So, this week I am continuing to read my way through Les Mis AND I am reading my first ARC ever of a YA book called "Sykosa," which is the name of a Japanese American girl who has had some horrible tragedy befall her. The book keeps alluding to it - but, I still don't know what it is!!! The vocab is pretty easy in that one though...but, Les Mis has a few zingers in it! :) Below is a long sentence that actually forms its own paragraph, and describes one of Jean Valjean and Cosette's hide outs. It comes from page 866 of my edition of Les Miserables, as follows:
"The house, built of stone in the Mansard style, wainscoted and furnished in the Watteau style, rock-work within, peruke without, walled about with a triple hedge of flowers, had a discrete, coquettish, and solemn appearance about it, suitable to a caprice of love and magistracy."
OK! First, the house is furnished in the Watteau style...what's that? Wiki says that there was a man named Watteau who was a French painter. "He revitalized the waning Baroque style, and indeed moved it to the less severe, more naturalistic, less formally classical Rococo." So, I think this is saying that the house was furnished in the Rococo style. I found a blog called supercalifragilisticexpilidocious.wordpress.com. That is where I got this great chair pic. Please click on the link to see more over-the-top Rococo style!!
The excerpt from Les Mis also talks about "peruke." So, I looked that one up too!
Well, I looked peruke up a million places, and the definition I got was that it was one of those French 17th or 18th century wigs?!?! So, I looked up peruke architecture, but I got nothing. So, I think that this is a metaphor where Hugo is comparing the outside of the house to an ornate wig. What do you think?
