritualism time, right?

Hugo totally fell in love with the idea, at first hoping to make contact with his dead daughter Leopoldine. Which he started to think he had! I would not laugh about that. 

But then  he started to get “messages” from all manner of ghosts and spirits, including:

-Shakespeare, now, as a spirit, finally able to access the Truest Language of Humanity (French)
-A Comet
-Andre Chenier, who dictated the ending of an “unfinished” poem that just happened to be one in a collection Hugo hadn’t finished 
– The Spirit of the Sepulchre 
– Napoleon III, From The Future, When He Was Dead 
– Jesus 
-Plato
-A Lion , Like,A Four-Legged Animal That Goes Roar, But Now Dead and Speaking French , GOD’S OWN LANGUAGE, because of course
-Aliens from Mercury
– AND MANY MANY MORE 

all speaking French and frequently speaking in RHYMED ALEXANDRINES 

all sounding remarkably like Victor Hugo, though without him apparently realizing this, given that he frequently scared himself into near-faints at these Revelations
and telling him, among other things, that he was going to be hailed as a PROPHET OF THE NEW AGE but had to accept not being Known as such for a while yet

and I will ABSOLUTELY laugh at all that, because OH HUGO  

I SWEAR I am not making this up , there are books collecting the records of the sessions, because of course he was recording these WORLD CHANGING REVELATIONS 

anyway then he got back to writing and among other things finished up Les Mis in the years to come , so SPACE ROCK GHOSTS may have had a hand in the novel! Or not!  Who can say what voices move the soul of an author?  Except that whatever they are, they speak in French.