At the time when the death-sentence of Louis XVI was passed, Robespierre had eighteen months to live, Danton fifteen, Vergniaud nine, Marat five months and three weeks, and Lepelletier-Saint-Fargeau one day! Brief and terrible was the breath of life in those days.
unironically, one of my favourite pieces of horror writing is victor hugo’s description of an octopus
[ID: photo of a book. Some of the text has been highlighted. It says “It is a pneumatic machine that attacks you. You are dealing with a footed void. Neither claw thrusts nor tooth bites, but an unspeakable scarification. A bit is formidable, but less so than such suction. The claw is nothing compared to the sucker. The claw, that’s the beast that enters your flesh; the sucker, that’s you yourself who enters into the beast. Your muscles swell, your fibres twist, your skin bursts beneath this unworldly force, your blood spurts and frightfully mixes with the mollusks’ lymph. The beast is superimposed upon you by its thousand vile mouths; the hydra is incorporated in the man; the man is amalgamated with the hydra. The two make one. This dream is upon you. The tiger can only devour you; the octopus, what horror, breathes you in! It draws you toward itself and into itself, and, bound, stuck, powerless, you slowly feel yourself emptied out within that horrendous sack, that monster. Beyond the terror of being eaten alive is the ineffability of being drunk alive.” End ID]
and don’t forget his drawing of one.
Octopus bearing the Initials V. H., Victor Hugo circa 1866:
#this fully rules #like victor my dude octopi absolutely dont do this but this rules supremely
I’ve reblogged this before but I forgot I wanted to add THE REST because what OP posted is only the very end!!!
To believe in the octopus, one must have seen it. Compared with it, the hydras of old are laughable.
Orpheus, Homer, and Hesiod were only able to make the Chimaera; God made the octopus. When God wills it, he excels in the execrable. And all ideals being admitted, if terror be the object, the octopus is a masterpiece.
Its most terrible quality is its softness. A glutinous mass possessed of a will — what more frightful? Glue filled with hatred.
At night and in its breeding season, it is phosphorescent. This terror has its passions. It awaits the nuptial hour. It adorns itself, it lights up, it illuminates itself; and from the summit of a rock one can see it beneath, in the shadowy depths, spread out in a pallid irradiation, — a spectre sun.
It has no bones, it has no blood, it has no flesh. It is flabby. There is nothing in it. It is a skin. One can turn the eight tentacles wrong side out, like the fingers of a glove.
Victor would nod along to this with a single tear rolling down his cheek
Born in 1953, Hulce made his acting debut in 1975, where he played opposite Anthony Hopkins in the Broadway play Equus. He is most known for his roles as Larry “Pinto” Kroger in the comedy film Animal Farm and as Amadeus Mozart in the biopic Amadeus. Some of his other film credits include The Inner Circle, Parenthood, The Heidi Chronicles, and Shadow Man. Throughout his career, he has been nominated for multiple awards at The Tony’s, Golden Globes, Academy Awards, Obie Awards, and Emmy’s. In recent years, he has been a leading producer on Broadway for shows such American Idiot, Ain’t Too Proud,andSpring Awakening - the latter for which he won a Tony Award. As of 2022, he is 68 years old.
FUN FACT: While it is said in the film that Quasimodo is named such because it means “half-formed,” this is not the case in the original novel. There, Quasimodo is the Italian name of the holiday in which the character was left on the steps of Notre Dame.
“Faccio tutto ciò che posso perchè il mio amore non ti disturbi, ti guardo di nascosto, ti sorrido quando non mi vedi.
Poso il mio sguardo e la mia anima ovunque vorrei posare i miei baci: sui tuoi capelli, sulla tua fronte, sui tuoi occhi, sulle tue labbra, ovunque le carezze abbiano libero accesso.”
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
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.
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
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.
