52 in 25: #8 - The Three Musketeers

 It’s been a bit because it’s taken me awhile to get through all 600 pages of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers.  This is one of those classic novels that I’ve been meaning to read for awhile and finally decided to pick up.  I will add that I read the Jacques Le Clercq translation, so I’m not sure how faithful it is.

 

I grew up with the movies and “knowing” the story.  When I was young, it was the 1948 Gene Kelly version, which I never really liked because I thought it was a bit too goofy (I recently rewatched it, and still feel the same, and apparently the screenwriter agreed).  Of course, then there was the 1993 Disney movie, which I always liked.  I’ve seen a few others, none of which are worth mentioning.  None of them, as expected, are close to the fully story.

 

Overall, I liked it.  It is long.  It was written as a serial, so it’s a different type of writing, with some kind of big thing at the end of each chapter to make you keep wanting to read the next installment.  Sometimes the writing is ponderous, but sometimes it’s brilliant (Athos to D’Artagnan: “Friend, be a man! Women weep for the dead; men avenge them!”).  I also appreciated how historical it was, giving a more detailed idea of life at that time (with the movies, you never would know how important the servants were).  Probably my favorite parts were when they were being overly pompous, particularly The Bastion Saint-Gervais.  Milady was an especially evil villain, and there is some satisfaction in the end.  I will also give credit for the somewhat surprising death of Constance, which I feel with today’s American audience would not be allowed to happen (D’Artagnan has to have a happy ending!).

 

There are some things I wasn’t fond of.  I was surprised how much of it dealt with mistresses, like that was a normal thing (to that end, I have a hard time with a mistress being known as “pure” and “chaste”).  I also thought the characters (especially secondary ones) were sometimes inconsistent, acting in ways that didn’t make sense to me.  I especially didn’t like how easily the “Puritan” Felton was seduced by Milady, just to drive the plot (and skew historical events).  There’s also some inconsistency, at least in my mind, when a few paragraphs after the above quotation Athos says, “Weep, heart full of love, alive with youth, and pulsing with life! Would I too could weep!”

 

It's not for everyone.  Those who like classics will appreciate it much more than those who can only read more modern novels.  I guess, if you’re interested in the time period, or the movies of the musketeers, it’s worth a read.