Alas, poor Valjean!

The Panthéon, on 35mm

The Panthéon sits on a hill facing north, its sheer strength and grandiose size act like a guide for all who are lost. It stands as a beautiful example of uniquely Neoclassical architecture with Roman style (not to be confused with romanesque) domes and Greek appearing columns. As you step in you're greeted with its massive ceilings that make you feel small but, in some strange way, important. Inscribed above the entrance high above your head you notice the passage “Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante,” meaning “To the great men, the grateful homeland.”

The Panthéon, on 35mm

Victor Hugo is buried just below the limestone I stand on, stuck down there with some of France’s most prominent writers and thinkers. Fitting that he should be immortalized here. Hugo gave many things to France, but to this city he gave it its lore. To really understand what Hugo wrote about you cannot simply stand in grand sun-filled domes. You need to get down below the earth, below the metro, below the sewer.

A slow and endless corkscrew of spiral stairs greets you as you enter. You can feel the temperature drop with every step as you descend, slowly departing the world of the living. The damp stale air doesn't particularly stand out until it's too late, and suddenly it has taken full control of the room that surrounds you. Endless stretches of vast tunnels shoot off in every direction. I couldn't help but imagine how at least one poor soul over the last 200 years must have gotten lost down here before slowly withering away and being completely lost to the wretched bowls of this city.

Finally, you arrive. The expansive halls of a long-gone limestone mine serve as the only buffer between the beautiful city and the empire of the dead. When you finally enter the ossuary it's jarring no matter how mentally prepared you are. Centuries of Parisianas stacked in geometric forms, reduced to no more than simple masonwork. These are the nameless poor that Hugo wrote about, the ones he had a soft spot in his heart for. These were the people that served on Valjean's chain-gang, the ones cast from society into poverty, and the ones that had died a not-so-glorious death at the barricade. In fact, there were even a few stacks of bones labeled from specific battles and uprisings from the revolution of ‘79. Some of the only people to have been buried directly into the catacombs and not exhumed from a previous location. These heroes of the city were reserved as much honor as the city could afford them at that time – one wall and a single memorial for them all.

I didn't expect the catacombs to have such a moving effect on me, but as I hinted at, there's nothing quite like them, and no way to truly prepare for it. Another subterranean place that we visited, different but just as wretched in its own way, was the Paris Sewer Museum. Indeed while these tunnels are just as jarring to the physical senses, they are a lighter weight on the mind, and actually tie directly into our novel Les Misèrables, in a substantial manner. It was these sewers of Paris that Hugo uses as the setting for Valjean’s heroic rescue of Marius. As chaos erupts above ground at the barricade, Valjean takes the opportunity to grab Marius’s unconscious body and escape to the safety of this underworld.

This is an extremely important scene, but to really understand the gravity of it you need to see the metaphor Hugo is trying to paint for us. Hugo writes his book about the poor of an indifferent system, the ‘wretched’ of the world. Although some characters are sacrificed to this system and the darkness that abounds (notably Fantine and Gavroche), the overarching story is one of redemption and ascension. It's about fighting through the all-consuming darkness with every step and emerging into the daylight.

The sewers are Hugo’s metaphor for the underworld that he so vividly unpacks throughout the novel. The grimy part of the city that nobody wants to see, or indeed even ever thinks about, but without which the city above could not survive. This sewer scene is Valjean's final redemption, the completion of his character arc from sinner to saint. Now that you know this I don't have to worry about judgment when I try to describe the grandiose sense of inspiration I felt deep within me as I stood around inspecting the walls of a stinky sewer for one of Europe's largest cities. On the surface (pun intended) these dark tunnels should not compare to the Panthéonn at all and yet, they do. Without them the Panthéon wouldn't exist at all.

We emerged from the sewer the same way I imagine our characters did, with watery eyes and a burning in the lungs. Funnily enough Paris’s sewer museum is very close to the location our characters would have surfaced as well, just on the opposite bank of the Seine. Cross that river and head just up the road and you’d find yourself at the site of the old barricade.

