The Three Musketeers

This is so absurd, it has to be a satire. Most characters demonstrate how deplorable humans can be to each other. Even among this cast, Athos is the clear winner for most terrifying psychopath. But, I like dark - particularly how the casual cruelty was often more horrific than the intentional. And gotta love that after all that violence, death, and destruction - the "hero" ends up in bed with the "villain". But what an endearing story of adventure and friendship! ROFLMAO.

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Then, casting a last glance at the handsome young man, who was barely twenty-five years old, and whom he left lying there, insensible and perhaps dead, d'Artagnan heaved a sigh over the strange destiny that leads men to destroy each other for the interests of people show more who are strangers to them and who often do not even know that they exist.

And Planchet burst into tears, we will not venture to say whether from terror, on account of the threats made against him, or from the emotion of seeing four friends so closely united. [… in threatening him]

The two women embraced each other for a moment. To be sure, if Milady's strength had been equal to her hatred, Mme Bonacieux would never have left that embrace alive. But, not being able to smother her, she smiled at her. show less

Good fun. I feel after nearly 900 pages I should have something more to say about this, but it's really one of those books where Story and Event is everything and literary quality is secondary. It held my interest the whole way, though, with plenty of dashing cavaliers, heaving bosoms, secret lovers, dastardly plots, coded messages, mistaken identities, and the rest of the ingredients for an early-Romantic pot-boiler. Make no mistake, derring will be done and swashes will be buckled!

Our scene is the mid-seventeenth century, as France is trying to repair the wounds of the Wars of Religion, and building up to the famous Siege of La Rochelle, the last stronghold of French Protestantism. King Louis XIII is somewhat estranged from his young, show more beautiful wife, who is suspected of having an affair with an English nobleman; and behind the king is the original eminence grise, his first minister Cardinal Richelieu, whose network of spies covers all of Europe.

Don't expect too much historical accuracy here – Dumas changes dates and invents characters pretty much whenever he feels like it, and the text is so full of historical anachronisms (references to Botany Bay for instance) that I gave up keeping track of them all. Anyway, who cares about historical accuracy when you're having this much fun? Our titular musketeers, as well as wannabe musketeer and hotheaded provincial d'Artagnan, blunder through this world, tangling themselves up in political intrigues, romantic liaisons, and generally causing or resolving international incidents.

Their values are not our own. ‘Bad guys’ are killed left and right without a second thought, and d'Artagnan's great love interest is a married woman. His behaviour during the seduction of poor chambermaid Ketty would probably have been described as ‘masterful’ once; nowadays, ‘rapey’ seems like a better word. But these sorts of WTF moments are all part of the fun of this kind of novel.

As everyone I think acknowledges, the greatest character in the book, stealing every scene she appears in, is Milady, one of the cardinal's chief agents and a thoroughly bad-ass femme fatale. She has been poorly served by film adaptations – as has the book in general, for that matter. It would make a great TV series. The action is naturally episodic anyway, with two distinct story arcs – the second building to the siege of La Rochelle, and the first centring on the theft of the Queen's ferrets de diamants (which I imagine must have given translators a bit of trouble – I would say ‘diamond aiguillettes’ but I'm curious as to how published English versions render this).

If you grew up in the time and place I did, it's impossible to read this without a certain theme tune going through your head—

One of all and all for one!
Muskahounds are always ready,
One for all and all for one!
Helping everybody…

and honestly, the book was just as much fun for me as a grown-up as Dogtanian was when I was a kid. show less

Traveling en route to Paris from his home in the provinces, young d'Artagnan is dismayed when his letter of recommendation is stolen by a scoundrel. He nevertheless calls upon his contact, the captain of the Kings Musketeers, to plead his case for a position in the city, but following the meeting a handful of missteps causes him to be challenged to three successive duels by three well-known musketeers: Athos, Porthos and Aramis. The event proves to be merely the first of many storied, swashbuckling adventures for the four young men.

I'm just going to say right now that Dumas, whom I had never read in my life prior to 2024, is today without a doubt my favorite classic author. This novel is delightfully readable for being 150+ years old, show more which I'm guessing is owed in large part to Ellsworth's translation (kudos!). It is also funny! There were scenes in which I could easily visualize comedic beats adapted for stage or screen. There is a fair amount of violence, which is no surprise given the setting and zeitgeist. Despite its length (the edition I read was 750 pages), I highly recommend it to anyone who usually finds "the classics" dry and boring. show less

Built on the ridiculous, the humorous, the exciting, and deeply in the characters, this work creates a world of romance (in that oh-so-classic sense) and adventure which conscripts the reader and delivers him to the front lines. I am alway amazed by this book's ability to invoke lust, pity, wonder, respect, scorn, and hatred, all while driving along a plot filled with new events and characters.

