The Three Musketeers (1844)

I adore this writer. I read all parts of this book in one breath! An interesting historical epoch, the reasoning of the characters and the dialogues are incomparable, as well as a fascinating storyline.

The plot was more intrigue, perhaps like a political spy novel of a sort, than swashbuckling, but very entertaining, nevertheless.

Dumas starts a bit less than the first quarter of the book introducing his characters in humorous fashion. Then, it becomes steadily more serious with each passing page, and from the humorous to the grave and dark, while the characters seem to grow, especially D'Artagnan, from irresponsible seeming like children to men handling the affairs and maintaining their character as men, proud, yet honest men. A character study each person would be quite interesting.

The ending was a bit gruesome.

Dumas' writing is genius and conveys much of the sense of that is most of all challenged in the story is a man's honor. It inspires one to accept honor as something of value to die for; and, it's anonymous translation, whenever the book is put down, inspires one to speak in proper English. ( )

D'Artagnan, Gascon on his unlikely yellow nag gets into a spot of bother with a stranger in Meung. The latter flees with a beautiful lady. D'Artagnan goes to Paris and obtains an audience with M. De Treville, the captain of the King's musketeers who need to be differentiated from the Cardinal's (Richelieu) musketeers.
He bumps into three musketeers - literally - Athos, Porthos and Aramis and after petty incidents is challenged to duel with each of them, The duels do not take place as the four team up against some of the Cardinal's men and wreak havoc. I'm out of breath already! ( )

Elementary - 2 Audio CD

Elementary - 2 Audio CD