The unassuming location of the barrier

That one was also a favorite location of mine that we had visited. A quiet road connecting a bustling mall and cute plaza sits, almost nameless, as the location for the climax for our novel (if there truly even is one). You could never tell now, but here is where the impromptu wall between defiance and despair was erected all the way back in 1789. No, was it 1793? No that’s not right either, 1830? Shit, 1832.

France is known for its long – turbulent – history, especially in regards to revolution. Hugo lived through most of it and watched it with his own eyes, over and over again. Although this could sap most people of their strength and hope entirely, it had a seemingly opposite effect on Hugo. He witnessed all of these things, the horror, and the beauty, and the love, and the light, and the darkness, and the defiance. He simultaneously watched barricades erected high above ground, reaching up towards the heavens, while reconciling it with the stacks of nameless bones buried deep below the same soil. He recognized more than most that the story of Paris is one of layers. The glory and the grief remain inseparable, and perhaps that is a good thing?

“I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited”

— Jorge Luis Borges

Walking away from the barricade that day I reflected on my own path, both through this city, and my life at large. How so many things have mirrored our novel, the recurring themes, and this inevitable battle of good vs evil. My strong moral compass has perhaps been the single greatest source of pride in my life. I have held it in the highest regard. Now, after four weeks, multiple countries, and two profound novels, I question even that as I return to my own path. My path, a seemingly endless expanse of a road that is simultaneously inspiring and terrifying. However, I take comfort that I am staring down it through a new lens, perhaps even with a new set of eyes entirely. My time in this class, and on this journey, has had a profound impact on how I see the world, and how I will continue to move through it. I have gathered more inspiration than I could have ever expected, and look forward to capitalizing on it upon my return home. Thank you to all who took the time to read and follow along on my journey, to my new friends I've made along the way, and to our outstanding professor for organizing such a wonderful journey. See you all back in Los Angeles.

An Afternoon at the Existential Café

Café de Flor, on 35mm

“If I had to write a book on morality, it would have a hundred pages and ninety-nine would be blank. On the last page I should write: ‘I recognize only one duty, and that is to love’”

— Albert Camus

When did the day start? When the clock struck midnight? When the sun finally peaked over the Parisian skyline? Perhaps it started when I officially rolled out of bed? Certainly that’s not the case, for my day doesn't start until I’ve had my first cup of coffee, at least.

A sketch by Eugène Delacroix, in his home now turned museum

Whatever, to hell with the question and the entirety of the socratic method, I was never good at all the existential stuff anyways. I’m good at asking questions, but I’m even better at answering them. That's why I was never cut out to be a philosopher, the philosophical loop of thinking yourself into a hole (or, if you're Nietzsche, into an asylum) just doesn't cut it for me. This is quite ironic, though, since philosophy is a big part of my major and since philosophy was inherently responsible for dragging me back into academia.

Parisian alley that leads to a passage in St-Germain, on 35mm

Credit where credit is due, philosophy wasn't the only thing calling me back, just the most prominent. During my time in service I acquired a peculiar taste of inspiration through the humanities at large – philosophy, history, literature, art, poetry, the list continues. You really have to try to cultivate inspiration when you’re in a desert thousands of miles away from everything you love. All of this to say that Paris was inevitable. At this chapter in my life I can say I've loved Paris for years, but this trip was different. From the novels we read before arriving, to the essential museums (Louvre and Orsay at a minimum), to the of houses of Victor Hugo and Eugène Delacroix, and the Bohemia that floats in the air of Pigalle, and of course the art Nouveau ornamenting every street corner… to finally, the café district of St Germain. This time Paris truly captivated my imagination.

