#32 - The Three Musketeers

It was a dark and stormy night, I am too young to die, and all for one and one for all. These three cliches were all penned by one Alexandre Dumas...pere. You see, there happens to be two Dumas writers in the family, and these Frenchman wasted all of the aliases on their characters, and so had to settle for Sr. and Jr. But while Dumas (fils) was busy scribbling out plays, the elder was creating the modern version of the swashbuckler. Thinking back to the pacing of Don Quixote, I was unsure how I was going to take to a full action novel, but The Three Musketeers blew me away. The rhythm of the text kept me interested - from descriptions of setting to fight scenes to banter and dialogue the reading was thoroughly lively. The result was the most cinematic book I think I can recall - not only could I see why there have been over a half-dozen films (animated and live action), plays and other adaptations, I saw the potential for more. My personal pick would be for a movie version focused on the imprisonment and escape of Lady de Winter - a psychological thriller with a femme fatale. Alas, I am both lazy and incompetent, and so it will never come to be.

Another reason the book translates so well to movie form is the clarity of the characters. Aramis the religious scholar, Porthos the proud glutton, Athos the quiet and moody leader, d'Artagnan the young excitable upstart. All of the lesser characters, from the other nobles and leaders to their servants, are equally well-drawn - but none more so than Lady de Winter. The cat-like villainness steals all of her scenes, all of the time, forever. Dumas managed to write her as powerful, yet still entirely within the confines of the gender views of the time - both the men and the women discuss how the females are the weaker gender, and how surprising it is that a woman could possess such ferocity and strength of character. The comparison to Lady Macbeth is made not once, but twice, however I would easily give the win to de Winter - when given the option, she always tried to take matters into her own hands, often with impressive results.

Impressive results seems to be my overarching opinion of The Three Musketeers. I enjoyed the plot and its twists (though many of them would have to be updated to have any hope of working in a modern sense), the sharply defined characters, and the wordy but lively prose. I find it very hard to suggest anything that could be termed as a weakness, and it was an excellent book to get ready for the summer spree, but I simply didn't have the passion for it that I have for others.

9/10