The Three Musketeers (1844)

"I tre moschettieri" è a ragione uno dei maggiori esponenti del genere "cappa e spada".
Ben scritto, scorrevole e con un finale avvicente è un libro che non accusa i segni dell'età nonostante i secoli sulle sue spalle. Consigliato a tutti. ( )

At first I was very disgusted with this story. The young protagonist had no sympathy from me. In fact, I seriously considered not finishing the story. I am very glad I persisted though. The second part of the book had the best evil female I've ever read. It was an instruction on how to corrupt the incorruptible. I never did warm up to D'Artagnon, but Athos and M'Lady could be a book in themselves. ( )

I tried reading this when I was younger. I suspect my failure was partly due to lack of interest, and partly due to a bad translator. I've found the Penguin "Read Red" series, so far as I've read them, to be pretty well translated and easy to read. Including this one.

The Three Musketeers is an unrepentant adventure story, with some politics and romance thrown in. It's exciting to read -- it only took me so long because I got distracted: shame on me -- and fun. It isn't that heavy on characterisation, I suppose. For the most part we don't learn much about the musketeers, only what they are doing at the immediate time. Possibly Milady gets the most character building, since she's so evil and we see so much of her during the last part of the book.

Not all of it is happy fun adventure, I suppose: there are some bits that drag. Possibly if you found a good abridgement, that'd be worthwhile. But I liked the way it all came together. I'm a little sad that I don't actually own it, and it's going back to the library, but that's easily remedied. Once I'm allowed to buy books again, anyway... ( )

This book.... Well... I didn't like it as much as [b:The Count of Monte Cristo|7126|The Count of Monte Cristo |Alexandre Dumas|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1236870032s/7126.jpg|391568]... It just didn't keep my attention very well... I mean, it took me over 2 weeks to read, which is like an eternity in Sara-reading-time! Plus... I don't know, I didn't really like how it ended. I couldn't BELIEVE who Alexandre killed off! At one point, I literally started yelling out loud at the audiobook... "NO!!!! You have GOT to be KIDDING ME!!!!" (I was in my car, so I felt at liberty to do so... ;) ) I just couldn't believe it!

It was good. I'm glad I read it... But I don't know that I'll continue and read the sequels any time soon....

PS - Disney KILLED this book, but I think I like the movie better... ( )

***THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE AUDIOBOOK READ BY SIMON VANCE***

This is my second Dumas experience, and I find it a disappointing one. I read, and LOVED The Count of Monte Cristo a while back. It was honestly one of the best reading experiences I've ever had, and I didn't want it to end. So I started The Three Musketeers with similar expectations, and feel that the reality fell far short.

I don't know if it is because I listened to this one on audio rather than reading it, or if it's because I didn't really have a wronged character to give my heart to (Love you, Edmond! ♥) or what it was, but I just did not connect to this story. I think it's probably a combination of both of those things, in all actuality.

D'Artagnan is precocious and smart and hot-tempered and impulsive. As a main character, he's OK. Not the best, not the worst, but I just didn't warm to him. He grated on my nerves more often than not, even when I was kind of in awe of his wit and resourcefulness, because of his meandering to the point, and stopping to smell all of the flowers (not just roses) on the way there. But to be fair, that was an issue with ALL of the characters in this story. Why use one word when you can use 539 of them? Ugh... SPIT IT OUT, ALREADY!

And Simon Vance's reading didn't help much there. He gave the characters some rather odd accents that were more distracting than anything. Like the Queen sounding like Benedick at the masquerade in Kenneth Branagh's "Much Ado About Nothing". It's very off-putting. Watch the scene, and you'll know what I'm talking about. I wish I could find it on YouTube, but I've searched and had no luck.

In addition to that, there was just so much in-between stuff, that was sorta/kinda related to the plot, and ultimately supposed to provide background and history, but I just found myself dazing in these sections, and having to listen to those parts again. Or at least in the beginning... after a while I just let them go. COMC had a lot of filler, there was a lot of stuff in that book that didn't immediately progress the plot, but it provided insight into the story and the main character and secondary characters, etc. Every word felt like it was purposely added and felt necessary to me. But that's not the case here. I felt like this was definitely a case of being paid by the word and taking advantage of it.

That sounds so harsh, because I feel like I should have enjoyed the story more. I wanted to enjoy it more... but I was just bored. Maybe it just wasn't the right time? Or maybe I should just read it for myself one day, and hope that my own pacing and accents and visualizations would help me to enjoy the story more. This one just didn't do it for me, unfortunately. ( )