Back to the question at hand, I was on my third cup of coffee so the day was in full swing by any metric. All great parisian stories start or end at a cafe. There I sat on the sunny street corner just below the big bold letters “Café de Flor,” the café of the existentialist. My favorite philosopher, Albert Camus, French-Algerian by birth but Parisian by raw spirit, used to frequent this very café. His origins lay in existentialism before developing his own philosophy, absurdism. There is an abundance of stories of long lost days, stories of him and the existential gang loitering with nothing in mind but coffee, debating, and philosophizing (at that rate, everything was probably on their mind). Camus had undoubtedly proven Jean Paul-Satre wrong many-a-time below this very ceiling, and that made me crack a smile as I recalled it. I was following in his footsteps, trying to put myself in his shoes, indeed that is what bookpacking is all about. So I was happy to do it on my afternoon off, especially for a person who was so influential in my life and way of thought.

Camus never expected the world to make sense – in fact he knew it never would. Yet through it all he still showed up, he still stood tall. He wrote, he fought, he loved. I can say with pure honesty that his idea of a quiet, daily defiance is one that has resonated with me through both of the darkest and brightest chapters of my life.

It was absurd, how good the climate was. A light breeze and open sky are perfect conditions to let the mind wander. However, I hadn't come here to think, I had come here to enjoy my time, to soak up the atmosphere. No deadline, no agenda, no place to be. In fact, I didn't hardly think at all. Instead, I spent my time partaking in the national pastime of France: people watching. Quietly I sat alone at the small round table with a fresh cup of coffee and relished being the only audience member in the performing arts center that is Bd Saint-Germain. My own little church of the absurd right off of the street.

I took my time with my sandwich when it finally arrived. Good but overpriced, just as most all nice things are these days, besides feelings. At least feelings remain free of charge I thought. I paid my bill and headed east with no particular plan or urgency. Along my route I passed Hemingway's favorite café, Les Deux Magots. Another one of my most profound inspirations, a man who didn't even try to write, he just bleed from the fingertips with it. Most of my inspirations, unfortunately, are of that counter culture, bohemian, beat style. I wish I could articulate why that’s the case but all I know is that I find comfort in the work of those types. To my mothers horror I have always been drawn to the edges of either comfort or chaos.

Hemingways Café, on 35mm

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

— Ernest Hemingway

I continued leisurely on my journey. I was a flâneur, a uniquely Parisian style of loitering, loitering beautifully. Shamelessly wandering through the maze of streets, observing whatever the city is graceful enough to bless you with. It's not particularly about where you go or what you see, just how it all makes you feel. It was what Edmund White coined as an “eminently Parisian compromise between laziness and activity.” My goal was to seek inspiration without seeking at all – just by walking and paying attention. The streets of Paris ask no questions, so neither did I.

I wandered through cramped alleys, tree-lined boulevards, and even a passage. I truly believe this city will let you in if you just walk slow enough. The Seine glittered as the pigeons scurried along. The old limestone buildings let out their deep and everlasting hum that I was oh-so-familiar with. I passed museums and bookstores and restaurants and trinketshops. I was enthralled by the inexhaustible variety of life that this city offered me.

The Seine, on 35mm

Finally, I looked up and found myself at the Sorbonne, Paris’s premiere university. After such a long walk of taking it all in it suddenly hit me. I could see myself, not as I am, but as I could have been. A young bright-eyed, bushy-tailed flâneur, one with calloused hands and a soft heart. Confidently and slightly drunkenly giving a sermon on left-wing ideology to a table of unimpressed peers at Café de Flor. Sloppily scribbling groundbreaking thoughts into bar napkins and arguing the realities of a revolution with some philosophy dropout who occasionally sells weed behind the Panthéon. Breaking down Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus again just because I had too much coffee – again. I could see myself checking the time mid-sermon and realizing, shit, I'm late. With a single movement throwing my cash down on the table and dashing out the door and down the boulevard like a mad man, toward the Sorbonne, trying to make it in time for my Art History II lecture on Dadaism. Nothing on my person but an empty wallet, a full head, and a notebook that was somewhere in between.

This city reminds me I am not alone in asking many of my questions. For centuries now great minds have walked these same streets, stared out these same windows, and sat in the same absurd theatre. All drawing the same conclusion: None of this matters, which is why all of it matters.

