Alexandre
Dumas
1844
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Ummm . . . Who’s that 4th guy?
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Alexandrine
Couplet About The Three Musketeers
Hot-headed
country guy – moves to the capital,
makes
friends, fights some duels – turns into a badass.
This
is a classic of French literature, and honestly, I kinda have to give it up to
French Literature. It seldom got bogged
down in details like Brit Lit did, and as much as I love the Russian classics
for being so intensely cerebral and internal (see my future post on Crime
and Punishment) the French classics are always prepared to break their own
boredom with a quick quip (respect the alliteration), a good sword fight, or a night
of heavy drinking.
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Essentially, classic
French writers are okay with movies like this.
Existentialists
came later and screwed everything up.
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The
point is: The Three Musketeers is spectacular. It has everything. Action, intrigue, spies, politics, class
issues, sword fights, love, sex, betrayal, brilliant characters, humor, moustaches.
No really, lots of moustaches. Musketeer Headquarters is like the most hipster
bar in the most hipster area near you.
They make fun of d’Artagnan because he can’t grow one. Porthos’s bristles when he’s angry. They curl them. Really.
Reading The Three Musketeers is like watching an old western,
only it makes you smarter.
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This guy is
Captain Of The Musketeers.
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The
book runs the gambit from arguments about appropriate clothing to the reasons
countries go to war. The scene where the
musketeers and d'Artagnan fight the four English gentlemen in such an honorable
fashion juxtaposes brilliantly with the scenes where the French and British
armies kill each other for such a terrible reason. With the eight fighters, they had a fair
argument, a fair fight, and they walked away trusted friends. The war – a big part of the background and
setting for this book – is essentially a drunken brawl over who should own Anne
of Austria. She’s married to the French
king but the Duke Of Buckingham has a crush on her. He provokes a war with France so that, a few
years and thousands upon thousands of lives later, he’ll be able to arrange the
peace treaty, which means he’ll get to travel to Paris and be in the same room
as her. As the French would say, “That’s
love, no?” And I would answer: “NO! That’s not love, it’s CRAZZZY!” But hey, it makes for a great book, I guess?
--Yes,
I just said that Alexandre Dumas wrote the whole book, and fashioned an entire,
real life war, on the theory that when the Duke Of Buckingham told his friends
“I can get any woman I want” he really, really meant it. Either that or Dumas had been cribbing plot
lines from the Iliad. Now I’m not saying
Dumas stole the Anne of Austria/war plot from Helen of Troy/The Trojan War, I’m
just saying you can point that out next time you need to sound smart at a lit
themed cocktail party.
Favorite
scenes:
Where
d'Artagnan walks in on Aramis with the superior of the Jesuits and the Curate
of Montdidier. The 3 argue on and on (sometimes
in Latin) about Aramis’s thesis to join the order (should it be dogmatic and didactic,
or ideal? – THE PRESSURE!). They try to involve d’Artagnan, but he doesn’t
understand Latin, isn’t a big church-goer, and anyway he tends to let his sword
do his thinking for him . . . if you know what I mean. He’s increasingly bewildered and frustrated
with his friend’s religiousness and the yammering of the three intellectuals. Trust me, this is hilarious when Dumas does it.
But only if the translator knows what they’re doing, so watch out for
that.
Also,
I love the part where the four are required to procure all the horses, weapons,
and equipment they’ll need to go to war against England, but all of them are dead
broke. Athos’s plan: To lie down on a couch in his apartment and
not move until a horse, weapons, and equipment fitting his needs and station
arrive at his door. He doesn’t care where
they come from, as long as he doesn’t have to stop drinking or go outside. I have friends like that.
Look,
I’m not saying it’s the easiest book to read.
It’s long. There're some parts
where the king and Richelieu go on and on. Some of the translations are certainly better
than others. And it was originally
serialized, so there’s always going to be some issues with that. But overall, it’s incredible, fun, exciting,
full of great characters (and there are a lot of them. Really, dozens.), and well worth the
read.
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Why
is d'Artagnan swinging a chicken? Is he
actually swinging his cock around? Are they
rushing to dinner? Isn’t that
Mousqueton’s job? (Okay, if you remember
the part where Mousqueton is poaching for Porthos while he’s squatting in the
countryside hotel, that joke was hilarious!)
I’m telling ya, great characters.
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All For 1, And For
Each A Blimp! Great job here,
Hollywood. This is exactly what Dumas
had in mind.
. . . Okay, he
probably would have been pretty entertained.
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See,
I warned you that staying under 350 words would be an issue for me.