Scaramouche (1921)

Since uni I've been interested in the French Revolution, and have read a handful of proper histories, but almost never any fiction. I read A Place of Greater Safety and loved it. I watched the Scarlet Pimpernel episode of Blackadder 3 and loved it. I picked up this book, meant to be a swashbuckling tale of romance, and... not so good.

It wasn't terrible. The plot was just so predictable and cliched, driving towards entirely contrived scenarios, the last one of which made me groan audibly. But worse than that, I did not understand Andre-Louis' character at all. He is described repeatedly as 'heartless' and 'insincere', but on a number of occasions he is described as being unsure of what to do, or being upset, of having sleepless nights. It didn't fit together, not for me. ( )

This book was a surprise. I expected an old fashioned romantic version of the French Revolution along the lines of The Scarlet Pimpernel with a little Three Musketeers thrown in, but it wasn't. It was old fashioned, but it had surprising twits and turns. The major characters grew and changed so were by no means stock characters. Given the age of this book it is still well worth reading. ( )

I wavered between four and five stars on this one, but I totally have to go with the five. It’s just that awesome. I was actually a little surprised at how much I loved this book. I mean, I love swashbucklers and historical fiction…Dumas père is my man, but the only other Sabatini novel I’ve read, [b:Venetian Masque|613630|Venetian Masque 9.95|Rafael Sabatini|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176328913s/613630.jpg|600084], I found to be a little underwhelming so I did not expect this from Sabatini. Speaking of Dumas, I almost think that _Scaramouche_ can be placed in the same company as that master’s great work _The Count of Monte Cristo_, no small praise from me. It doesn’t quite have the same level of intricate plotting as the latter, and I will never give pride of place to any but Monsieur le Comte, but it is still an awesome read filled with exciting ups and downs as we follow the trials and triumphs of the title character aka Andre-Louis Moreau. I actually noticed that Moreau shared some similarities with Dantès as a character, at least in the fact that both of them seemed to have a Batman-like ability to adopt nearly any skill they required to further their own ends. For Moreau this leads him to start out as a lawyer with exceptional reasoning and speaking skills, become a brilliant actor, stage writer and theatre impresario, then move on to master the art of the sword and become a maître d'armes, and finally to enter the realm of politics all within a span of two years. That’s ok, I don’t mind it if my heroes are super and Moreau pairs his ability with an acerbic wit and keen insight I found both refreshing and awesome.

I have to add here that I ‘read’ this as an audiobook downloaded from Librivox. Now the narrators from Librivox, given that it is a free site, can be…how to put this delicately? Crappy. Not so this one. The narrator Gordon Mackenzie was fantastic. He had just the right pacing, didn’t stumble on his words (you’d think that would be a prerequisite for narrating an audio book, wouldn’t you?), and was able to voice each character differently without sounding completely ludicrous. He even managed the French phrases and Latin epigrams with no apparent effort. Excellent job Mr. Mackenzie! I really think his work on this added to my already superlative enjoyment of the text itself.

Given that this is a classic I imagine that many already know the plot, at least in broad strokes: Andre-Louis Moreau is a bastard of no name, taken in as the “godson” of the local seigneur of the village of Gavrillac (amidst the knowing glances and whispers of the locals). He is a young man of intelligence and wit, known primarily for his acerbic tongue and incisive reasoning, who acts as the legal representative of his godfather, M. de Kercadiou. His best friend, Philippe de Vilmorin, is a young seminarian who also happens to have revolutionary political leanings. When a local peasant is summarily killed by a local noble, the Marquis de la Tour d'Azyr, Philippe tries to convince the nobleman to recompense the dead man’s family for the deed. Incensed, and sensing in the eloquent young man one who could stir the mounting discontent of the people that is beginning to raise its head in France, d’Azyr decides he must get rid of this possible thorn in the side of his class. An expert fencer, perhaps the best in France, d’Azyr forces the fledgling Philippe into challenging him to a duel and handily dispatches the young man, whose own abilities with the sword are non-existent. It is this act of bald-faced murder (and the subsequent inability of the young lawyer to gain any justice from the established powers) that sends young Bruce Wayne, er Andre-Louis, on his road of vengeance against the man, and the class, that killed his friend in cold blood.

As we follow Andre-Louis in his quest we see him taking up the mantle left by his dead friend and using his own eloquence to stir up the crowds against their unjust masters. Forced into hiding when his name and actions become know, Moreau manages to join a travelling band of actors who mount plays based on the fading style of the Commedia dell'Arte and, after establishing himself as not only an excellent actor and writer, but even a company manager of some skill Moreau takes on the role of Scaramouche (one that is uniquely suited to his outlook and abilities) and proceeds to lead the troupe to the verge of fame and fortune. Along the way he falls in love and ultimately finds himself once again crossing paths with his avowed enemy, seemingly driven by the hand of fate. Moreau encounters numerous dangers and escapes in his years of hiding which I won’t recount here…read the book and enjoy them to the full yourself! Suffice it to say that the nascent revolution turns the tables and thrusts Andre-Louis into a position of power. It is a position that is not so easily taken advantage of, despite Andre-Louis’ apparent single-mindedness in regards to his quest, and the conclusion of the tale is satisfying and much more complex than one might be given to expect from a work in this genre.

I thought Sabatini’s prose was great. His turns of phrase, especially in the mouth of Moreau, were sublime and the text is littered with an abundance of bon mots. His characters also shine and often manage to attain a level of complexity that goes beyond the one dimensional duality of good-guy/bad-guy one might expect. While I was always cheering for Moreau and loved his character, he is not always an eminently likeable guy and even the sneering and vain arch-rival the Marquis de la Tour d'Azyr manages to show himself to be something more complex than a mustachio-twirling villain. Bottom line: this book was great. I don’t know why I took so long to read it, but I’m very glad I finally did. I’ll be revisiting this one many times in the future.

Highly recommended.
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I loved the 1952 movie with Stewart Granger so much I decided to go to the source & read the book... The book is amazing! It had so much more depth than the movie, but retained the fun, swashbuckling adventure too. If you like Dumas's The Three Musketeers or Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, you should read this book. ( )

First line: "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad."

According to Wiki, "Scaramouche" also called Scaramuccia, means a roguish buffoon character in the commedia dell'arte.

A great novel, it reminds me Dumas pere books, with a lot of twisting plots, duels and plenty of historical figures, like Marat, Danton , Marie Antoinette and so on.

A decade later after Scaramouche publication, Sabatini wrote a sequel, Scaramouche the Kingmaker text , which was not as well received. I wonder why.

Available at Gutenberg project


Available at LibriVox as an audio book.

The movie based on this book is available at You Tube

Stars: Stewart Granger, Janet Leigh, Eleanor Parker, Mel Ferrer and Nina Foch.



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