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”

— James Baldwin, Giovani's Room

I didn't come here looking for a place, I came looking for a condition, funnily enough though I didn't know that until I finally found it. The first time I came as a flâner, and this time as a student. Both times I knew something was waiting for me, and now I've finally put my finger on it.

Paris is more than just a location to me, it's a state of being. I've found my own backstreets and dark corners that make it mine. Even with my outspoken nature and passion for rebellion, this city has room for me. Camus found a crack in the facade that is the world and it led him here, perhaps I’ve found the same one, just decades later.

This was our theatre of the absurd, our little secret.

Parisian metro, on 35mm

Paris by Mornin’... Up From Barcelon?

London Train Station in the morning fog!

As it would happen, it was another Sunday. This Sunday, however, was different. It was 08:00 on a rainy monstrosity of a morning, and tensions were high as the members of our small class struggled to haul bags around and locate each other in the chaos of the bustling London train station. Eventually, and rather quickly, we gained our bearings and rendezvoused just in time to catch our morning train to Paris, our final destination. It felt like something out of the opening chapters of our Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities. The same damp uneasiness of travel and thick fog of uncertainty hung in the air as we soon too would be the travelers in that dark Dover mail coach.

The entire class was antsy but excited for our main destination. Rightfully so. Not only is Paris a city of literary and historical significance (i.e. both of our books!), but it’s also the city of love and light, of dreams and midnight kisses, of cafés and conversation, of painters, poets, philosophy, style, secrets – and of course, revolution!

Although I’d been to Paris before during my post-service ex-patriate era (2023), I was just as eager to get back to her as everyone else was to discover her. After all, Paris is unequivocally my favorite city in the world. She’s like New York in the sense that every time you arrive you may as well arriving for the very first time. But this time was more special than most – I was excited to explore the dark corners of the city that Dickens so vividly described in the novel. From the site of the horrifying Bastille, to the intersection where the Defarges’ wine shop once stood (Rue de Sévigné & Rue de Rivoli), to the infamous Rue Saint-Honoré that once led straight to the guillotine.

Indeed for these reasons I was shocked to be stopped at the French customs and border patrol checkpoint still within the London train station. As I watched my classmates pass through without issue the officers decided it was worth it to hold me, of all people, at the border for some reason unbeknownst to me. As it would come out, they decided my passport was invalid as it was too close to its expiration date. French bureaucracy doing what it does best: wasting its goddamn time.

My emergency passport that would help me along the road

I was afforded the liberty to call my professor up, hoping he could use whatever French he had along with pure persuasion and pull some strings as a Dr. Manette sort of character. He returned from the train’s platform to meet me at the place they so rudely had me detained but, unfortunately, as they explained the issue to us both and I realized he would not have the same pull as the doctor did in the book. I shook his hand and sent him on his way back to the class with the departing words “I guess I’ll be seeing you in Paris tomorrow” The professor gave me a hopeful nod of agreement before the French officer took it upon himself to elaborate “No, you will not be entering France anytime soon!” After which we locked eyes again and he gave me an even more thorough nod, one that conveyed his exact thoughts: “Good luck, I know I can't stop you from trying.”

Fast forward eight hours and, with my emergency passport in hand (courtesy of the American Consulate in London), I was landing in Barcelona officially and in the EU. My new passport worked for most of the Schengen area, just not France. The objective was clear: enter mainland Europe legally and proceed to smuggle myself into France, legally. Should be easy enough, I’m half Mexican afterall… plus this was a border, and borders are meant to be crossed, right?

American Embassy in London

By 22:00 I was climbing aboard a red-eye bus headed to Paris. A fifteen-hour clandestine operation straight through a sleeping continent under the cover of night. If all went well I'd be enjoying a croque madame with my class by lunch. If the plan failed, It’d mean another unnecessary detention followed by a deportation straight back to the states. There was no margin for error. The Scheguen area is known for free trade and lax borders, but a quick search online showed that due to heightened tensions, notably Russias invasion of Ukaraine and Israels genocide in Gaza (Free Palestine!), France had indeed begun implementing 100% routine border checks.