Should there be any future for Fantasy, it lies not in the hands of Tolkien-copying machines, nor even in Moorecock's 'un-fantasy', but in whatever writer can capture Beowulf, The Aeneid, The Three Musketeers, or The White Company and make a world which is exciting not because everything is magical and strange, but because everything is entirely show more recognizable, but much stranger. Of course, one may want to avoid going Mervyn Peake's route with this, and take a lesson from the driving plot and carefree frivolity that Dumas Pere and his innumerable ghostwriters adhered to.

It is amusing here to note that Dumas has accredited to his name far more books than he is likely to have ever written. As he was paid for each book with his name on it, he made a sort of 'writing shop' where he would dictate plots, characters, or sometimes just titles to a series of hired writers and let them fill in the details.

So, praises be to Dumas or whichever of his unrecognized hirees wrote such a work. show less

Grand story full of swashbuckling and derring-do, with memorable villains and flawed heroes. Dumas style is very readable, although he was paid by the line and perhaps it is too wordy for its own good sometimes.

As I read, I was impressed by how some of the actions of d'Artagnan and company are less that commendable. They are not as perfect as many cinematographic adaptations might make us think. They can be larger than life, they are loyal, brave and generous, but also too eager to kill or be killed for trivial matters of honor, they don't treat their servants that well, they can be vain, superficial and less than honest in certain dealings of the heart. In the beginning I thought that it was because of how long ago the book was show more written that some of the actions of the protagonists struck me as less than heroic. Later, however, I realized that this moral ambiguity was intended, and the book rose in my estimation because of that.

It has, of course, several moments that are forever engraved in the collective imagination of all who love adventure stories, scenes of enormous melodramatic intensity. show less

One of the most iconic and influential adventure stories of all time, Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers at first suffers from a struggle to ascend through the gears. Dumas was paid by the word (or by the line) and this has a negative effect on a reader first trying to grapple with his story. Like Charles Dickens, Dumas will not use ten words when a hundred will do, and whilst his plotting is strong, it makes the first half of the book rather turgid. This supposedly romantic adventure is at first an exercise in grim endurance and, despite my literary purism, for perhaps the first time I would not blame someone for reading an abridged version. This would be a fierce two-hundred-pager.

Indeed, many readers may have given up by the time show more The Three Musketeers becomes genuinely good; that is, about halfway through this sizeable tome. The thick prosing and dialogue remain a problem throughout, but the reader learns – for their own sanity, if nothing else – to self-edit. More importantly, the bland, scattergun court intrigues of the first half give way to the ascension of Milady (the Lady de Winter) to a starring role. One of the great female villains of literature, her presence gives the story a real shot in the arm. The exercise in endurance becomes a gripping page-turner; Milady's seduction of the gaoler Felton and her final comeuppance on the banks of the Lys are both masterly examples of storytelling. I'm not sure how far some readers will be willing to forgive the book's unnecessary density in order to reach its rewards but, for me, I felt my perseverance was rewarded. By the end, it had become the glorious, arresting adventure I had loved from the abridged swashbuckler stories of my childhood. show less

Like the action and circumstances in Monte Cristo, everything in the Musketeers is done in a big way. There isn’t anything subtle about the personalities or their doings. It’s styled as a romance and boy is it ever. Tres romantique. d’Artangnan himself is a man of extremes as is everyone else in it.

The last few chapters of this very long book show what a juggernaut of suspense it could have been all along. Wow. So great. I could hardly read fast enough to find out what happened next. Milady is like Count Fosco in The Woman in White; a villain we love to hate. As always, serendipity and most excellent luck put our heroes in a position to thwart the Cardinal and his plot. It’s completely beyond the pale, but a delight to read show more anyway.

For the modern reader, much of the heroes' actions, motivations and sheer lack of accountability are shocking. They are truly of another time and place and although on the side of right, don’t always act responsibly or morally. The ends justifies the means is pretty clearly what they all believe. Their honor trumps all and any action taken on its behalf is completely justified and warranted. Sometimes it was done for the greater good, but most of the time it resulted in some poor sap getting cheated or killed. Great drama though.

For a more complete "review" check out my blog -
http://thebookmarque.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Three%20Musketeers%20Journa... show less