Depiction of Darnay being questioned by revolutionaries

The bus was sleepy but I was not – every turn, every slowdown, every toll booth felt like they would be a border checkpoint and the end of the line for my impromptu adventure. One wrong turn and I would be left alone on the side of that dark road staring at the French border. One checkpoint and I would vanish from my class just as Dr. Monette had, swallowed by an indifferent system that offered no warning.

Somewhere between midnight and the Pyrenees and I recalled my trusty ally Darnay. When Darnay returns to France during the height of the French revolution (1792) he does so using his real name, hopeful that the authenticity of his purpose and the weight of his last name will protect him. Come to find out it doesn't, which scares me even more, since I only had half of such a compelling argument.

“Every town gate and village taxing-house had its band of citizen-patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state of readiness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross questioned them, inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own, turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them in hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death.”

I was in, and in deep. Once I was in Barcelona it certainly felt like there was no going back. If that wasn't the case, however, it was certainly true once I boarded the bus. Just as Darney, I could see those metaphoric iron doors closing behind me as I progressed on my unconventional journey towards Paris.

““Whatever might befall now, he must go on to his journey’s end. Not a mean village closed upon him, not a common barrier dropped across the road behind him, but he knew it to be another iron door in the series that was barred between him and England. The universal watchfulness so encompassed him, that if he had been taken in a net, or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he could not have felt his freedom more completely gone.”
”

— Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

A street sign I encountered in Orléans

Thankfully, I was much more lucky than my old friend Darnay. While he was arrested, and subsequently imprisoned, I had the luxury of dozing off on my bumpy ride before waking up near Orléans, just outside of Paris. A 15 hour bus ride is enough to drive any man mad, but I was lucky to get some sleep and not wake up in jail.

“They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the night, and then they rode forward again when all the town was asleep… Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris”

By noon I was checking into my student lodging, and had just enough time to grab a quick bite before meeting my friends for the afternoon portion of our class – meaning that through the entire ordeal of (i)llegally sneaking into France I had only missed a single 2 hour lecture. Not bad at all. That afternoon we walked past the old site of La Forge, the very prison which Darnay is condemned to after his unsuccessful attempt of doing the exact same thing I did. As we left the site of the archaic institution I lit up a cigarette, and thought back to the French bureaucracy, and bureaucracy at large. How it wasted its time, since I still got in, and how most of them generally do the same. How such lifeless devotion to arbitrary rules and blind devotion to black and white systems rarely actually do what they're supposed to. I recalled the mindless guards in the book and, notably, Madame Defarge. Maybe sometimes rules are meant to be broken, I thought.

My own photo of the Tour Eiffel after a long but successful journey, shot on 35mm, Portra 400

Borders With the Appearance of Walls

It was a quaint and unsuspecting Sunday evening, the perfect time for an infiltration. Never in a million years did a halfbreed from across the world think he could find himself inside an institution built for London’s old money, a place that once ruled the world through night and day (after all, the sun never sets on the British empire). My father had grown up poor, and not just poor, but poor poor. The idea of his childhood home lacking running water and brandishing an outhouse out back felt worlds away from the silver and gold ornamented bathrooms of the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) – because it was.

Yet here I sat on a windy Sunday drinking an £8 pint in the terrace of a club where international deal-making regularly takes place. To say I “infiltrated” the RAC doesn't do it justice. It wasn't a break in, it was quiet, calculated. Hell, I even bought a brand new pair of leather shoes just to fit the part. But, rightfully so… Here, it would appear that even the pigeons remained on their best behavior in the presence of such nobility. Aggressive? No. Anxious? Yes. Restless? Surely. But just as this whole city works, they knew their place. Patiently they waited atop fresh trimmed bushes, never stepping out of line, never daring to interrupt. Silently, orderly they awaited their chance to pick at what scraps remained on the plates once the aristocrats had finished their lavish meals and retired back into the safety of the club. Once the chance presented itself they sprung like the wild animals they were conditioned to be, vigorously pecking at the crumbs; vigorously slurping the spilled wine up off of the cobblestone streets. Dickens exemplified this hierarchy in his novel A Tale of Two Cities, it was seemingly how this city, his society at large, functioned. 

“In the city they say you’re never more than 6 feet away from a rat – I argue this rings more true for pigeons, for I rarely see a pigeon that can’t scale a wall. After all, in London you’re never more than six feet from a pigeon, no matter how large your trust fund is. ”

In reality pigeons have no concern for walls, and that should make sense; for these are walls you can’t touch. They are non-existent. They are made of manners, accents, and designer shoes. Physical? No. Rigid? Yes. Enforced? Surely. They are simultaneously there and not there, simultaneously infiltratable and not. The RAC felt like a contemporary projection of Telson’s bank: archaic in its style of clinging to a long gone system and pre-established order. Indeed it did feel “very small, very dark, and very ugly,” morally at least. A place frozen in time, an echo of an outdated caste system that is more concerned about the familiarity of your last name, the color of your skin, and, of course, the amount of commas in your bank account. Sadly, as mentioned, this order wasn't established or even particularly exclusive to the RAC. No, it was expansive across the city, a city built of borders that appear as walls. This was the sick genius behind London’s ancient order, their ability to mask the hierarchy behind politeness. Courteous enough to not bar anyone from entering these places, but firm enough to ensure you know you will never get in. Borders are something that are meant to be crossed — walls are not. 

In his book Dickens highlights a pure-hearted French aristocrat as a protagonist. Darney – a man from exorbitant wealth that willingly and purposefully rejects this established order. He goes out of his way to shed anything that associated him with this system of privilege; his title, his family, even his last name. He chooses to infiltrate the working class looking for meaning in the pure and mundane. He wishes to earn what he has, and to be judged by his character, not his last name. I have this noble image of him in my head, taking one last stoic look back as he stands atop that strong wall, before finally throwing his rope down the other side and beginning his descent. 

Meanwhile, while he infiltrates the working class, I am still on my mission to see what's on the other side of that wall as well. I've spent my life scaling that wall that Darney so wilfully repels down. After all, I knew the RAC didn't have anything so important that it would change my life. Did I need entry? No. Did I want it? Yes. Was I going to get it? Surely. In reality I hate fancy cigars and old whiskey (cheap tequilla and barefoot on a beach is more than enough for me). I wasn't scaling this wall for the power, or the money, or the prestige. I was scaling it to prove that it could be done – to see how it would seemingly dissolve once I reached the top. It takes a lifetime to build a ladder strong enough to reach the top of that wall, but it only takes a simple rope to descend it, to descend back into the ordinary. So as it would happen, on my way up that wall I pass Darney. Him descending his rope, me scaling my ladder. We lock eyes, exchange a silent nod, and then proceed in our directions respectfully. The kind of nod that says everything while saying nothing, the kind that says “I have to do this for reasons only I understand.” The same kind of nod I gave the concierge at the RAC on my way in. The only kind of nod that can simultaneously and wholeheartedly tell the tale of two cities. 

As I gulped down the last swig of my pint I felt  metaphorically distant from the well behaved pigeons that surrounded me. I was no pigeon. I was a Bedford Place fox. Quiet, calculated, persistent. Foxes don't beg for scraps – they come in the dead of night, memorize the land, the cracks in the walls, and return on their own terms. Patiently they await their chance at their target – sometimes prey, sometimes not. Skillfully they acquire what they want, even if it means going places they are not supposed to be.

A Belford Street fox I encountered on the stroll home.

And, perhaps, the real rats were – are – the aristocrats. The ones dining on the lavish meals. I recall, from my days in the corps, an old military flash tattoo inscribed with the words “Rats get fat while brave men die.” Luckily, when the time of reckoning finally comes, just as it does in the novel, the fattest rats are the easiest for the foxes to catch. I think Madame Defage would certainly agree.